At the peak of the War Against Conquest, Shining Armour is taken from the Crystal Warfront along with his baby daughter. Captured by a cult preparing to resurrect the loathed usurper, Grand Ruler Celesto, he comes across various ponies he knows, either personally or by reputation. With little good to say about any of them. So begins a recollection of the deeper tales of friendship, of those it changed and those it didn't. And as the cult steadily works towards its goal, Shining Armour and Flurry Heart still hold out hope. For this is Equestria. Where Friendship Prevails.
May explore dark themes such as violence self-harm and sexual harassment. Also may include some mention of sex or innuendo.
The amethyst prisms flared with electricity as the zombies outside the borders of the Crystal Empire swarmed in their countless numbers, outstretched palms reaching out at their prey, gnashing, bloody jaws hungry for flesh.
In fact, ‘swarm’ was the wrong word for it.
It was honestly more like a tide, halted only by high walls and constant vigil.
Shining Armour felt his brow baking under his helmet. Removing it a moment, he cast his eye out across the Empire’s defences.
There was a deafening hum and the unicorn had just enough time to shield his eyes as blinding violet lightning shot down into the ground, tearing up the soil and the zombies that stood upon it.
Crystal-operated technology was the best Equestria had. But whether it would be enough to weather down this foe grew more and more uncertain.
Contact with Canterlot was necessary.
And contact with his sister.
His azure mane blowing in the breeze, he yelled out over the din of battle.
“Geomagi! Assemble Aversion! Sunstone and Pearl! Now!”
Unicorns in rich garb stood up on their towers. On one of them, a rotund but intimidating old stallion in shimmering cloth of gold and ochre lit up his horn and chanted a Crystalline incantation in a booming baritone, similarly-dressed adepts and initiates praying with him or tending to the massive crystals their namesake bore. Upon another tower, in very much the same fashion, a lithe young mare with colourless eyes and a veil of lustrous beads sung in a high, lilting hymn.
There came a thunder from between the towers and a massive wave of magic erupted and thrummed across the field, over the undead tide.
The effect was astounding. At least three dozen lines of the undead caught fire and fell, almost tiredly, to earth, dissipating into dust. The ground below them shone and shimmered with many colours, rippling like the surface of a bubble in the sunlight. The oncoming horde fell as they trod upon it and melted into nothing.
They never screamed. When they died a second time it was as if they were ready for it. They fell as a pony would fall into long-deprived sleep.
They almost seemed relieved to be free from this hell.
The Sunstone-Pearl Geomagic had worked well. It would at least bide them sufficient time to set up full defences.
Wiping his brow with the flat of his forearm, Shining Armour turned to his lieutenants.
“Colonel Vale Tiger!”
An earth pony mare with a slate-black coat mottled with silver spots and streaks saluted.
“Hold the bulwark. We’re on full defensive. As far as possible keep our soldiers out of harm’s way. If they get through, hold the line by any means necessary.”
“Right you are, Captain.” She nodded.
“Commodore Comb Jelly!”
A silver-blue male pegasus with steely purple eyes and dreadlocks tied with brightly-coloured beads of every colour of the rainbow saluted.
“Muster up any air support available.” Shining Armour glanced at the near-blackened clouds and relentless lightning in the distance “It’s rough skies ahead but do whatever you can for as long as you can. We had word from Nitro Harmonic that a detachment of Wonderbolts are due to arrive led by Angel Wings, Ace Ray and Gilda. Make way for them and we should break free of this squall.”
“Aye, sir.” he said with a salute.
“Lord Rupicola!”
A unicorn stallion bowed, a strange, stout, wild-eyed individual with a brilliant orange coat, his waxed, twisting tomato-red mane fashioned into an arching quiff-like plume over his head thanks to his opal coronet, his jet-black cape with a high collar and a bejewelled necklace denoting his rank and title.
“Assemble the Geomagi, Crystal Monks and any other battle-mages at this point. Work closely. I don’t care about any old grudges, unpaid debts or crossing ideals they have with each other. The lives of every mare, stallion and foal in the Empire are at risk.”
“As you command, Exalted One.” he said effetely with a bow.
“I will be back soon. Keep me posted.” Shining turned and headed for the grand spire.
“Captain! Captain!”
Four young ponies approached, dressed in the armour of the city guard. The one that spoke was a pegasus, scarlet-coated with a scruffy blonde mane and anxious, milky eyes. The others wore face-concealing visors.
“Soldier?”
“Assassins! Conquest’s chosen! They broke into the spire, scaled its walls!” He caught his breath “They were heading for the royal chambers.”
Shining’s blood ran cold.
“Cadence...” he whispered “Flurry...”
“Hurry, sir! We can take the lift!” Rushing to a great marble disc fastened to rose quartz nodes and a thin spiralling cylinder that made up the lift of the Crystal Spire.
The five leapt aboard it as it gave a loud but serene swishing sound as it rose, faster and faster, heading fast up to the royal chambers.
Shining’s chest and temples felt tight with anxiety. His fingers tightened at the hilt of his blade.
He thought he heard a hiss of metal.
Was that a knife?
He’d realised he was alone with three ponies who hid their faces.
“Is there something wrong, sir?” the red stallion asked tentatively.
Shining Armour held up a gauntleted hand and tilted his head.
“I have a question for all of you. It’s not a very hard question but I demand it answered right now.”
“...Of course, sir.” One of them answered flatly.
“Where were you posted two weeks and three days ago?”
There was a pause.
“I was on the Citrine Tower.”
“I was on patrols down After-Eight Street.”
“I was practicing lance-work in the garrison.”
The red pegasus without a visor hadn’t answered.
All three of the guards were lying.
Two weeks and three days ago, Prince Fratello had been welcomed back into the Crystal Empire and Cadence had declared three days of celebration. The Geomagi had banded together to ensure the magical crystal constructs would take guard duty for the duration of the celebrations as each military service-pony was given the day off.
Shining Armour put his helmet back on and checked his gauntlets.
Despite all the finery of his armour, Shining Armour was actually one of the least gaudily-uniformed officers in the Crystal Empire. He preferred efficiency over flamboyance. Particularly in close quarters.
He heard the hiss of a drawing blade.
Just as the knife raised above the shoulder of the guard that held it, the fist of Captain-General-Emperor Shining Armour met his visor, crumpling the metal against his face and slamming him against the wall of the lift.
Ducking as the other two sought to pick up where their comrade left off, Shining Armour slammed an elbow into the chest-plate. Before the retching guard even had time to fall to his knees, the Captain-General brought his knee up into his face.
Turning, he saw the red pegasus wrestling with the last guard.
“Shining Armour!” he yelled, trying to force the assassin’s knife out of his hand.
The Captain-General rushed forward and delivered a heavy kick to his foe’s flailing leg. The guard roared in pain, his leg twisting at an unpleasant angle. The red stallion threw the assassin out at Shining who caught him and slammed him face-first into the lift-wall, leaving him sprawled out like a paper doll.
The two stallions left standing breathed heavily and looked to each other.
With a heady smile, Shining clapped his fellow on the shoulder.
“Nice one.” he chuckled.
“Th-thanks...” the stallion seemed to have reeled from the touch. He was hardly guard material.
Maybe one of the fresh recruits. He’d certainly get something for saving the Captain-General’s life.
The lift came to a stop. Crystal guards, unvisored ones, rushed forward.
“If you’re gonna’ salute, don’t bother. Just get these three to lock-up and then back to your posts!” Shining Armour ordered, putting his helmet back on, and grabbed the red stallion by the shoulder “With me, kid.”
They sprinted down the reflective corridors. If they were equine, they’d be galloping. Shining heard a whining skid as the red stallion behind him slipped and fell. He stopped, turning to the unfortunate private clambering out a corner.
“It’s okay! You go!” he mumbled.
Giving him a grateful nod, he rushed onward.
Stopping just short of crashing into the door, he felt icy daggers slam into his heart, one after the other.
The nursery was empty. There was no sign of violence.
But someone had written something on the walls. Big bold letters in red.
THIEF
His fingers shaking in his gauntlets, the sound of his boots on the marble floor the only sound in the room. Shining Armour threw off his helmet and fell to his knees beside the empty cradle of his baby daughter.
“No...no, no, no, no, no...” he whimpered.
‘Not good enough!’
There were many moments in his life he remembered hating himself.
The abduction of his wife and the impersonation he’d allowed Chrysalis to play with him, nearly breaking his little sister’s heart in the process.
Letting Fratello die, watching as the life of the brother he’d never had faded away, not even allowed to mourn him.
Not being there when his little sister died fighting for everything she loved.
And now, his baby was gone.
“Shining Armour?” he heard the red stallion’s voice.
He shook his head, fighting to expunge the biting doubts and curses from his head. He needed to focus.
“Quickly,” the Captain-General was trying to brush his mane out his cold, sweaty brow “Get in touch with the Princesses. Tell the Heartstone Wardens to make contact with-”
Clang!
With a cry of pain and a crash of metal, Shining Armour was bowled over, knocking over the cradle and hitting the painted wall.
Blood ran from a gash in the side of his temple, running down his brow, shutting one eye.
Fighting to regain his balance, Shining stared up at the red stallion who’d struck him across the skull with his own helmet.
He was staring at the Captain-General with cold, murderous eyes.
Shining cursed himself, finding another moment when he did so.
He’d made a serious lapse of perception.
On the lift, his attacker had called him ‘Shining Armour’. Anypony who knew him well would have just called him ‘Shining’ and anypony who didn’t would have referred to him by a title.
He’d slipped on the marble floor. Crystal ponies, or at least those who spent a long time in their Empire, never did that.
And he’d never even answered the question when the other guards did. He had his opportunity and he took it.
“You...” Shining mumbled “Wha...What’s Conquest done to my baby?!”
“He doesn’t have your baby. Unfortunately for her.” The red stallion hissed and slammed the rising Shining up against the wall, grabbing him by the collar. The helmet in his hand clouted the Captain-General again and again. Raw hatred burned in every strike.
“You lost! You hear me!” he growled “You lost what was most precious to you! I’m gonna’ take that from you! Then we’ll be even!”
“Who...Who are you?!”
“Who am I?” The pegasus clutched Shining by the hair of his cheeks and stared into his eyes.
Memories came flooding back to him.
The restless sepia-coloured eyes.
The scraggly corn-yellow mane.
And the underlying look of resentment that had stopped being underlying.
Shining Armour gasped out the name.
“Strings?”
The helmet struck him again. His legs gave way and his vision blurred but his attacker’s voice echoed in his head.
“Ah, so you do remember...” His wife’s admirer, for lack of a better word, gave a sickly grin “Good...Because I want this to hurt, Shining Armour. I want this to hurt as much as you hurt me!”
He was without his armour and most of his clothing. Only his pants remained on, short plain things. Everything else was bare, making him all the more cold.
There was salt in his mouth. No...it was blood. Dribbling down his mouth. Was it from his lips, his tongue or his gums? He ran his tongue around his teeth. He wasn’t missing anything.
He tried to cast a healing spell and earned a headache for his trouble. He realised to his chagrin that somepony had fitted an anti-magic ring to his horn. However long it would last would up for question but for the moment, spells were out of the question.
He wasn’t used to sleeping standing up, though that was only because there wasn’t room to sit. As his vision returned, Shining Armour realised he was in a hanging cage, a cold, crude monstrosity, hanging from a creaking chain. Every joint in his limbs was screaming at him but that was nothing compared to how much his head hurt. It stung to even raise his eyelids but he managed. Dried blood had covered an eyelid, keeping it half-closed.
The cage was hanging from some kind of outcrop overlooking a shadowed ruin, entrenched in thorns and creeping vines. Storm-clouds blotted out the sky above. Combined with the cold air and scant light, Shining Armour couldn’t quite remember the last time he’d seen anywhere quite so...loveless.
The entire place emanated a sense of everything Equestria and its Elements had guarded against. He knew he’d feel cold just by looking at this place in a picture, winds or not.
As his focus finally returned to his eyes, his heart constricted, feeling colder than he’d ever imagined he could.
In the centre of the ruin was an elevated platform, a table of shiny slate-grey stone. Atop it was the unmoving form of Flurry Heart, lying on the stone in her swaddling cloth.
He may well have held his breath until his lungs burst had he not noticed her little tummy rising and falling with each breath.
If he could fall to the ground, he would have done.
He found a small amount of his voice, coughing several times, spitting a mouthful of blood before croaking his daughter’s name.
“Flurry...Flurry, you okay? C...Can you hear me?”
There came no answer.
“Flurry...”
“She can’t hear you.” A voice as cold as the wind through the cage sounded. The red stallion emerged again.
He looked different.
His scraggly yellow mane was uncovered, his sepia eyes wide and fierce. He was wearing a dark cape that covered almost all his body.
The sight of Strings turned Shining Armour’s stomach. With a snarl, he grabbed at the arms of the cage.
“What have you done to my baby girl?!”
Pullo Strings shot him a hateful glare.
“She should have been my baby...You took my baby from me, so I’m taking yours.”
“You’re out of your mind, Strings!” Shining cried “Where’s Cadence? What have you done with her?!”
“Oh...You’re thinking about Cadence, huh?” Strings’ eye twitched slightly his voice steadily growing louder “Well, isn't that a coincidence? I was just thinking about her...For the last thirteen years!!!” He screamed, his face inches from the bars of the cage.
It was all the opportunity Shining needed. His fist fitted just enough through the bars to catch Strings right on the muzzle. The red stallion gave a wail, grabbed his muzzle and took several steps back as blood trickled between his fingers.
“Argh! You...bastard!”
“Consider that thirteen-years late.” Shining growled “Just what are you up to and what the buck have you done to my family?!”
“They’re MY family!” he screamed, blood dripping from his nostrils.
“No, Strings, they’re not.” Shining’s tone was tired, disdainful “You still don’t understand. You had a problem. And instead of being mature about it and trying to better yourself, you took the easy way out, blaming everyone but yourself! And I would’ve thought, after thirteen years, you’d have grown up but I guess my sis was right! There are some jerks you just can’t talk sense into, not because they can't accept it but because they won’t!”
“You’re all the same!” Strings snarled “Big kids like you think you can just take whatever you want!”
“I didn’t take anything, Strings. Cadence chose me.”
“Shut up!” The scarlet stallion’s eyes had shrunk in rage, looking like a pair of burning key-holes “Your daughter’s life depends on your actions right now, Shining Armour!”
“It always does. She’s my baby. And you’re tangling not just with a baby alicorn with powers you can’t comprehend but also her very pissed off daddy.” Shining Armour barked, determined not to show fear in the face of one who lapped it up like a thirsty rat “Now, what the hell are you doing here?”
Strings fixed him with another hateful glare as he surveyed the scene.
“Grand Ruler’s ultimatum.”
“Grand Ruler’s dead.”
“In body. But he was a ruler who was enlightened beyond compare. He trusted no-one.”
“You seem to be confusing enlightenment with paranoia.”
Strings ignored him.
“As soon as Celestia and Lightning Dawn became poisoned with your Equestrian lies, he began work in secret to create a second Starfleet in reserve, to keep his spirit safe so that he may return, through the power of believing.”
“Really?” Shining Armour just looked unimpressed “You do realise you’re not a Unicornicopian, not that that’s anything to be sad about.”
“Silence!” Strings kicked the cage, pretended not to limp, and continued “Grand Ruler will make us perfect. He’ll make us gods. Then we’ll see who’s second-best!”
“Uh-huh...And Flurry?”
Strings gave a sick smirk.
“It takes the death of an alicorn to make one...At least that’s how it should work. Your daughter will die here, slowly, painfully, and you’ll watch every minute!”
Shining blinked, his chest feeling tight, his fingers feeling frozen.
He fought harder to hide his fear than he had before any battle he’d seen.
“You’re crazy.” he growled “Grand Ruler has no use for you. You said it yourself, he trusts no-one.”
“He had no good reason to...Everyone betrayed him.”
“Oh yeah, they did, didn’t they.” Shining retorted sarcastically “His wife, his student, damn near every one of his subjects. Gee, it was almost as if he was kind of an unlikable prick, wasn’t it.”
Strings ignored his insult, no easy feat for him.
“We will prove to him his way is right and we’ll burn this miserable world and rule over the next, while you watch!”
Shining took a deep breath.
If Strings was allowed to continue, his baby girl would die and Equestria’s most loathed sovereign would retake the throne in the ruins of his homeland.
There seemed only one cause of action in his current state.
Stalling for time.
“It’s not like you to trust others either, Strings. And I don’t see any other five members of this so-called Neo-Starfleet.”
“They’ll be here soon. When the pieces are all in place...Until then, you’ll stand in that cage and know what it’s like to be me!”
“No, if I knew what it was like to be you, Strings, I’d have walked into this cage and pretended the door was locked.”
There was a pause.
“What the hell do you mean?!”
Shining Armour sighed, did his best to look relaxed in his cage and spoke calmly.
“Have you ever asked yourself why Cadence chose me and not you? And I don’t mean a ‘Why, why, woe and wangst, how could this happen to me?’ horse-crap. I mean, genuinely, sincerely, do you actually remember what happened and how?”
“All I remember, Shining Armour,” Strings hissed “Is living in a shadow.”
“Exactly.” Shining nodded “Because the shadow was what you loved.”
There was another pause.
“What?” the red pegasus barked “I loved Cadence!”
“No, Strings, you didn’t. You loved the idea of Cadence! You never loved her, you just wanted her to love you! Because having a beautiful princess love you was probably the only thing that would convince you that you deserved to be loved, you’re That! Bucking! Insecure!”
“Th...That’s a lie!” Strings was close to screaming “Why are you acting like I've done something wrong?! The only thing I'm guilty of is loving Cadence!”
“Yes, and how did you love her? From afar!” Shining Armour barked back “You were never in love with her, you were in love at her. And rather than get to know her as she was, you chose to distance yourself from her and know her only as you wanted her to be!”
He leaned in closer, nearly spitting the words.
“As a pretty face.”
“Shut up!” The pony who’d lusted after his wife beat his fist impotently on the bars of the cage “You took her from me! Bullies like you take everything from me! You were big and strong and I was weak and helpless! That’s why I let her go because I knew she’d never love me!”
“Let her go?” Shining shook his head “You can’t let go of what you never had to begin with. Clearly you remember things differently. Let me refresh your memory! When I first met Cadence, I wasn’t a ‘big, strong bully’ as you claim. I was an awkward little geek with a face that resembled a pizza with capers. And like you, I never thought she’d look twice at me. But she did...And I owed it all to one pony.”
*
“Um...Excuse me?” A high-pitched voice came from outside the classroom of higher crystal-craft studies.
The last-remaining student in class paused her packing-up and turned to the door.
Standing before her was small, sad-eyed lavender-coated filly with an indigo mane with a pink stripe down the middle, her sides adorned with heavy book-bags.
Young lady Mi Amore Cadenza gave the filly a tender smile.
“Hello, little one.” she cooed “Are you okay?”
“Um...no...” the filly sniffled “I...I can’t find my BBBFF.”
“Uh...huh...” the slender pink pegasus nodded “I’m sorry but please could you tell me what a ‘BBBFF’ means? I’m afraid I’ve never heard of them before.”
“Oh, it’s an acronym. It stands for Big Brother Best Friend Forever.”
“Heh...I see.” Cadence giggled, impressed that one so young knew what an acronym was “And where is your, uh, Big Brother Best Friend Forever?”
“He...He’s in the Academy of Princess Celestia’s Royal Guard. He’s a trainee.” The foal mumbled “But I don’t know the way. He stays there very late so my mummy and daddy come to pick me up about now but...there’s really bad traffic today and I...I...” Tears were appearing in her eyes “I...I hate being alone...”
“Oh sweetheart, come here.” Cadence wrapped her forehooves and wings around the whimpering filly gently rubbing her back and nuzzling her cheek a moment before looking at her with bright, helpful eyes “I know the way if you’d like me to take you there. My studies are done too.”
“Oh, um...I don’t want to give you any trouble.”
Cadence gave a chuckle.
“Little filly, I don’t think you could give me trouble if you tried. Come on, I’ll give you a lift.” She gently lifted the filly onto her back.
“Wow...Thank you, miss. You’re very kind.”
“I just like to help out...And between you and me, I hate being alone too. So let’s find your...” she tried to remember exactly what she’d called him “BB....BFF, together.”
Trotting out the door to the schoolyard, Cadence and her new friend made their way to the training yard of the Royal Guard’s Academy, a wide expanse of marble tiles surrounded by gleaming white pillars and statues of old heroes.
“Yah! Hah! Hwah!”
Cadence heard a strange series of grunts and yells of battle.
“What on Equestria is that?”
“That’s my brother!” The filly was close to standing on her hind legs as her whole face brightened up with joy.
Sure enough, in the centre of the courtyard was a young white colt with a messy head of blue mane and an imposing expression on his otherwise unimposing face, betraying the greasy, stubbly teenage awkwardness. There was a broom in his magical grasp but from the look of his stances, he must have been under the impression it was a sword or a glaive, whirling it round him acrobatically, no doubt trying to recreate scenes of action from books or films he enjoyed.
“Huwah! How d’ya like that, Tirek? Not so hot without your horns, huh?!” he yelled “Now Equestria’s finest knight is gonna’ take you to task! Once and for-”
“Hi Shiney!
The colt jumped and froze, eyes wide, as he stared at his little sister, waving at him with a smile, as she stood perched on the back of an unusual mare about his age.
“...Uh...” Shining Armour stared blankly at his little sister perched upon this newcomer.
Pegasi didn’t often make appearances in Canterlot Royal Academy. The school was magic-orientated but all three tribes could learn the higher mysteries of their own magic. It simply didn’t appeal to most. Particularly not toward the normally secluded pegasi in their cloudy cities.
Yet this pegasus was unlike any he’d ever seen.
She was skinny, some might have said slender, bright pink of coat and a mane of magenta, purple and cream like a blushing sunset with small, speckled wings like a peahen. The most prominent thing about her, Shining Armour noted, was her peculiar eyes. She had the most drawing eyelashes she’d ever seen. She seemed to resemble the eyes of the Princess herself.
Her cutie mark was particularly striking. A many-faceted crystal shaped like a gleaming heart bordered left and right by ornate golden coils that resembled something between a dolphin and a long-tailed bird. It denoted a mighty past, perhaps some form of noble lineage. One always heard about princesses, noble ladies and heiresses attending the School but Shining had never seen one himself.
She was wearing a little jewellery. A modest little heart-shaped pearl pendant around her neck and a rose quartz brooch that wrapped her mane in a tail behind her head.
Shining Armour stood transfixed.
She was a remarkably pretty mare. And the strangest thing there was nothing that indicated that she was trying to be. The way she held herself, the way she looked at him, it was all perfectly sincere. She looked odd, though, that couldn’t be denied. But sometimes, for Shining Armour, odd was nice.
However, the thing that most caught his attention was Twilight Sparkle clambering on the mare’s head so as to reach down and give her brother a ‘boop’.
“Oof...Careful up there, little one.” Cadence gave something between a grunt of discomfort and a chuckle of awkwardness as Twilight swayed, her perch losing balance.
“I got her.” Shining’s horn lit up and the little lilac unicorn floated upside-down in mid-air and gently pressed her hoof to her brother’s muzzle.
“Boop!” she squeaked with glee “I missed you, BBBFF!”
“Uh, Hi Twiley.” Shining said nervously, gently putting her down, one eye fixed on the pretty pink pegasus “Are mum and dad back yet?”
Little Twilight’s mouth, as usual, ran like a motor.
“No, they say they’ll be running late. But all my friends had gone home and I got lonely but this big filly was really nice and...”
“Okay, okay, that’s great, Twiley. Come up for air now.” Shining Armour ruffled his little sister’s mane and gave the pegasus a smile “Um...Thanks...Miss...Sorry for the bother.”
“No, no, no bother at all. Your little sister is one in a million.” She craned down and nuzzled the filly lightly. Twilight Sparkle gave a dainty giggle.
“Well, thanks. Thanks for all your help, miss...”
“Oh, I’m Lady Mi Amore Cadenza of the Crystal Empire-In-Exile.” The pegasus mare said plainly, pausing at the sight of the dumbfounded expressions on the two before her.
“Call me Cadence.”
“Great...that’s...great.” Shining cleared his throat “I’m Shining Armour. Cadet in Her Highnesses Royal Guard. And this is my little sister, Twilight Sparkle.”
“I’m at the top of the test charts in Magic Kindergarten!” Twilight said, wagging her four little hooves excitedly in Shining’s hold “The Princess says I’m reeeeeeaaaaaaally smart.”
“I’m sure she does, Twilight Sparkle.” Cadence gave her cheek a little rub “A very nice name for a very nice filly.”
Twilight beamed.
“I like her. Can she stay with us, big bro?”
“Uh...it’s not that easy, Twi.”
“Sure, it is.” The pretty pink pegasus gave a shrug, “I’m sure the Princess won’t mind me seeing her safely home at least.”
At her words, Shining’s eyes boggled and Twilight gave a little gasp.
“You...know the princess?”
Cadence rocked her head side to side bashfully.
“Manner of speaking. I’m certainly allowed to freely explore, as long as there’s a member of the Royal Guard close by.” She gave him a smile “Glad to know you’re around.”
“Uh...yeah. And in any case, my dad was in the guard so he’d vouch for you. He writes military history and strategy now but it’s close enough.”
“That sounds pretty cool.”
Shining was taken aback by her informality but honestly found it quite refreshing. The mare’s smile he found, was really quite enchanting.
“What does your mother do?” she asked as sincerely and politely as he'd ever heard from a pony
“My mom? Foal psychology. She makes her money as a writer though.”
“Nice. I’d really like to meet your parents. They sound great. If that’s not too much trouble.”
“No, no, no trouble, right Shiney?” Twilight gave her big brother a hopeful look.
Shining was finding her little sister trying, as she often was when overexcited.
‘The trouble with a foal who’s smarter than other foals,’ his mother sometimes said ‘is that what they really want is to be smarter than grown-ups.’
All things considered though, he was finding himself agreeing with his little sister.
Whatever his or his sister’s feelings about her, Cadence was interesting. He’d like to see what she thought of his parents and what they thought of her.
And it’d be a relief to have somepony else around who could handle a precarious, precocious little filly besides.
“We’ll see, Twiley. We’ll see.” Hoisting his bags atop his back and his sister atop his bags, he, Cadence and little Twilight Sparkle headed off.
Five steps in the journey, as he looked at Cadence’s smiling face once more, Shining Armour noticed something amiss.
A head was poking out between the trees in the orchard that marked the edges of the Academy entrance.
He was a skinny pegasus with a red coat, scraggly blonde mane and wide, staring eyes.
Shining felt uncomfortable under his gaze and even more uncomfortable when he realised he wasn’t looking at him but at Cadence.
It wasn’t that the colt was ugly, not in himself. His looks were nothing to write home about but no more so than most of the colts Shining knew.
But, like how it made Cadence look so much prettier, how this colt held himself made him seem more unpleasant.
His head was lowered, slunk between his high, close-set shoulders and pricked wings in an almost predatory stance, as if ready to pounce on something. His coat and mane were ill-kept, looking as if he hadn’t washed or groomed it in weeks and slightly dulled. His wide, staring eyes looked as if they were ready to pop out of his sockets, combined with his drooping lips, nostrils flaring in suspicion, lowered ears and collectively morose expression made him look like some sort of terrified fish. And there was something about him that looked as if he hadn’t seen the sun for over a month.
If he was staring at Cadence with adoration, Shining might have understood. He wasn’t that far from it himself, all things considered, albeit close enough to say it with words.
But he wasn’t. This colt was staring at the two of them with what could only be described as scorn.
Somehow this kid felt threatened by her. Or by him.
Or by him being with her.
“Er...Cadence?” Shining found the name harder to come to his tongue than he thought but he pointed subtly enough to keep it hidden from the colt in the distance “I think somepony’s watching you.”
Cadence’s smile faded a moment. She didn’t turn to look.
“Red colt? Blonde mane? Big, sad-looking eyes?”
“Face longer than a ten-mile hike and the high probability of a ‘kick-me’ sign as his cutie mark? Yeah.”
The young mare gave an uneasy frown.
“Yeah...Just ignore him. He doesn’t follow me outside of the Academy.”
“What, you know?” Shining exclaimed “Why haven’t you told anypony?”
“I don’t want to make a fuss. I’m hoping he just grows out of it.” Cadence said quietly as they continued on.
“Is he a bad pony?” Twiley piped up, a nervous twinge in her voice.
Cadence was quiet a moment.
“I’m really not that sure.” she replied carefully “A while ago, I helped him against some bullies and he started sticking by me. But he never got on with any of my other friends. Lemon Gem, Alma Rose, Fleur de Lis, I don’t know if you know them.”
“Well, I know Fleur. She’s into Fancypants, he’s a friend of mine.” he sniggered “They started off insulting each other all day, every day, but secretly we all know they’re really into each other. You know what I’m talking about.”
“Oh yeah, posh colt. Wears a monocle, right? Yeah, he’s lovely.” Cadence’s face brightened a moment before continuing in her level tone “Well, not too long ago, Alma said he was being clingy. I mean, she only meant there and then, he was stopping me talking to anypony else. But he just lost it. Tried to hit her. This was in class too! I stopped him before he could do any damage, told him to knock it off, told him that I have a life and friends and if he didn’t want me having that he can get lost ‘cause real friends don’t act the way he does.”
“Seems fair.” Shining replied “And what did he do then.”
“Well, he ran off, I think he was crying.”
“I don’t see why. It was your friend he tried to hit and he’s gonna’ play the victim like that?”
“I guess. I don’t know if he was really upset or not. I tried to ask him, you know, explain it’s for his own good. But ever since then, he’s avoided talking to me and just kind of hangs around too far away. I don’t think he realises I know he’s watching but...I’m hoping if I pretend I don’t notice, he’ll stop.”
Shining Armour gave a look of distaste.
“Sounds like a total creep!” he snorted.
“Maybe. I just want him to get it out of his system and learn his lesson. If not from me, maybe from himself.”
Shining was torn. On one hoof, what he found himself wanting to do was walk back over there, drag the creepy colt out by his ears, give him a proper lesson about treating mares with respect with his back-hooves as teaching assistants and knock some sense into him, the cadet’s way.
On the other hoof, everypony he knew, loved and respected from his parents to his mentors to his little sister had always told him that a careful, patient, non-violent course of action was often the most effective in complicated circumstances and they often proved to be right.
He had a feeling Cadence was no exception.
“Well, I admire your restraint.” he said at last, “But if he tries anything.”
“Don’t worry. If he does, I’ll handle it myself.” Cadence shook her head, “Let’s not talk about it now, that’s what he wants. I wanna’ know more about you and Twiley.”
Shining Armour managed a chuckle.
“Heh...Well, I’m sure Twiley has a lot more to say than me. Right, sis?”
*
“And that's how Equestria was made. Or at least my relationship.” Shining said with a small smile, “I got as far as you could have done if you’d actually treated her right. How does that feel?”
Strings was quiet a moment, staring at Shining with those cold, suspicious eyes of his.
He spoke at last.
“How do you know about the bits you weren’t there for?”
“That’s not the question you should be asking right now.” Shining replied, rolling his eyes “I know what you’re up to. And I’ve known for quite a while. I wasn’t allowed to say anything. What our quote-unquote ‘national heroes’ did to Ace Ray and Flash Sentry showed me what might have happened and I didn’t want to do that to Cadey, Twiley or anypony else. ‘Cause, you know, unlike you I actually have ponies I care about.”
“Up to?!” Strings hissed venomously “Your arrogant little bitch sister came to me expecting me to ‘move on’. I told her how Cadence broke my heart and she spat in my face! She knew nothing!”
“Wrong again. You’re on a roll now.” Shining Armour raised an eyebrow “Twilight knew you more than you know yourself. She may not know everything but she knows a pattern when she sees it. A paranoid, secluded stallion, supposedly a legendary lover yet unable to tell when a mare a block from his house is head over hooves for him? A lie. You've never even known another mare apart from Cadence and, as it turns out, you didn't even know her to begin with. I remember, Strings. Celesto made sure the memories his favourite was conjuring were there in Cadence's mind but like everything he'd rather not think about, he chose to forget me. I remember you. The face behind a tree. Or a school-block, or a doorway or a lamp-post. A sad, lonely little face staring at Cadence like a moth to a lamp.”
“No!” Strings clutched his own ears, his eyes wide and manic.
“There were flaws in your story everywhere! The school for Gifted Unicorns? Since you were foals? Cadence only came to Canterlot once she'd found her Cutie Mark and even then, she was a pegasus! I remember! Why couldn't you unless, oh I don't know, you were just a lying sack of crap?! And despite how close you were, you never spoke at all about what she went through. Bits you weren't there for, chose not to be there for.”
“What are you talking about?!”
“You know. When she got her braces? When she got in a food-fight and got salsa in her mane. That...incident with the bad avocado. You were nowhere to be seen and I know why. Because seeing Cadence as anything other than a pretty face destroyed the image you loved so much more than Cadence herself! You refused to see her as anything other than perfect because you didn't want anything other than perfect!”
“But that's why I should have had her! I loved her more than you! I saw her as perfect!”
“She didn't want to be perfect! She wanted to be a friend. For any who would get to know her. For what she was. Like I did. You never loved Cadence, Strings. You loved somepony else. A very pretty mare who looked just like Cadence, every little detail, on a good day. But she's not called Cadence, no. Her name is 'String's True Love'...The last and greatest of your pathetic little lies.”
With a high-pitched screech, Pullo Strings grabbed the handles of the cage and shook them frantically. Shining rocked back and forth his shoulders, knees, elbows and head smacking into each side of the cage. Dazed and nursing a bleeding lip, Shining slumped back. Then he remembered Strings and the lies he’d told to make Equestria spit on his little sister, the mare who only wished to help others.
The righteous indignation that had saved his kingdom time and again took hold and Shining Armour threw his weight against the front of the cage. The bottom-edge of the cage knocked Pullo Strings in the groin sending him flying back with a pained squeak. The cold-hearted red pegasus landed on the floor and writhed, making noises one would find in a sheep suffering a monumental gastric attack.
Shining leaned against the bars and cast him a look of disdain.
“Oh, stop your whining, you stupid colt. It doesn’t work. Not on me.” he barked.
“You...You...” Pullo Strings fixed him with a look of pure loathing, spluttering threats and profanities.
“Twilight saw right through you, Strings. It wasn’t enough for you to try and drag Cadey’s name through the mud that is your life but you could have made the story a little more convincing. At least Sun Rae proved willing to see reason. It was from her we got part of the real story.”
Strings cast a quizzical look.
“Who?”
Shining didn’t even know why he was surprised anymore.
“Wow. Okay.” He said in a deadpan tone “Mare right next door, thinks the world of you, despite how you treat her. Came to Twilight asking for help in getting you better and went to all the trouble that should have been your own. And you don’t even remember her name. That about sums you up, doesn’t it? Only you would make The Renegade look like a step-up in terms of romantic partnerships.”
“Who’s Renegade?” Strings snapped.
Shining shrugged.
“Guy I knew in the Guard. A lecherous, cowardly, compulsively lying layabout who drinks his problems away, has no dignity whatsoever and whose capability for temperance would be compared favourably to a bull jackalope on experimental aphrodisiacs...And yet both me and Rae prefer him to you.”
Pullo Strings hissed through his flared nostrils.
Shining gave a cheeky grin.
“Oh, I see. This is one of those ‘Baby Wants The Toys He Wasn’t Playing With Back’ ain’t it. My mom was a foal psychologist after all.”
“Shut up!”
“Have you really no retort other than that?” Shining Armour asked in a tone of tedium “I guess it speaks volumes, doesn’t it? You were calm and controlled when you knew Grand Ruler had your back but now that things aren’t going your way, you’re a mess. You really are Starfleet material!”
“Not going my way?!” Strings screamed “That’s why this is happening! Why we’re doing this!” He threw his forehooves around him feverishly “All of us! We’re sick of you and your pathetic ‘lessons of friendship’ stopping us getting what we deserve! You preach these worthless lessons that never help us and-”
“Is the concept of ‘cause and effect’ alien to you?” Shining Armour folded his arms in front of the bars “You chose not to let it help you. You chose to be a completely unpleasant pony who nopony in their right mind would enjoy the company of. And Grand Ruler was so desperate to disprove the Magic of Friendship, he cobbled together this story, illogical in concept and malignant in practice, to paint you as victims of society in a world that doesn’t care. When in reality, all it was was jerkoffs being jerkoffs.”
“You see, that’s the kind of thing I’m sick of.” Strings’s eyes looked ready to pop out of their sockets “I’m sick of you telling me I’m wrong, that my way is the wrong way, that I’m the one who needs to change, to accept the way things are!”
“Oh, really? Well, silly me then, I’m sorry for reminding you of reality!”
“No, you don’t see it do you!” The side of Strings’ lips twisted in a sick-looking smile “We don’t have to change to let other ponies find us ‘pleasant’ or ‘agreeable’ or ‘social’...Not if, with Grand Ruler over us, we can just change reality instead of letting it change us. Make our way the right way and everypony else wrong! That’s how it should be and that’s how it will be! We reject your ‘reality’ and soon, the rest of the world will too!”
He gripped the sides of the cage again and spoke to teeth so clenched, they threaten to break.
“Now...you and your pathetic little ‘friendship’ will be the ones who are wrong...And you will know just how that feels!”
Shining gave him a look that registered nothing but mild concern.
“Strings, you’ve got problems.”
“Well, soon that won’t be my problem. It’ll be EVERYPONY ELSES!” the red pegasus was screaming now.
Shining shook his head at the spectacle.
Strings was insane. That had been fairly clear to him from the start. Realising the full extent of just how insane he was still alarmed him somewhat.
Strings continued.
“The Magic of Friendship and Harmony that brought us nothing but PAIN will be DESTROYED! UTTERLY! NOTHING will remain of it! NOTHING! It’ll be the MOST DESTROYED THING IN ALL OF EXISTENCE! And Grand Ruler will RISE AGAIN with a NEW Starfleet at his command! And if you thought it was bad BEFORE, oh...” He shook his head, one eyelid twitching “The old Starfleet? They crushed you and made you feel like nothing because that’s what they were TOLD! But us?” He gave a giggle through his strange vocal mix of quiet snarls mixed with emphasised screams that only further clarified his lack of mental stability. “We’ll be doing it out of PRINCIPLE! And we’ll enjoy EVERY MOMENT! And let me tell you Shining, I’ve got a LOT of VERY special things in store for Cadence...that I’ve been putting off for a LONG time!”
He took a step back.
“You’ll bear witness to our triumph! Our revenge! And we’ll fly resplendent through the multiverse making OUR way the ONLY way! As HEROES of STARFLEET!”
He threw off his cape and held out his arms.
“BEHOLD!”
Shining Armour looked at what Pullo Strings was wearing beneath his cloak.
There was a pause.
“My gods, that is so lame!”
Shining Armour nearly doubled up laughing, or would have done if not for the cage.
Pullo Strings gave an indignant look, standing in what could only have been described as a harlequin costume designed from sea-slugs. Its peculiar pattern was separated in two, one of which was a white and grey rippled pattern, the other was magenta and orange splatter-patterned spandex. His shoulder pads and legs were spiked with pink-tipped copper polyps and fixed to his half-mask were a set of white plumes, trailing like worm-tails out the right side of his head.
“It’s not funny!” he snapped, “It’s meant to be a picture for my heartbreak and the wrongs done to me!”
Shining couldn’t stop laughing.
“You look you came to the costume ball dressed as a Foreskin Inflammation!”
“SHUT UP!” Strings was hopping in fury “Do you even realise what’s happening?! Your daughter is going to die!”
“No, she’s not.” Shining Armour spoke in a relaxed tone “You forget, Strings, you’re not in Grand Ruler’s United Equestria now. You’re in Celestia’s Equestria and nasty pieces of work like you always get what’s coming to them here. Believe me.”
“You pathetic fool! Once Grand Ruler returns-”
“It’ll be a great opportunity for everypony he ever hurt to give him the smackdown he deserves.”
“NO!” Strings stamped his forehoof “He’ll burn your world and everypony you love! And nopony will mourn them because THEY’LL be the ones who were wrong! The ones who got what they deserved! The ones who SUFFERED! And NOPONY CARED! And I will personally make sure Cadence dies in ways more painful than ANYPONY can IMAGINE! So that everypony knows what happens to ponies who TELL ME TO ‘MOVE ON!’”
Shining half-closed his eyes and gave a small ‘tut’.
“So it was never about love, was it?” he said frankly “You finally admit that, huh? It was all just ego, Cadence as your darling Princess clinging to your shoulder. And if you can’t have her, nopony can? Is that it?! Your content being that kind of pony?!”
The side of String’s face flickered like a flame, as if something inside snapped. Then the pegasus gave a slow nod.
“If it finally gets me what I want then yeah, I suppose so. Why not? Grand Ruler will give me a world where I can finally be true to myself.”
“Yourself being a violent, self-centred psychopath?”
“I’ve reached the point where I stop caring about what ponies like you think of me, Shining Armour!” Strings hissed, narrowing his cold, dead-looking eyes “We all have. And that’s why nothing will stop us. You lose today, Shining Armour. Nothing will change that because now we’ll be deciding what changes, what’s good and bad, what helps and what hurts, we’ll be gods of the new order...” his lips stretched into a morbid grin “And you know...I don’t think anypony’s going to laugh at me again after that.”
Shining said nothing. He simply fixed Pullo Strings with his unimpressed little frown before the impatient pegasus turned and headed further up the old black stairways of the ruin they stood upon.
All the unicorn could do once he’d left was look to Flurry.
She was okay. Still breathing. But the thought of what may have been done to her or would be done made his blood run cold.
Then warm.
There was a warmth in his heart, sudden but not abrupt and soothing. It healed a lot of his smaller injuries, staunched his cuts, soothed his bruises, fought the chill creeping through every extremity.
There was a little voice, not in his head but somehow in him regardless.
“Daddy?” it asked, wavering, as if close to tears “Are you okay?”
Shining found himself answering in the same way, not speaking through his mouth yet answering back, purely through thought, through the heart.
“I’m fine...You don’t need to worry, I’m fine...Flurry.”
“Daddy, I’m scared.” the voice whimpered “Who are these ponies? And why are they so horrible?”
He thought of a reason. It didn’t come easily.
“Some ponies are just...not right. Somehow they feel like good or bad doesn’t mean anything as long as it gets them what they want...In a way, they’re more like babies than you could ever have been.”
“But...” The voice was quieter. More afraid of the words that would follow than the actions she’d seen “Are all ponies like this?”
“No. Flurry. There are some like this. Very few. But that’s why there are ponies like me and your mother and your auntie Twiley to stop them hurting anypony.”
There was a pause.
“Are you scared, daddy?” The filly asked.
Shining gave another pause, feeling the chill starting to creep back.
“Yeah. I am. But not for myself. You need to promise me something, Flurry.”
“Yes, daddy?”
“I know how I’ve always told you not to use your powers and to let me, mum or any other nice ponies help you and take care of you but...if anything happens...You need to use any power you have to keep you safe. Nothing else will matter as long as you’re okay. That’s all I ask. Can you promise me, Flurry?”
“I promise daddy.” The voice sounded less afraid “Don’t be scared, daddy...Mommy's coming. I can feel it...Mommy...And auntie Twiley...”
“...Yeah...” Shining felt the colt ebb away steadily, resting his back, doing all he could to feel relaxed standing in a cage, feeling more relaxed and hopeful for the future than he had done in a very long time.
Shining may have been sleeping. He couldn’t properly tell in the cold and the position. All he knew was that the sound of foot-steps up the stairway his cage overlooked caught his attention.
Another figure emerged. From the sound of his steps, he was having trouble walking.
A stallion in a sea-green monstrosity of an outfit lumbered gracelessly up the steps.
The outfit was star-shaped and ridged and, upon closer inspection, was so bulky that the arms and legs had to come out holes. Its shoulders were crowned with arching gold-spiked pauldrons with fleshy fuchsia accents and scarlet orbs crammed into the inlay. Out of the arm-holes was a trailing cloak of false-gold thread.
There was something about it that appeared almost reminiscent of a runny nose.
The stallion wearing the ungainly ensemble was lime-green coated and skinny, making him look like a tortoise in that shell of an outfit he wore. His mane was acid-yellow and unkempt, showing signs of stress and tension. Parts of it had signs that their owner had been pulling on it. His pop-eyed expression showed a haughty air coupled with an insecure demeanour as he hid the strain of heaving his heavy garb up the stairs.
“And...what in the crap do we have here?” Shining asked in an unimpressed tone.
The approaching stallion turned her muzzle up at him.
“Oh...it’s you.”
Shining folded his arms.
“Manny Collars, aka Needle Stitch.”
The supposed master tailor’s eyes bore into him.
“So, it will proceed as planned. A shame. I so wanted Rarity to take your place.”
“Rarity’s not an alicorn, dingus.” Shining said flatly “What do you call this new design then? ‘Ode To Excessive Mucus Build-Up’?”
Manny’s eyes bulged as he gritted his teeth.
“Do NOT insult me!”
“Why? You insult just about everypony you know. Why can’t you take a little your way? Is it ‘cause you’re sensitive?” Shining made the last word high-pitched and baby-like “Though on that subject, sensitivity is the word for being aware and caring for others' feelings, not just your own.”
“SILENCE!” Manny Collars shrieked “She put you up to this, didn’t she!”
“Who?”
“Who do you think? The thieving, brainless, bankrupt arch-bitch, Rarity Belle! I know she’s out there, laughing at me!”
“Rarity has recently become a mother and hasn’t spoken of you since she and Spike began their relationship. Nopony has.”
That hurt. Shining saw the tick in the tailor’s eye.
A telling sign of an egomaniac. Even if she was the one he hated above all else, the fact that Rarity had forgotten about him pricked him like a thorn, negated his victory, made the slights ache all over again.
“You’re lying.” he hissed.
“Nope” Shining quoted his (Unofficially) brother-in-law-by-sacred-oath “She hasn’t spoken of you since the incident was cleared with us. In fact, I doubt she even remembers your name, either of them. She’s certainly not gonna’ tell her daughter about her ‘greatest mistake’.”
“You LIE!” he shrieked “Rarity wouldn’t forget! I HURT that day in ways she can NEVER recover from.”
There it was. The overemphasis again, done in screams.
“Well, if she hasn’t recovered, she’s done a damn fine impression.”
“Well, that’s her, isn’t it!” he scoffed “The poser, the VAIN, SELF-CENTRED, BOASTING, MAKEUP-WEARING, HINDRANCE-HIDING LITTLE BITCH! Always LYING! Always pretending it’s SOMEPONY ELSE’S FAULT!”
That made Shining laugh.
“Takes one to know one!”
He didn’t wait for him to query just what he meant. Shining leaned forward and explained.
“We found out everything, Manny. You’ve been played for a total fool! And so’s Grand Ruler! I suppose he must have thought it was so convenient, finding you, a pony with such an axe to grind against the Bearer he so badly wanted denounced. Right when Rarity was about to come forward with just how horrible Starla was around her and other mares that Starfleet was meant to protect! Just how much you and Starfleet looked down on mares in general! He’d look anywhere for a mystery witness to discredit Rarity...even in a prison cell.”
“No! How dare you! It’s a lie!” Manny yelled.
“No, Manny, that’s not gonna’ work. We found all the evidence. And we did things the Equestrian way too. No memory scans, no mind control, no dragging dissidents to the lobotomy chambers, just by the book, old-school snooping. It wasn’t as easy as we thought to work behind Grand Ruler’s back but then it wasn’t as hard either.”
“You know NOTHING!”
“We know enough.” Shining said, watching the hands of Manny Collars shaking fitfully with rage “We know what really happened with you and Rarity all those years ago. Perhaps you’d like a little trip down memory lane...” he cleared his throat, leaned back against the side of the cage in a cocky manner and began.
Glitter was all well and good but proper fragmented gemstone, encased between two layers of tektite shaped like a tiny water droplet, made all the difference. Spike had helped her find the gems as well as crunched them himself and spat out with cleansing flame to smooth the facets while Pinkie’s parents had gotten their old family forge working again to give the tektite the proper works. She’d need to make sure to thank them both profusely once this was all complete.
The Ponhemian-style combination of elegant vanilla-coloured kirtle slashed with rhubarb-red and beads of zircon organised into snowflake-patterns over a simple but comely white smock with buttons of tear-shaped tektite glass decorated with powdered ruby and amethyst surrounding a dainty lacy collar. Padding the garment was a shawl of blue-grey faux fur meant to resemble snow leopard but upon closer inspection, the rings and patches were in fact compressed patterns of flowing text; archaic rune-work that, translated, read the top fifteen of Snow Angel’s ‘Seasonal Poems of Equestria: Winter; Its Woes And Its Wonders’ from over five hundred years ago. Thrown in for free, attached to the garb by button-holders, were rings of faux-ivory studded with a rhombus of rhodolite at every cardinal point to keep the mane and tail fastened and flowing fluidly.
Rarity gave a weighty breath of pride, very much satisfied with the result.
“How about it, Coco?” she hollered happily as her timid, beret-sporting assistant, still a few weeks on the job, joined her in her study “I think I shall call it ‘In Frost, A Cry For Summer’.”
“It’s, um...very nice, Miss Rarity.”
“Now, how to make a dress that says ‘We yearn for winter in summer’?” she pursed her lips “Maybe take some influence from Saddle Arabian designs. Then again, how often do ponies like them see snow at all?”
“Well, uh, I wouldn’t know.” Coco Pommel gave a small shrug “I, um, I don’t quite understand why you’d think of summer in winter...or winter in summer.”
“Oh it’s all part of the theme of subversion, darling.” Rarity tossed her hooves dramatically “You see here, the clothing looks, at first impression, too light and soft for winter-dress but upon actually wearing it, it’ll warm you comfortably. It looks like it’s built for summer but is actually made for winter. Appearance contrasts the purpose. It’s controversial, catching, and opens the market for designs of all seasons whilst still subconsciously elevating the importance of specialist construct. Draws the art crowd. Put simply, my dear,” She gave a gleeful spin “It’ll put Carousel Boutique on the map!”
“Oh, well that’s...very nice...” Coco cleared her throat and blushed “Sorry, I, um...came to tell you, there’s somepony at the door to ask for you.”
“Whoop, well, can’t stand around her dawdling. Come along then, Coco, my little button-muzzle.” Rarity gave Coco’s muzzle a friendly little nuzzle with her forehoof, smiling sweetly at her nervous but tender little assistant as the two mares trotted merrily out to the counter.
“Good morning, sir, and welcome to Carousel Boutique where everything is chi-”
“That’s enough, please.” A stallion’s sharp voice cut in “I’d like to get down to business with no time wasted whatsoever.”
Rarity stopped, hiding her slight peeve at the new customer’s brusque. Coco Pommel made her way forward and gave a polite nod. That seemed to put a smile on the stallion’s face.
He was a light-green unicorn with lemon-yellow mane slicked back, wearing gold-rimmed spectacles and a trim suit. His cutie mark was a set of paint-powder pots opening up and flying into the air. He held up a card.
“Manny Collars. Heir to Collarcorp Enterprises. Perhaps you’ve heard of me?”
“W-well, I know of Collarcorp, certainly. Formerly Bryte and Crayola Collars’ Dyes and Lenses?”
“The same.” The stallion had a smug air about him, relaxing slightly against the desk and giving Rarity a look that almost looked bored “I’ve heard you’re quite well-sought after in these parts. Not that I come here often.” He ended his sentence with a small exhale that sounded almost like a scoff.
“Well, if you’ve heard of me, I must be doing something right.” Rarity gave a giggle, shrugging bashfully. After a pause, Coco got the gist and gave a small, closed giggle.
Behind his glasses, Manny Collars rolled his eyes which Rarity preferred not to notice.
“Well, I’d like to order a commission.” he said frankly “A jacket of velvet, long-tailed, navy-blue, gold-buttoned with silver lapels decorated with amber patterns, nothing feminine; fastened with a gorge of black-bear fur-”
“It’ll have to be faux-fur, I’m afraid.” Rarity butted in.
Manny Collars didn’t seem to like being interrupted. His chartreuse eyes narrowed behind his spectacles and his lip curled but after a pause, he continued.
“Fine. Cuffs to match. An indigo waistcoat with concealed double-buttons in jet, framed in brass. And atop, a high cravat fastened with a turquoise brooch. Have you got all that?”
“Almost...yes.” Rarity jotted it all down and puffed her cheeks “Goodness...That’s a rather intricate piece.”
“Well, if you’re as good as you say...”
“But of course.” Rarity raised an eyebrow, determined to prove her worth to the tricky customer “And to make a commission one must pay half-way on request plus deposit.”
“Money’s no trouble. Here.” Nonchalantly, Manny Collars whipped out a chequebook and pen, scribbled and threw it down on the desk without looking at them.
Rarity picked it up. Her mascaraed lashes bounced upwards as her bright blue eyes widened and her mouth opened.
“Eighty-five thousand bits?!”
Coco Pommel covered her mouth with her forehoof.
“You’ll get the deposit when I leave and the other half once it’s finished.” Manny Collars gave a smirk “Like I said, money’s no trouble.”
“I...see...” Rarity said, mind-boggled at the prospect “That is...more than ten-times the amount I would have asked for a piece like this!”
“I accept nothing but the best, which I very much expect it to be.”
“That goes without saying, my good sir.” Rarity gave a small bow “As to the matter of how long it may take...”
“Take all the time you need. It’s not a problem for me.” Manny Collars idly checked the soles of his hooves.
“Well, by the look of things, considering the need to search for and order the desired materials...” Rarity calculated in her head “I’d say I could have it sorted in perhaps...three weeks?”
“Make it four. I want nothing left insufficiently made.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it, sir.” Rarity said with her usual courtesy “Will that be all?”
Manny Collars finally turned to look at her and gave a small smile.
“Well, after all I’ve heard about this place, I was hoping I could...well...” he meandered about the word and in the pause, he turned to look closely at Coco Pommel “Get a better look.”
“A tour of Carousel Boutique?” Rarity giggled with excitement “I would only be too happy, my good sir.”
“Ah, no, no.” He put up his hoof “I think it would be more beneficial for us if you began the designs. I’m sure your...assistant could manage.”
“Oh. Well, Coco’s still quite new but I imagine she could manage?” Rarity gave a small shrug “Would that be alright with you, Coco?”
“Oh, um...yes, I’m sure I can show him something interesting.”
“Oh, I’m sure you can.” Manny Collars left his slouch upon the counter and sidled up to her “After you.”
Rarity gave her materials list and design one more examine before trotting off to her study and begin work on this lucrative ensemble.
“Alrighty then. If anypony needs me, I’ll be getting on with the show, so to speak.”
“You do that.” Manny murmured “Miss Pommel, if you please?”
“Right, okay...” Coco steeled herself. She was sure she could manage. She didn’t know the place that well but Rarity had shown her all the important points of the boutique and she knew how most of it worked. She could manage. All she had to do was put on a brave face and-
She stopped. Her face paled, her hooves stood stock-still despite the tremor running through her limbs.
She felt the cold, hard sole of a stallion’s hoof pressed against the side of her flank.
Manny Collars’ voice was quieter and altogether more sinister.
“Very nice.”
“Wh-wh-what are you doing?”
“Enjoying the tour.” the stallion leaned over, his muzzle inches from his neck. With a sickening, nasal sound, he sniffed deeply.
“You’re quiet...I like that in a mare.” He said, that smug, controlled tone had sounded grating before. Now it sounded immeasurably dangerous “This tour is starting to bore me...Take us somewhere private.”
Coco had no idea what to do. If she didn’t say anything, it would continue. To an end-point she had no wish to experience whatsoever.
But if she did cry out, what would happen?
Her mother had told her about stallions like this. Her mother, Rococo, had always been a tough old mare and told her that if ever a creepy stallion started trailing her or trying to touch her, the best thing to do would be either fight back or tell somepony.
But what could she tell anypony? The only other pony in the building was Rarity and what in Celestia’s name would happen to her if she cried out? Would Rarity be able to stop this?
Supposing she took his side? He was, after all, offering her the biggest pay-check she’d ever seen.
Manny could lie? Manny could threaten?
Her mind was a maze.
And Manny was leading her in deeper and deeper.
“Somewhere quiet. Now.”
Her breath coming out in quick, shaky stutters, Coco walked on into the materials cabinet.
The sound of the door shutting behind her was as sudden and foreboding as the click of a loaded gun.
“Please.” she whimpered, too frightened to say any other word “Please. Please. Please. Please.”
“Hush.” Manny had his hoof at her back “You want me to give your establishment a glowing review, don’t you? Well then...”
She felt his neck close to hers, skinny and clammy.
“I think I’d enjoy a ride on the carousel.”
“No! No, you can’t!” Coco found an inch of courage and clambered at the wall, eyes fixed on the stallion “If-If I tell anypony, you’ll be sent to prison. Because...well...that’s where they send ponies to try to-“
His hoof came forth like lightning. She found her chest pressed against the wooden shelf, knocking over a roll of crimson fabric. The stallion’s eyes stared into her, burning her way through her like sulphur.
“Don’t say...anything.” his voice was openly threatening now. He wasn’t trying to hide his wish to instil fear in this mare or his clear enjoyment of the fear he was already sensing in her.
“Remember, girly. Eighty-five thousand bits is a lot of money. And for less than half that much, a stallion like me could pay somepony else to have something very nasty done to Carousel Boutique...or its owner.”
Coco paled at his words.
Now he was serious. He was threatening Rarity’s business, and possibly her life.
Now she knew. She had no choice. If she did anything he didn’t like, Rarity would be the one who really suffered.
“D...d...don’t hurt Rarity.” she whimpered, holding her forehooves in front of her muzzle defensively.
Manny’s hoof wrapped round them and pulled them close.
“What’s the magic word?”
Coco could tell he wanted to hear the word. He needed to hear the word. She could tell.
It stuck in her throat.
The hoof raised above Manny’s head, the burning yellow eyes of its owner wide and hungry.
“Tell me, would you like Rarity to turn up at the bottom of a cliff...or would you prefer her little sister?”
“No, no, please! Please! Please!” Coco was wailing in a panic before Manny’s hoof clasped her muzzle.
“Good.” he positively purred the word “Now...Take off that beret.”
Coco’s hooves were shaking like dry leaves as she reached up and tentatively removed her cap.
“Right. Now...turn arou-”
“Coo-ee?!” Rarity’s lilting voice jerked both of them as the door creaked open “Sorry, I heard something fall, is anything the matter?”
Manny Collars and Coco Pommel stared wide-eyed at the puzzled-looking seamstress.
The stallion straightened up.
“No worry. Miss Pommel was showing me around the fabric room and she bumped into one of the rolls.” he gave the assistant a look “Isn’t that right, Miss Pommel?”
For a moment, Coco Pommel stared into space.
All she’d seen and heard and had done to her swam in front of her eyes in a sudden, screeching, seconds-long tide.
She looked at Rarity, this lass of peerless talent and unending generosity, the strong and noble heart of diamond beating strong behind the exuberant drama queen she appeared to be, always something so inspiring to a meek little thing like her.
Then she remembered the cheque. The threat.
She pictured that gentle, jovial face of the mare before her black and white in the paper, foretelling some horrid occurrence nopony but she could point to.
Knowing it would be all her fault.
She managed to mumble out the words that made her feel unclean.
“Um...yes...He’s right...sorry...”
“Oh. Well, at least there’s no harm done.” Rarity’s horn lit up and gently replaced the roll of fabric in its correct place.
Manny checked his sides and spoke again.
“Yes, well, I’m afraid I’m in danger of running late. Afraid to say this tour rather petered out somewhat. It seems Miss Pommel found the fabrics room difficult to navigate.”
Rarity gave a small titter.
“Oh Coco, you silly old thing. You should have called for me.”
Coco turned and answered suddenly and anxiously
“No! No, it...” she took a deep breath “It’s okay. I’ll...do better next time.”
“She’s just a bit worked up.” Manny explained.
“Yes, don’t worry. She gets like that.”
“Um...yes, yes, I do.”
“Still, I have enjoyed the tour so far. Maybe I could continue it tomorrow or whenever you’re both available.”
“Oh, by all means, sir. We’re always available.” Rarity waved her hoof gaily.
“Excellent.” Manny gave a supercilious smile “Work hard. And I look forward to carrying on where we left off, Miss Pommel.” He fixed her with an eerie glint “Remember my advice.”
Coco felt a staggering pit open up in her chest as he walked out, Rarity waving goodbye amiably as ever.
“Cheerio, Mr Collars. We honour your patronage.” She spun round with a smile and saw Coco standing in the doorway, shaken and sweating.
“Are you alright, dear?”
“Um...”
“Look, I’m not angry at you for getting lost. It happens to everypony. I could tell you things about Sweetie you’d never-”
Her assistant gave a short gasp. Both mares stepped back from each other as Coco managed to stammer.
“I...I...I’m okay. I promise. It’s just that, er...anxiety...my...my...I haven’t been well...I...I just remembered...”
“Alright, alright, look...” Rarity held up a gentle hoof “Maybe you should take the rest of the day off. I can handle this alone. You don’t seem well.”
Without another word, not looking anywhere but towards the ground beneath her, Coco Pommel sped out. Walking briskly on, blind to the world around her until she found herself on the path home, green, narrow, quiet.
Now so frightening.
A bird took off on one of the trees. Coco spun round, eyes wide, heart pounding against her chest, certain that, for a brief second, she saw Manny Collars pouncing at her.
She stopped at the base of an old tree, mighty, wide and gnarled. She remembered her mother had taken her to the tree to steadily get over her fear of heights, teaching Coco to climb over several weeks.
It had always felt safe.
Yet not even the oh-so familiar shade of its branches or the moss around its roots eased her.
Sitting down, the events of the hellish day swamping her mind, Coco Pommel held her muzzle in her hooves and sobbed.
*
He'd try it this time. She knew.
Coco Pommel barely managed to make her way to Carousel Boutique without breaking down.
Every step she took, she remembered what Manny Collars would surely do to her.
But every time she paused, she remembered what Manny Collars would surely do to those she cared about.
While pulling at her mane last time, Manny had told her, in gruesome detail, the kind of things that would happen to little Sweetie Belle, the kind of ponies he’d sent after her, the kind of things they liked doing to little fillies.
Her hooves shook on the ground she trod.
The door of Carousel Boutique, once a haven to her now loomed over her like the entrance to a prison.
She gently pushed open the door and found her employer, hearing her long before seeing her.
“So!” the shrill cry of Rarity ran through her establishment as the seamstress stomped to and fro, her mane wild and her face stretched with a grimace of fierce resolve “They think I’m some sort of idiot, do they?! Well, they can’t escape my gaze this time! I, Rarity Saccharina Belle, will have vengeance!”
She caught sight of her perplexed assistant and shook her by the shoulders.
“Coco! You’re here, at last!”
“Is...Is something the matter, Miss?” Coco asked, quietly cursing herself for asking such a silly question.
Rarity gave a slightly unhinged-sounding giggle.
“Not anymore, my dear!” she cackled “Brace yourself for utter horror but I’ve just uncovered a detestable scheme to pilfer my meticulous designs and materials! Fortunately, I have ensured this goes no further.” She grinned “Ooh, just you wait, my dear. Very soon, the sounds of trapped miscreants pleading for mercy shall echo throughout the boutique! Very soon!”
She cleared her throat, straightened her mane and smiled.
“Forgive me, I’m wittering on. Are you alright this morning? You seem a bit peaky.”
“Oh, um...I’m alright.”
“Well, if there’s anything the matter, just let me know, okay?” She gave her a wink as, like a death knell, the bell on the boutique rang, heralding the arrival of Manny Collars.
“Ah, Mr Collars. A very fine morning to you.” Rarity gave a merry bound “You’ll be pleased to know we have amplified some moderate protective measures in the boutique so you needn’t worry about any chance of-”
“I wasn’t worried to begin with.” Manny interrupted flatly “Whatever keeps you entertained.” He cleared his throat “Miss Coco. I believe there are some...areas in this place that very much...interest me.”
The young assistant’s heart felt gripped by deathly-cold claws.
“Uh...yes, sir.”
“Righty-ho, then.” Rarity hopped a little and trotted off “I’ll just be working on that design. You two have fun.”
“Oh, we will.” Manny said in his usual flat, humourless tone, hiding his sinister smirk from the disappearing seamstress.
He didn’t even need to gesture. Coco knew where he wanted him.
She knew where she needed to be and what she needed to do to keep Rarity and Sweetie Belle safe from the world of hurt and horror she’d found herself in.
Whistling another of the old jaunts her mother used to sing, Rarity applied a finish to the faux-bearskin cuffs. The silver thread would barely (Rarity rolled her eyes at the pun she’d non-verbally made) show but it made little concern. It looked lovely either way.
Tensing herself for tonight where she would, hopefully, catch the nefarious wrong-doers intruding on her establishment in the act, she checked the newly set-up security and observation system.
Crystal-operated cameras, the frames of which she’d designed herself with help from Spike and hidden in places only she would know, would record whatever took place in every room with an entrance outside.
A couple of days ago, she had discovered to her dismay that the materials in her room were being mislaid or strewn so terribly untidily around the place. She knew Coco would never leave the room in such a way and nopony on earth went in there without permission. Manny Collars had already been in there once, surely his interests lay elsewhere, among the ponnequins displaying her designs or the...
A thought entered her head that caused her face to twist slightly in discomfort.
Steadily, reaching over to the crystal ball that displayed the observed rooms one after the other, her horn lit up and turned to the fabrics room.
Her bright blue eyes were wide and unblinking.
Her treasured assistant was standing, crying, steadily lowering the front half of her body down below. Manny Collars was behind her, his hooves at her flanks, his features stretched in a look of obscene hunger.
Suddenly a great many things made very unpleasant sense.
Rarity blinked.
Turning steadily to the door, her magic dissipated and she felt a tendon in her neck grow tight.
She took a deep breath.
“Stop whimpering.”
She so hated his voice. Every word dripped the things she feared in ponies. Malice, obsession, callousness.
And she was completely at its mercy.
Shutting her mouth tight, a few slight muffled whines and sniffles escaped her, tears running down her cheeks puddling below her on the floor.
“I’ve changed my mind.” Manny said horribly quietly “You can whimper. In fact, I want you to whimper. A lot.”
The young mare gave a drawn-out cry through clenched teeth as she felt his hooves press harder against her.
He hadn’t begun. He wouldn’t begin for some time.
He was drawing it out to make it worse for her.
“Do you know something?” he said, almost ponderously “When I’m done...you’re going to have nothing. Something in you will make you feel like the worst thing alive. You’ll quit your job, you’ll stop seeing your friends, you’ll never go out and see somepony or really do anything that makes you feel happy...Because you’ll feel like you don't deserve it. And in the end, the only time in your life you remember somepony loving you...was now.”
He heard him give a giggle, each word slamming into her like a knife.
“Enjoy it.”
“Why...” she managed to whimper. Manny still hadn’t started but this, this felt more painful than she’d ever imagined the act itself to be “Why are you doing this?!”
There was silence for a moment. Coco held her breath.
“You know...” the stallion said at last, “I remember on my Cutecinera, dad got me balloons. Huge, floating heads of every colour. All around, the other foals laughed but I didn’t see the joke. They were just standing in mid-air, fat, silly and useless. One floated right up to me, pale yellow...just like you. I popped it. I cast a little spell and popped it. It was nice, that feeling, taking something that just stood around looking pretty and stupid and just...making it go away. So I stood on the table and popped them all. The other foals were crying. But I...I felt so happy there...so much better...and it felt right. It didn’t just feel ‘good’, Miss Pommel...It felt right. That was what counted in the end. And the feeling, the first really good, really right feeling I felt in so long...is exactly what I’m feeling now.”
Coco felt ready to collapse on the floor. She so wanted, desperately to black out, shut herself off, not have to endure any of what was happening or what would come next.
How?
How had she suddenly found herself in this tiny corner of Tartarus.
“Please...”
That was all she could whisper as she shut her eyes tight and waited for what would surely ruin her, body and mind.
Then there was a chill at her back and a slam.
Manny’s hooves finally left her.
She turned.
Standing in the doorway, rigid as an iron lamp-post, was Rarity.
Despite nothing in her appearance out of its usual, meticulously-glamorous manner, it was really quite remarkable how much she looked like a sabre-toothed tiger!
She was staring, eyes like burning cobalt, directly at Manny Collars, her lips so small and tight they threatened to disappear.
Her horn lit and the small, narrow door to the back outside unlocked and flew open.
The stallion gave it a quizzical look.
Then turned to see the freight train of a mare heading straight for him.
With an almighty crash, Manny Collars was catapulted out the door, landing in a pained heap, writhing and groaning, half his body smoking with bitter-smelling blue cinders.
Blinking, uncertain if what she’d just seen was part of a defensive hallucination, Coco Pommel got to her hooves and peered out the door to observe the aftermath.
Rarity Saccharina Belle marched over, grabbed Manny by the collar and slammed his back into the recycling dumpster. Her face was now stretched with pure rage, her teeth bared and clenched, her hooves shaking as they clutched the stallion’s throat.
“G-get off me!” Manny shrieked “You...How dare you! You can’t do this to-”
Rarity’s hoof came around like a flying cinderblock. Manny’s head threw itself to the side, bleeding from the muzzle and lip. Coco could see tears in his eyes as Rarity spoke, her voice a draconic hiss.
“Let me make this nice and sssssssparkling clear!” she growled “Prince or pauper, when a pony dares, in all their foul depravity, to abuse any friend of Ponyville’s most talented tailor, they put their hoof in it!”
“You...I’ll sue!” Manny griped.
Rarity gave a scoff.
“For what, pray? Preventing attempted rape?!”
“I have powerful friends like you wouldn’t believe!” the stallion replied “You just assaulted me! That’s all they’ll know! You’ll never be able to bring that scared little bitch to court! You won’t have a leg to stand on!”
“Oh no, sir, I believe I will have at least one leg to stand on. The other three, of course, will be too busy KICKING YOUR FLANKS FROM HERE TO BALTIMARE!”
And with that, Rarity spun him around by the collar and delivered a hefty kick with both back hooves to his flanks, sending flying head-over-hooves out of the boutique yard and into the dirt.
“Oh! And you can take your tainted entitlements with you!” Rarity yelled, bringing out the half-finished suit in her magical grasp, tearing it down the middle and flinging it in Manny’s face. She then removed the cheque he’d written from her purse and lit it alight, holding it up between them as it burned to nothing.
“You are patron of Carousel Boutique NO LONGER! Good day, sir!”
“Coco...my dear, sweet companion...I am so sorry.” Her bottom-lip was trembling “I was so caught up in my work, too busy musing over this and that, I...I should have noticed something was wrong days ago, I...I should never have let that vile thing into this place, I’m...I’m so sorry!”
“No, no, Miss Rarity, I....I should have said. I was just so...” Coco buried her face in Rarity’s shoulder as days and days of dread and degradation fell off her back “He...He said he’d do such...horrible things to you and your sister if I...if I...”
“Shh-shh-shh...” Rarity gently stroked the back of Coco’s mane “It’s alright, darling, it’s alright. He won’t hurt us now. I won’t allow it. Not here. Not in Ponyville.”
She gave a smile through teary eyes and looked at Coco in a sisterly tone, reminding herself of all the times Sweetie Belle had to open up about problems she was facing with only her big sister to help her out.
“Coco Pommel. When you came to my boutique all those years ago, finding me there in the grip of torment and humiliation, you offered me kindness. And I swore to repay it. I shall, by any means, ensure the world deals by you as it does by me and no matter what happens to me, you will be kept safe.”
She placed her hoof on Coco’s chest, the heartbeat of the timid young mare gently easing itself.
“That is a promise from the Bearer of Generosity, the most skilled fashionista in Ponyville...and a true friend. And that, Miss Pommel, is more valuable than any jewel.”
Shining watched Manny Collars’ face contort with indignation.
“It must hurt...” he said coldly, “Having to face the thing you’ve spent so much time and resources trying to run from. I suppose you kept the suit she’d made. The fact it was her design in the first place must have made it somewhat easier to convince ponies she stole yours.”
“The bitch ruined my life!” the deluded stallion snarled “She landed me in a cell!”
“Best place for you.” Shining replied “And you opened that door yourself. Remember...”
Coco pattered nervously through the prison entrance.
The guest entrance of course.
Though that wasn’t the entrance Rarity had gone through.
She was escorted by Twilight Sparkle, her worried face rigid as her mind rushed.
Also escorting her was Colonel Peregrine, a decorated guard captain who’d trained Shining Armour as a recruit. Twilight had sent for him, knowing she could trust the old veteran. With his black and white coat, tawny ponytail and steely ebony eyes, clad from chest to hoof in intricate armour with shoulder-plates fashioned to resemble an alicorn taking flight, he cut an impressive figure.
After telling Twilight everything over tea the day after Manny Collars had been thrown out of Carousel Boutique, Rarity had requested Coco have somepony looking out for her for a period of time. When armed guard had knocked on the door of Carousel Boutique a day after that, Rarity had assumed Twilight had taken the need to protect Miss Pommel a little far, calling on her brother’s royal guard.
In fact, they were a private protection group. Under contract from the Collars family.
The Bearers of Harmony and Cutie Mark Crusaders heard from a sobbing Sweetie Belle hurrying to their company that her elder sister had been arrested. Charged with assault and emotional distress.
Fortunately her friends weren’t about to take it sitting down.
Coco had heard the terrible news from the Canterlot Gazette and had hurriedly made her way to the visiting centre.
Twilight was disgusted. Rarity hadn’t even been on trial yet but visiting her would require a glass door. This part of the prison was for repeat offenders.
She’d spoken to the warden but all she’d heard was that her accuser had friends and family in high places.
Coco inched forward, keeping her head down, hesitant to look into the eyes of dangerous ponies, even behind bars.
She sat down as Twilight spoke to a prison guard who went inside to inform Rarity she had guests.
The three watched as their friend was brought out, sitting down in front of the glass.
To her horror, Rarity appeared quite changed, even after only a day in prison. As she emerged, Coco noticed the seamstress’s right eye was swollen and blackened. A significant scab ran down her bottom lip and her left ear appeared marred with what looked like bite-marks.
Yet despite this, Rarity held her head up high, a dignified smile on her face with nary a hair in her mane out of place. As she sat down, her fully-opened eye brightened.
“Good morning, Coco. How very lovely it is to see you.”
Her young assistant’s voice was barely louder than a whisper.
“Wh-what happened?”
Rarity cracked a smirk, leaning back in her chair a little.
“What happened, my dear Coco, is that I gave a very firmly-expressed lesson in courtesy to a highly uncouth little madam called Lucid ‘Splitz’ McChrome who had the gall to make some highly inappropriate advances on me while I freshened myself one morning.” she waved a hoof over her features nonchalantly “If you think this is bad, you should take a look at her craggy countenance, rendered substantially craggier. She’s actually become quite a good friend now that we made up in the hospital wing. Quite decent company for somepony serving eight years for armed robbery and assault. We found we have similar tastes in literature. I hope to introduce you to her when this is over. But enough about me, how are you? Has anything bad happened to you since...”
“Uh...no. Pinkie Pie let me stay with her. She’s a bit loud and quick but she’s really nice.”
“I’m sure. You can take it from me, dear, you are quite safe under Pinkie’s watchful eye.”
She turned her head.
“Twilight, dear. How is everything? Is Sweetie alright? And how’s Spike?”
“They’re both fine. Sweetie’s staying with her parents. They came home yesterday. Spike wanted to write to you but I was told I couldn’t give you any messages until after the trial.”
“Ah...When is the trial then?”
“A day from now. They wanted to delay it but I still have some pull with the system.” Twilight said determinedly “And a friend has volunteered to stand for your defence. Came out of retirement just to help you.”
Rarity gave a heartened chuckle.
“How lucky I am to have such faithful friends.” she sighed, “Well, I think I’ll be able to sleep a little easier tonight thanks to you. Just take care of Sweetie, alright. And...if the trial goes awry...tell her I’m so sorry to miss her singing at the school concert.”
Twilight nodded plainly, a little concerned at Rarity’s skewed priorities but impressed nonetheless at how she was taking it.
She and Coco departed. The timid little tailor’s assistant turned to the Bearer of the Magic of Friendship and whispered.
“Am I...going to have to stand at the trial?”
“...Fluttershy asked me the same thing when we heard about Manny Collars. I think...it may be inevitable.”
Coco gave a strangled noise from the back of her throat as her mind throbbed with terror.
All those eyes watching her, judging her, knowing she was lusted after. It would be everywhere.
And Manny, what would he say? That she asked for it? Begged for it? Bargained for it? His lies would ruin her, this she knew. And Rarity. And who knew who else.
She couldn’t do this.
She wasn’t ready.
“I...I need to think...”
“Okay, don’t worry.” Twilight gently held her shoulder. Secretly she held worst suspicions.
The crystal image recording from Carousel Boutique had gone missing when the guard came for its owner.
The same guard would occasionally intrude on Rarity’s parents or her library or Sugar Cube Corner or Sweet Apple Acres just to check that everypony knew Rarity was a criminal and there was no way anypony could prove her innocence.
These guard were not Royal Guard. They lacked the gilded armour and plumes. These were stallions in hard, dark sap-leather armour with glass visors. None of them ever smiled.
Twilight Sparkle had a nasty feeling that the Collars family were onto them.
And one way or another, they’d see Rarity in prison and Coco goodness-knew-where before they allowed their golden son to face the consequences of his actions.
Twilight kept her head down as she passed one of those guards. Gritting her teeth, she braced herself.
So it was war.
*
They came for her at last. Rarity hadn’t even had time to eat breakfast or shower but the guards weren’t to be put off.
She arrived at the court looking dishevelled. And she wouldn’t be surprised if it was deliberate.
The court was packed. Mostly with ponies she didn’t know. She saw Sassy Saddles near the front, Lyra and Bonbon holding each other’s hooves, Colgate Minuette, Twinkleshine and Lemon Hearts. But she couldn’t see her fellow Bearers anywhere.
There was foul play ahoof, she knew it.
She was sat down, none too courteously, she noticed, and brushed a strand of mane out of her face.
Behind him, a tall, lean pegasus stallion with a ruddy orange coat and white mane sticking up on two sides of his head like two corners of a decorative kite and a long goatee forming the third corner. Evidently, his lawyer, and the chief prosecutor.
Prosecution. She was the one under prosecution. She, the mare who’d come to the aid of a friend suffering sexual harassment, was under prosecution. She found it sickening at the thought.
Manny sat down, cast a disdainful eye at Rarity and pulled something out of his coat pocket.
It was a picture he’d taken of Coco, looking scared, in his grip.
Eyes still fixed on Rarity, Manny Collars gave the picture a lick.
Rarity fought hard to hide her anger, watching him sitting there, so nonchalant, so ready to go right back and hurt Coco once again.
“You sick, pathetic creep...I despise you.”
The prosecutor, meanwhile, brushed a forehoof over the points in his mane, stood and gave Rarity an amiable but somewhat arrogant smile, offering his forehoof. She could feel the gel from his mane upon it.
“Rarity Belle? Delighted.” he said in a reedy tone as oily as his mane “Wiremane LeTerrier JD-MBA. My niece is an enthusiast of your designs. I’ll have to avoid talking about this particular case over family dinner.”
Rarity gave a smile, betraying nothing but a lady’s courtesy.
“You may tell her whatever you wish, Mr LeTerrier. I have nothing to hide.”
Wiremane sucked his teeth.
“Not the sort of thing to be very proud of here, under such charges.”
“Has your client told you the whole story?”
“...not in words. But then he’s not the one facing the charges.”
“He will be. And any judge with a shred of moral decency will hear me out when they hear what I have to say.”
Wiremane’s blue eyes glinted.
“Is that right?”
“Indeed, sir.” Rarity replied flatly, pausing a moment as she took note of Manny and Wiremane’s smug confidence.
“Who is the judge?”
The Prosecutor shrugged with a wicked grin.
“Not the most well-known among the judicial circles but I assure you, he’s very keen to be here.”
The doors opened on either side of the court.
Twilight Sparkle cantered down the courthouse to Rarity’s seat. She looked a whole sight more dishevelled than Rarity with her brow pouring with sweat.
“Rarity!” she said shakily “It’s all going wrong! I don’t know what to do! What they’re doing, it’s horrible, it goes against everything we stand for but I can’t get in contact with-”
“Slow down, dear.” Rarity put up a gentle hoof, having to act as the older mare in this rare instance “They’ve started the trial early, it seems.”
“Three hours early! They don’t want you to have a lawyer and they can’t let me serve as one. I can serve as counsel but not much else and even then-”
“Twilight, darling, if I have to represent myself, I will. I know what I’m guilty of and I know who should actually be on trial here. I will say what I need to say to the judge.”
“That’s just it!” Twilight replied frantically “The judge is-”
“Court is in session!” The Bailiff roared “The Right Honourable Bryte Regen-Bogen Collars is in the chair!”
Rarity’s eyes boggled as she stared up at an older, stouter, greyer shadow of Manny Collars looking down upon her with a disdainful look, small round coke-bottle glasses hiding his eyes.
She looked to her friend who looked ready to let the ground swallow her up.
“The case before us is that of the Civil Court of Equestria versus Rarity Saccharina Belle, small-town seamstress and resident drama-queen.” he sniffed loudly, ignoring Rarity and Twilight’s look of outrage “The charge before us is that Rarity Belle did knowingly, deliberately and in full awareness of the severity of her actions deliver grievous bodily harm upon a respected citizen, namely one Mancheron Underhott Collars, in a blind rage brought on by out-of-control histrionic tendencies and feelings of inadequacy. Counsel for the Prosecution, Wiremane LeTerrier JD-MBA, do these charges conclude with your accusations?”
“Perfectly, your honour.” Wiremane said plainly, likely preparing himself for the easiest five-figure sum of his career.
With a vindictive scowl, Bryte Collars turned to Rarity.
“Does the accused argue against their accusations?”
Rarity was still stunned by the sheer madness on display. She mustered a couple of words to the effect of an answer.
“Well...yes...”
“Then do you deny these charges?”
“...no but...”
“You are aware that inflicting such an act of violence upon a citizen of Equestria is against its laws and customs?”
“Of course but-”
“Then if the defence does not possess any evidence to the effect of their innocence, I must conclude the trial-”
“Your honour, I must object!” Twilight Sparkle stood. Bryte Collars slammed his gavel peevishly.
“Order in my court! Miss Twilight Sparkle, you have had your opportunity to bring forth evidence to your...associate’s innocence and you have none!”
“Sir, my client...associate, rather, would like to make a countersue.”
“Overruled!” Bryte snarled “Methods to that effect are very clear, the defendant should have brought such information to the court before the trial began.”
“She was in a federal prison at the time.”
“Then I hardly see it remotely seemly that we should hear an accusation from a convicted criminal!”
“She has not been convicted.”
“Soon remedied.” Bryte Collars pointed a gavel at Twilight Sparkle, himself appearing a much more fervent accuser than the prosecutor himself “I am not blind, Twilight Sparkle! I have sat chairs like this since I first acquired my knighthood and all too often I have seen the civil courts tainted by the manipulations of the overprivileged! Highborn little parasites who believe they can twist the laws simply by being friends with the right mares! I shall not allow it, not in my court! You do not possess credentials as a qualified lawyer and your relationship to the accused is common knowledge! Another word in regards to fanciful claims your associate is not permitted to make and you shall be held in contempt! And may I say, Twilight Sparkle...” he adjusted his spectacles and stared down at her accusingly “I shall be making a public censure in the Equestrian court of law to bar you and others like you from intruding on this courthouse as unofficial counsel, involving yourself in matters you know nothing about! I shall be writing to the Princess personally to ensure both she and you know the cost of trying to bend the law to suit your wishes! Is that clear?!”
“Your honour, I have known Rarity for...”
“Rather less than a decade.” Bryte Collars interrupted “And the company you keep condemns you, Twilight Sparkle, rather than absolves your associate! In fact, I shall take the liberty, in regards to your insistence on defending such an individual thereby wasting the time and resources of the Civil Court, to fine you and your office a sum of a thousand bits.”
“Your honour...” Twilight Sparkle was fighting for breath despite her standing stock-still with a quiet, measured tone to her voice, ignoring Manny Collars’ open laughter.
“I have spoken!”
“My associate would like the court to consider mitigating circumstances.”
At this, the judge snorted loudly.
“Pah! How like you to make such a claim. This is the Civil Court of Equestria, young mare! Unlike some, we do not allow dangerous criminals to get away freely with their deeds and behaviour! Your Princess shall hear of this in vivid detail!”
“She was defending a pony from sexual assault!” the Bearer of the Magic of Friendship finally made her voice heard.
“Liar!” Manny’s laughter abruptly stopped as he stood and screamed in her direction, nearly taking his lawyer off his chair. As the court rumbled, Bryte slammed his gavel so hard it threatened to snap.
“Order!” he roared “The court finds the defence counsel in contempt! The jury is to disregard the previous statement! Such fabrications are beyond reprehensible! You will stay behind to answer for such behaviour, Twilight Sparkle, and I believe the rest of your circle will require serious examination for similar violent potential!” He cleared his throat, the side of his lips twisting.
“Does the Prosecution wish to add anything?”
“Nothing whatsoever, your honour.” Wiremane was checking the soles of his hooves idly.
Rarity stared into the abyss, unable to comprehend anything beyond the enormity of just how suddenly and viciously her liberty, integrity and Celestia knew what else had been robbed from her.
What would happen now? To Coco? Her friends? Her family?
What would Manny do to them with her out of the picture?
A tear hit the wooden desk under Rarity’s muzzle as Twilight Sparkle was shoved back in her chair and Bryte Collars raised his hammer.
“Then I see no reason to delay the outcome of this trial. The court hereby finds the defendant, Rarity Belle...”
The door blowing open and a familiar voice in Rarity and Twilight Sparkle’s ears were as the call of alicorns from Paradise. They turned with alleviated smiles to the figure striding into the court, scrolls under one forehoof, wearing a powdered wig the same blue as his mane with his elegant mustachios and twinkling monocle unmistakable as he announced himself.
“Representative of the Defence. Sir Fancivale Chevalyan Whittlocke Abhimanyu...Basil...Pants, Princess Council, Lord of Briefly Manor, Former-High Magister of the Free City of Trottingham, Knight Commander of the Order of Star-Swirl First-Class, Master Marlin of the Tranquil Lodge of Grammatica Aesthetica, Chairman of the Lowrider Club and Five-Time Winner of Mare’s Magic Magazine ‘Sorry Girls, He’s Taken’ Award.”
He spun round and gave the nonplussed Bryte Collars a ready smile as the judge, cut off at the peak of victory, scrambled for words.
“You...got our message then? That the time and place of the trial...had been changed.”
“Er, no as it happens, I must have missed it.” Fancy adjusted his monocle thoughtfully “Though by a happy coincidence, I was here to wish a friend of mine, Raven Inkwell, good luck for her Masters Examinations. I’m not too late, am I?”
“We were in fact about to conclude the trial.”
Fancypants gave Bryte Collars a curious look, then checked his pocket-watch.
“Trial over in less than ten minutes? Dear me, that is impressive.” he said, sounding none-too-impressed “Are we quite certain all the necessary measures have been taken? Has the Jury been allowed to conduct their own decisions? Has my client been subjected to questions without the supervision of the lawyer she explicitly requested and has every right to wait for?”
“You’re not wanted here!” Manny Collars stood up and snarled. LeTerrier had to urge him back into his seat as Fancypants spun round to sit down at his own.
“Not by the plaintiff, naturally. Now, if we may go over this without making a scene.”
Throwing his jacket tails, he sat down and gave the two mares a gentlecoltly smile.
“How are we this morning, my good ladies?”
“Fancypants!” Rarity gasped “I am indebted!”
“Think nothing of it, Miss Rarity.” he patted her forehoof “When I heard of what happened from your good friend I knew I simply could not take it standing down.”
“I’m so sorry everything got so out-of-control.” Twilight sighed “Bryte Collars is one step ahead. I tried my best but-”
“Dear Twilight, you’ve done better than most in the field under such circumstances.” the gentlecolt said sincerely “It’s disgraceful the way Old Blackball is behaving. It goes against every principle in the field.”
“Blackball?”
“Yes, that’s what we called him in the academy. Bit of a long story. Fifty years and a fortune in the fashion business haven’t changed him a great deal disposition-wise, sad to say.”
“I had no idea you were a lawyer.” Rarity chuckled.
“I’ve led a full life, dear girl, such as it is. I’ve been more than a number of things.” Fancypants said bashfully “Still, that’s for another day. Twilight, how much do we have vis-a-vis the erstwhile trial?”
“Not great. Bryte doesn’t want to let us say anything.”
“It goes deeper than that, I fear. The jury over there...” he pointed to the twelve jurors who had been so silent and motionless throughout that the court had largely ignored them.
“You’ll notice four of them share the Collars colours. Three of them are Blackball’s business partners. The remaining five are ponies with debts to their name with Bryte’s name on the IOUs.”
“It’s disgusting!” Twilight snapped “Doesn’t he know what his son’s done?”
Fancypants sighed.
“How much do fathers know about their sons? How much are they willing to know? A question for later dates. Right now, we must be forthright and cordial. The court is a dance, dear mares and full of trips if one lacks appropriate grace.”
“Understood.” Twilight nodded and stood “Good luck. If you need anything, call for intermission and I’ll see what I can do.”
“Righto old filly.” Fancypants adjusted his monocle again and readied himself.
“In regards to the fact that my client was unable to meet with the representing bodies of authority to present her countersue owing to the fact that the trial began three hours earlier than expected, thus the lateness of her claim resting on our shoulders rather than hers, I move that we hear her out immediately and without interruption.”
“And what?” Bryte Collars snarled “Let her lie, bare-faced, to the civil court?”
LeTerrier cleared his throat, wondering exactly what he was here for if the judge was going to do his job.
“It is the plaintiff’s claim that the accused if not of sound mind and thereby cannot be considered a credible source.”
“Surely, Mr LeTerrier, if you remember your studies, that is in the case of a witness, not the accused.” Fancypants gave him and both Collars’ a stern look “Is it not the right of any pony in Equestria’s court to make whatever claim they deem just? Elsewise, what place have we judging what we do not allow to be judged?”
“I would have expected you to have learned, Fancypants that rights are forfeit in the case of dangerous criminals.”
“My client does not wear that moniker.”
“But will do so when found guilty. So I hardly see it necessary to hear what she may have to say.”
Fancypants raised an eyebrow at the judge in a manner that betrayed contempt.
“You may hardly see it necessary, your honour, for reasons I am not privy to. But does the court?”
Bryte Collars’ lips twisted furiously behind clenched teeth but he said nothing.
Fancypants nodded curtly and proclaimed.
“The Civil Court of Equestria will hear from the defence.”
Rarity brushed her mane with one forehoof and took the speaker’s chair, standing before the court with a tired but dignified face. Fancypants approached the podium and begun.
“You are a Miss Rarity Belle of Carousel Boutique, Ponyville?”
“I am.”
“And you did see your accuser on the date described in the plaintiff’s statement?”
“Yes.”
“Was this the first time?”
“No.”
“Can you describe your relationship with the accuser.”
“...Short answer? None too fond.”
There was a murmur from the court as Manny Collars fixed her a look of hatred.
“Can you describe what had happened on that particular day and the events leading to it.”
“Certainly. And how refreshing it is to be asked that in this house.” she gave the judge a brusque glance as she described in detail her side of the story. No sooner had she said Coco Pommel’s name than Manny Collars burst.
“She’s lying! You can’t trust a word she says! You!” he jabbed a forehoof at the stunned stenographer “Stop writing this down! Tell them, father!”
Wiremane pulled him down as Bryte gave his gavel a slightly feeble slam.
Rarity examined her accuser’s reaction and focussed hard.
She always spoke of Coco by her full name or just as ‘my assistant’.
Then she began to speak of the moment she’d caught Manny bending ‘her assistant’ over in the fabrics room while ‘Coco Pommel’ was very clearly sobbing in despair.
“Upon catching such a thing with the naked eye, well...I confess to say I rather lost my temper. The end results being the injuries Mr Collars sustained in his claim, about the only true thing in the whole sorry statement.”
“You lying bitch!”
“Order!” Bryte was starting to lose patience with his son.
“And you considered such an action warranted?”
“Very.” Rarity replied plainly “He had been sexually harassing my assistant, my dear friend, for the duration of his patronage. I too bear some blame in the affair but only in regards to not noticing it taking place under my muzzle. If I must be punished for it, then very well. But I shall not be punished for the measures I took to protect an innocent pony in my care.”
“Was there anything else you did?”
“Yes. I burned his cheque and tore the half-finished clothes design he’d commissioned in front of Manny and Coco, declaring his patronage at an end and departed inside to tend to my assistant whose emotional injuries were deeper and more painful than injury Manny Collars sustained, many times over.”
As the court murmured again, throwing a number of condemning looks at Manny Collars. Rarity bent down and whispered to her lawyer who nodded with a wry smile.
“Thank you, Miss Rarity, that will be all. Now, I call to the stand, Mr Manny Collars.”
Manny Collars, wearing an uncomfortable expression, stood where Rarity had a moment ago.
“Mr Collars. Do you know of this pony, Coco Pommel, mentioned in Miss Rarity’s statement?”
“No. Absolutely not. She’s lying.” Manny spoke through gritted teeth.
Fancy pressed the switch in Manny’s head.
“Are you certain? It is Miss Rarity’s insistence that you do indeed know Coco Pommel.”
“Well, I don’t! I don’t know her! I’ve never met her! She doesn’t exist! Do you understand?!”
He’d clicked. Fancypants gave a smirk as he spoke as gently and properly as ever.
“Mr Collars, your honour, members of the court...I would like to point out that at no point did I or Miss Rarity or anypony else in this court...explicitly refer to the pony known as Coco Pommel as ‘her’.”
One could have heard a pin drop. The only movement was the colour soundly retreating from Manny Collars’ face.
Wiremane LeTerrier’s expression had changed from smug and self-assured to something quite different. He appeared troubled. Not just by the fact that his client seemed to have put his hoof in it but more indicatively that he was not aware there had been any ‘it’ to put a hoof in.
Bryte was nearly shaking as he spoke.
“Does the prosecution offer any objection?”
Wiremane gave him a look.
“No, your honour. Mr Fancypants has simply stated a fact. It is not my place to object to those.”
Both Collars’ stared at their lawyer venomously as Manny choked on his words.
“S-stop this.”
“Mr Collars, I must ask how did you know Miss Coco Pommel was a mare if you had never seen or heard of her?”
“Well...it was obvious!”
“How? It would not be improbable for the name ‘Coco’ to be that of a stallion’s. And stallions can be victims of sexual harassment.”
Manny Collars’ acid eyes boggled.
“You think I’d go after a stallion?! I’m not some kind of freak!”
Fancy looked at him.
“I didn’t say you were. Nor would you be if you found stallions attractive.” He tilted his monocle “In fact, the one thing I and, I would be fair to say, the members of the court find ‘freakish’ is the idea of forcing one’s attentions on a pony against their will, regardless of their gender.”
“Stop it.” Manny burbled “Stop...stop asking me these questions! Father, make him stop!”
“Order.” Bryte said the word more like a desperate reassurance than a command “Does the prosecution wish to object?”
“It depends.” Wiremane glanced at Fancypants “Has the counsel for the defence finished questioning my client?”
“Why, yes, Mr LeTerrier, I believe so. No further questions.”
“Then I see no reason to object. However, your honour, may I request a moment’s intermission?”
“Granted!” Bryte didn’t need telling twice.
Manny stormed out of the podium and stared his lawyer in the face, blazing from the eyes and mouth.
“What kind of lawyer are you?! What am I paying you for! You’re meant to get me-”
“Young stallion...” Wiremane LeTerrier raised his pen-point in front of Manny’s muzzle, his voice as curt and stern as a disapproving schoolteacher.
“Never...lie...to your lawyer. We are going over your case again and this time you will give me the truth and nothing else. It will change nothing except my opinions on you, which will not affect my performance in court. I may not like the case but I respect the job, something you and your father should understand. I will prove you innocent if I can but I have absolutely no intention of proving you above the law. Now...” he got to his hooves, hauling his client up out of the room “Let’s start from the beginning.”
Fancypants, Rarity and Twilight watched them leave, feeling a whole lot more reassured.
“Heh. Never pick a lawyer with pride.” Fancypants chuckled “I knew Wiremane from the academy, old bounder. He is ambitious and sly and I’ve always found him a tad too smug for my liking but he has standards and we can count on him to play by the rules. He’ll lie if he can but he won’t persist if caught out. Old Blackball, on the other hoof...”
“I’ll keep an eye on him.” Twilight said, patting Rarity on the shoulder “That was a clever trick you pulled there, Rares.”
“I read a lot of detective novels in my spare time. And as an entrepreneur, one develops a skill for hearing what one does not necessarily hear.”
“Corking show, old mare.” Fancypants congratulated her “Now, as luck would have it, I have a few items that may aid us at some point in the proceedings...” He reached inside his jacket pocket and retrieved a set of photos. She showed them to the two mares with a wry smile, “Now, what would you make of this?”
Twilight and Rarity stared a moment. Blush steadily rose to their cheeks as Rarity cupped her mouth with a forehoof and Twilight spoke nervously.
“Gosh...er...Is it safe for Miss Fleur-de-Lis to hold that sort of position? Those ropes look pretty tight. And then there’s the sundae there...is it cherry? Looks like cherry.”
Fancy checked them, dropped his monocle in shock and fumbled to retrieve them, grinning with embarrassment.
“Oh golly! Sorry, old girl. Those were just some ah...mementoes, you understand...Let me just...ah, here’s the little devil!” He pulled out another set of photos. A set of various social events with assorted richly-dressed fellows. Manny Collars could be seen circled with red ink. Beside him in each one was a different mare, wearing expressions of varying discomfort as Manny Collars hung on them.
“So...poor Coco isn’t the only one.” Rarity hissed “Still, the picture’s vague and it didn’t tell us much.”
“So it would seem but it could lead to something bigger.” Fancy shook his head “In the social circles I’ve seen, I’ve come to realise that there is no such thing as a one-time sexual harasser. They like to feel like they can play the field freely and use the same dirty tricks to get away with it. But prove one case and all those before will come back to haunt the bounders.”
“A domino effect...” Rarity smirked “I like it.”
“Good luck, you two. I’ll speak with Peregrine. He can get our friends in here. That’ll make sure...” She stopped as the crystal communicator wrapped around her hoof blinked. Her horn lightning up to receive it, she spoke.
“Yes? Pinkie, hi, yeah, don’t worry, we...What?! My gosh! Are you...Yeah, I’ll be right over. I’ll let them know.”
The lavender unicorn stared down again, her face once more a picture of dread.
“It’s Coco...” she murmured, “She’s in hospital. She...she tried to kill herself.”
Matron Nightnurse and Nurses Redheart and Tenderheart were present in the room, their faces grave.
Upon Twilight’s shoulder was Pinkie Pie, quietly crying.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” she whimpered “I only looked away for a minute. She said she was gonna’ help me make grilled cheese sandwiches. I shouldn’t have let her hold a knife!”
“Miss Pie, please don’t beat yourself up.” Nightnurse rubbed her shoulder gently “You acted commendably quickly and did well to bandage the wound and press off the circulation. Older ponies than you have made worse mistakes.”
The bright little pink mare sniffed and managed a half-smile.
“Thanks, ma’am...Fluttershy gave me lessons.”
Nurse Redheart nodded and explained to Twilight Sparkle.
“She attempted to slit her own fetlocks. She’d cut into one by the time Pinkie had caught her.” she said “We’ve managed to reattach the vital artery but she’ll probably be bed-ridden for some time. Absolute respite. At the time of her injury, we’ve found out from her scans she was showing signs of dangerous stress-levels.”
“She woke up screaming in the night. I had to sing her a lullaby.”
“I see...” Twilight brushed a forehoof over the underside of her muzzle “So...how soon will she be conscious?”
“Soon after tomorrow. Our priority is keeping her calm to prevent a severe nervous attack.”
“I see...” Her forehoof travelled across her mane, nursing a migraine “Okay...Okay...I think we might be able to save this...Rarity had the whole scene on the crystal ball.”
“Bad news on that particular front.” Sassy Saddles swept round the doorway, her face a bigger picture of anxiety than normal “When the Collars colts came to bundle up Rarity, they broke into the surveillance room. The Crystal Ball’s been left broken. And the recording crystal’s been taken.”
Twilight cursed. On a normal day, Pinkie Pie would have assured her that whenever a pony used words like that, a little chocolate cupcake cries but this was not a normal day.
“Okay...I need to let Fancypants know. He might know somepony who can lend a hoof.”
Fancypants toyed with his moustache with one forehoof.
“So the Collars family really are set on the old smokescreen.”
“And where does that leave Coco?” Rarity rubbed her forehead in frustration “The only way we’re going to get anywhere with Bryte Collars is with solid, indisputable evidence. And I’m not sure we should let Coco Pommel into the court, that level of stress might finish her. Poor darling...”
“Well...fear not, I believe I know somepony most adept at acquiring such valuables.” Fancy got to his forehooves “In the meantime, let us continue...”
*
The gavel slammed as the court was called to order.
“Does the prosecution wish to speak?”
Wiremane shuffled.
“In regards to the very powerful summary from Miss Rarity, I move to call my client to the stand once again to explain events as they took place. In haste we neglected formalities earlier. Let us remedy that.”
“Carried.” Bryte Collars said in a somewhat more relaxed tone.
With a stiff, tense trot, Manny Collars made his way to the podium.
A different story was sung. It took all of Rarity’s resolution not to rage at the audacity.
“We’re in love.” Manny Collars appeared to be crying “Coco Pommel and me. I got to know her while I was at Carousel Boutique. I didn’t want to say anything because...I was afraid of getting her involved.”
‘I’ll bet you were, you filthy liar.’ Rarity snarled under her breath, flat-faced and dead-eyed.
“Rarity hates her. She hates how pretty she is compared to her! She works her to death and beats her. She told me herself. That’s why we started meeting secretly. But then she caught us. Threw me out of the building and...look at me! Look at me!”
“Yes, yes, that’s enough.” LeTerrier reassured him, turning to the court “It may be worth pointing out, members of the court, that Coco Pommel, who my client has said he has feelings for, was admitted to hospital late this morning, having attempted suicide. Make of that, ladies and gentlecolts, what you will...But in light of the serious circumstances, perhaps the members of the court would understand why my client was not entirely honest with them when this trial began.”
“Of course. Most certainly.” Bryte Collars pretended to dab at the corner of his eyes with a handkerchief, “I think we may continue, and hopefully, conclude the trial, knowing justice will be done.”
“May I interject, your honour?” Fancypants began, ignoring Bryte Collars’ scoff.
“Say what you will, counsel for the defence but it’ll hardly change anypony’s opinions of you or your client.”
“I endeavour to differ, your honour. Mr Collars,” Fancy stood and spoke “Coco Pommel attempted suicide shortly after the trial began. At the time, there was little to indicate that Rarity would not be found guilty. With that in mind, if your version of events is correct, why would Miss Pommel make such an attempt on her life knowing her abuser would be imprisoned and the love of her life taking care of her?”
Manny Collars gripped the side of the podium but Wiremane LeTerrier held up a hoof and answered.
“I direct you to who Rarity had keep an eye on her. A Miss Pinkie Pie of Sugar Cube Corner, Ponyville, a known friend and associate of Rarity and a pony whom several have described as ‘erratic and unpredictable’. Surely it was inevitable that Miss Pommel felt overwhelmed, perhaps even threatened by this turn of events?”
‘Clever.’ Fancypants hissed under his breath as the court murmured again “Even so, it seems curious how you, Mr Collars, were chief object of her wrath while, according to the hospital records, Miss Pommel showed little to no signs of prior assault or injury.”
“Mr Pants, accusing a victim of such a heinous crime of lying weighs heavily on your reputation!” Bryte Collars barked.
“Oh, shut up you overblown sack of dog-leavings, Coco is the victim, not your vile son and I’m going to prove that despite whatever either of you bastards throw in my way and then you’re both for it, do you hear?!”
...is what Fancypants would have liked to have said.
Instead he simply kept quiet as something went on in the podium.
“It should have been me.” Manny Collars had started whimpering “It should have been me who cut through my fetlocks! I know! I know I’ll do it after all this, oh Celestia, I hate it! I hate it all! I’ll kill myself, you’ll see!”
“Mr Collars, please!” Wiremane LeTerrier interceded “Apologies, my client is clearly suffering from emotional...”
“It is quite alright. Plaintiff please be seated.” Bryte put his hooves together calmly “May the Jury please keep in mind the colossal emotional turmoil the plaintiff has experienced so that hopefully we may conclude this trial soon for the benefit of those wronged.”
Fancypants felt she could take no more of this almighty hypocrisy but Rarity leaned in and whispered.
“Let it slide. Let him dig his own grave and be ready to push.”
“Ah, another of your cunning little bluffs, Miss Rarity?”
“Manny Collars, in the short time I’ve known him, has demonstrated himself to be self-centred, ill-tempered and narrow-minded. You’ll notice in his little fret there, he at no point mentioned Coco Pommel. He betrays his own lack of compassion. It’s my theory that the story about him and Coco being...” she shuddered at the word “...lovers is a story he’s been fed. My best guess is LeTerrier but we can’t rule his father out. Left to his own devices, he’ll incriminate himself. Our real obstacle is the judge.”
“Hm...worth keeping in mind. If all goes well on the evidence retrieval front, I think we can corner him. In the meantime, I’ve managed to allow Photo Finish access to the court as a journalist. We can ensure the public’s opinion on the matter will be received, unadulterated. So if we can stall for time...though I dread to think of you spending another night in jail.”
“I can take it. My concern is Coco’s well-being...such as that is at the moment.” Rarity shook her head “In any case, the first hurdle is Manny. I have a very firm notion that he is not the sort of pony to get away with his behaviour on a regular basis without some form of help.”
“I rather like your way of thinking, Miss Rarity. Righto, on we press.” He stood and spoke “I believe that a better picture of Miss Rarity’s character is called for. So I call upon a pony who my client has raised and taken care of for a large portion of her life. I call to witness Miss Sweetie Belle.”
“Mr Fancypants!” Bryte Collars thundered “This is most unseemly! The witness’s relationship with the accused would compromise her statements!”
Rarity couldn’t help but subtly snigger at the double standards as Fancypants answered
“Your honour, with respect, I believe you’re confusing a witness with an investigator.”
“Um...why is the big pony up there shouting?” she mumbled.
“It’s quite alright, Miss Sweetie Belle. Would you come up here, please?” Fancypants said gently.
The filly brightened.
“Okay, Mr Pants.” she tottered up and took her seat.
“Now, Miss Sweetie Belle. You are Miss Rarity Belle’s younger sister, correct?”
“Sure.”
“And you, for the majority of your time here in Ponyville, have lived with your little sister?”
“Yep.” She waved merrily “Hi, Rarity!”
Rarity gave a little wave and a sweet smile to her little sister as Bryte Collars banged the gavel.
“Right. Now, speaking honestly, Miss Sweetie Belle, would you describe your elder sister as one who is prone to violent rages?”
Sweetie gave a quizzical look.
“Rarity? Violent rages? I mean, she gets angry, sure...quite a lot, actually, but not violent! I mean, I know my sister. She’d never hit me or anypony I know. She wouldn’t even use her magic. She just yells. She gets very high-pitched and goes ‘Sweetie Belle, for the love of all things Celestial, can I not take my eyes off you for a mere five minutes?!’” she did a startling impression of her elder sister who returned her a bemused look “‘I mean how did you even accomplish getting it on the ceiling?! Sweetie Belle, sometimes you are simply impossible and don’t think you’re getting out of cleaning this up yourself!’ That’s what she’s like. I think she likes the sound of her own voice.”
“Right...ahem.” Fancypants cleared his throat in the precariousness “But not violent? Or hurtful?”
“No way, nuh-uh, no chance whatsoever!” Sweetie said adamantly “She hates that kind of stuff. I mean, when she’s angry, you’ll know about it but it’s just words. I mean, it’s bad when it happens but it’s not like...intentionally nasty or anything.”
“So if you heard that she had beat somepony with her forehooves and injured them through certain means in a rage...what would you assume?”
Sweetie blinked, looking at her sister, then the stallion accusing her, then to Fancypants.
“Well...they’d have had to have done something reeeeaaaaalllllly bad.”
“I see. Interesting.” Fancypants said “Now, are you familiar with your older sister’s assistant, Coco Pommel?”
“Coco? Yeah, she’s really nice.” Sweetie beamed.
“To your knowledge, is your sister’s relationship with her assistant pleasant?”
“Sure! She loves Coco, she’s like family to her. When she first met her, she’d just gotten away from Suri Polomare. She’s a horrible, greedy Manehattan mare who stole Rarity’s designs.” Sweetie stamped a forehoof “She treated Coco like dirt so she quit and went to work with Rarity. She’s always loved it at Carousel Boutique and she’s become really good friends with all of us. If ever there’s a problem and Rarity’s really caught up in work, she lets us know.”
“So if Rarity’s behaviour had gotten...out-of-hoof, she would let you know?”
“Yep. I mean, she loves Rarity like the rest of us but she knows when she’s losing it a bit and she tells us so we can help out however we can.”
“So Rarity can sometimes find herself under high-stress levels.”
“Well, yeah. It comes with the job, I suppose.” Sweetie shrugged “But she’s not dangerous when that happens.”
“And what have you to say in regards to the idea that she secretly hates her assistant and beats her out of jealousy?”
At this, Sweetie Belle burst out laughing suddenly. It took Bryte three cracks of his gavel for it to cease.
“Are you serious?!” she gasped for air “I mean, even if she did hate Coco, which she doesn’t; she’d make it known if she did...Look, Rarity is many things, a lot of them good, but she’s not especially quiet, especially when she has a problem!”
“I see.” Fancypants nodded “So the idea that she was secretly abusing Coco behind the backs of her friends and beat her lover half to death...”
Sweetie blinked.
“Well...what do I say to that?”
“Do you suppose it’s incredulous?”
“Um...I don’t quite know what incredulous means but if it means ‘So ridiculous that if I saw it in a dream, I’d ask Princess Luna to take tablets for it’ then yes, it’s incredibly incredulous. It’s ‘incredibulous’, if that’s a word.”
“Understood, Miss Sweetie Belle, no further questions.”
Sweetie gave him a plaintive look. She knew Fancypants when she’d come with her older sister to one of his dinner parties. A more polite and tolerant stallion she had never seen. And she adored his beautiful, fun-loving wife who, for a while, she’d started emulating in terms of style and manner, reading her lifestyle habits in the magazines Rarity read.
“Is Rarity going to be okay, Mr Pants?” she asked with a small sniffle.
Fancy gave a bashful look.
“I hope so, Miss Sweetie Belle. Rest assured, you’ve done very well, young filly. You can sit down now.”
The little filly clambered down off the podium and passed her elder sister. Despite herself, she couldn’t help but turn to speak to her, tears appearing in the corners of her eyes as she spoke.
“Mum and dad weren’t allowed to come in but they both really love you...and so do I.”
Rarity couldn’t help but smile sweetly, her own eyes brimming, as a large portion of the court ‘awwed’ collectively. Bryte Collars slammed his gavel.
“Order! Mr Fancypants, I struggle to understand what that accomplished. In fact, I would go so far as to declare the witness devoid of credibility and strike the entirety of her statement from the record!”
“Objection your honour.” Eyes turned to Wiremane LeTerrier, flat-faced and solemn “The witness was lacking in credibility, certainly, but there is nothing she said or did to warrant her statement removed.”
Both Collars’ stared boggle-eyed at their lawyer.
“I concur with the Prosecutor’s statement.” Fancy spun on his hooves to face them “It is said that when you remove a pony’s tongue, you do not prove them a liar but that you fear what they might say.”
Before Bryte could respond, Sweetie stood, Fluttershy minded her gently, and asked fearfully.
“Are they gonna’ cut out my tongue?! Nopony told me they’d do that?!”
Fancy turned, raised a hoof and gently but firmly gestured for the filly to sit down.
“No, no, Miss Sweetie Belle, it’s a phrase, old custom, nopony’s cutting anything anywhere. Please remain seated. Sorry for startling you.”
Sniffing Sweetie Belle sat down and rested under Fluttershy’s wing who rubbed her shoulder and shh-shh’ed her motheringly.
The side of Bryte’s lips twisted but he rested his gavel.
“Very well. We shall call for another intermission. But by this afternoon, if the defence cannot bring forth any evidence to their counterclaim, Miss Rarity shall be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and you, Mr Fancypants, shall answer for attempting to pervert the course of justice so relentlessly.”
With a slam of the hammer, the court was emptied for the second time. Fancy checked his pocket-watch and motioned Rarity for the door.
“Unless I’m very much mistaken, now should be the time when we may meet with...”
The sultry Prench purr of Fleur-de-Lis sounded in the study as Fancypants and Rarity entered to find the supermodel perched over the desk, a candied cherry between her lips.
“My goddess.” Fancypants chuckled and kissed her before straightening up and introducing his friend in the same breath “You remember Miss Rarity of Carousel Boutique.”
“Of course.” Fleur got to her hooves and trotted up, planting two kisses on Rarity’s cheeks “So good to see you, ma petite amie!”
“Ça va bien, Fleur, under the circumstances.” Rarity brushed at her mane “Oh dear, first thing I’m doing after this case is washing my mane. In the comfort of my own home or in the prison showers, I really don’t care which!” She sat down “Apologies, today hasn’t been spectacular.”
“Ne t’inquiète pas.” Fleur sat down beside her and reached behind her mane, pulling something out “I know a way to change that quite swiftly...”
She retrieved something. A tiny little crystal.
“Voila!”
Fancypants and Rarity’s eyes widened at the sight of it.
“I checked it on the crystal ball back home, Fancy. It’s the one. And I tell you, that pervert deserves bars on his windows.”
“He’ll get them, my dove. He’ll get them.”
“My recording!” Rarity exclaimed “But how did you...”
Fleur shrugged modestly.
“It wasn’t easy...”
…
With her mane tied up and given a blue rinse, Fleur de Lis was virtually indistinguishable. Closer and closer she edged her way towards her target.
She’d identified Sergeant Brill as one of the foremost members of Collars family private protection group. She’d known he had led the raid on Carousel Boutique and he knew he had not yet hoofed in his report and any confiscated items. Now he was covering his uniform with a plain, grey coat as he sat the bar, drink in hoof.
Fleur checked the soles of her hooves as she edged closer.
“You come here often?” she asked cooly as Brill noticed her.
The tall, lanky, spectacled and badly-shaved stallion gave her an odd look.
“Uh...yeah, ma’am.”
Fleur shrugged.
“I don’t.” She turned her head “Maybe it’s fate...or just somepony’s lucky day.”
“Uh...maybe.” Brill wasn’t really giving much of an expression. Fleur turned on her special senses. She could tell what ponies were into like a birdwatcher could tell a call.
She gazed.
‘Oh...oh Celestia, no! No, I’m not touching that one with a barge-pole!’
Hiding her nausea behind a flat smile, she set the events in motion, calling out the ‘go’ phrase.
“I need another Boufagnac. With another cherry.”
As she sided up to Brill, there came a commotion that turned both of their heads.
A strange, rugged-looking stallion with a swarthy longcoat and an unkempt look to him had swaggered over to a trio of stallions already under too much headiness. Putting a hood on the table in front of them, he stared at them, sniffed loudly and made a deduction.
“Caracal...” he stated, pointing to one of them “That’s your deodorant, isn’t it?”
“Huh?” the biggest of the three started “Uh...yeah.”
“Ah...thought I recognised it.” The stranger sounded quite well-brought-up in terms of accent but not so much in everything else.
“Why? You use it?”
The stranger shrugged with a chuckle, leaning in.
“Sometimes...when your wife lets me borrow it!”
The sound of a punch and glasses flying drowned out the sound of a hoof darting subtly in and out of a coat pocket.
Fleur got to her hooves.
“Sorry...this sort of thing ruins my train of thought.”
“Oh, uh...sure.” Brill checked his watch “I’ve places to be too.”
“Such is life. Au revoir.”
And with a flash, she’d teleported out of the bar before Brill, or anypony else could blink, the rest of the bar too caught up trying to throw the stranger out by his hind-legs.
Renegade was rubbing his cheek with a slight wince and walking rather unevenly by the time he met his contact at the back of the bar. The air smelt of stale cigarettes and ammonia. Not the sort of place one found a supermodel.
But the sort of place one might find a special agent.
Fleur-de-Lis threw her contact a napkin.
“Wipe yourself off. You’re bleeding.” she said flatly.
Renegade dabbed at his split lip and spat in the corner.
“It’s not like he didn’t know his wife was shagging on the side.” he muttered “Tick in the corner of his eye, more laughter than called for, drinking cheap but treating friends? Tell-Tale signs.”
“Intéressante.” Fleur chuckled “I’ll have to remember that.”
“I mean, it’s not like I said I was sleeping with his mother...although it wouldn't necessarily be untrue...probably.”
“Well, who is his mother?”
“Some mare. They usually are.” Renegade said with a shrug “So you got when you went in for then?”
Fleur held up the crystal with a proud smirk. Renegade gave her a golf-clap.
“I’d better be off. They’re throwing another parade for me at the mess...and I want to be there to tell my COs where they can stick it.”
Fleur giggled.
“You know, when Fancy needs to create a distraction for me, he usually just buys everypony in the club champagne.”
“Well, la-di-dah. It’s not like those dolts would appreciate a decent vintage anyhow. And with that, madam, I bid you adieu.” Renegade gave a curt scoff, lit a cigar and waltzed into the shadows, leaving Fleur to do the same.
Their work was done.
*
Fancypants and Rarity walked back into the civil court with something of a swagger in their step.
“Court resumed.” Bryte Collars meanwhile was starting to show his impatience “Has the defence anything, absolutely anything, that proves their claim?”
“As it happens...” Fancypants spun merrily in the centre of the court “We do.”
As he tossed the crystal in one forehoof, both Bryte and Manny Collars stood up with shock.
“Where did you get that?!” Manny screamed.
Both Fancypants and Wiremane gave him a measured look.
“I hardly think that sort of reaction is warranted, Mr Collars, for something you do not know the purpose of...or is there something you aren’t telling us?”
“I...I...”
“Mr Fancypants...” Bryte said, dabbing at his brow “Is this sort of evidence...appropriate for a civil court?”
“Granted, your honour.” He inserted the crystal into the base of the crystal ball the bailiff produced and turned to the court “Some of you may find this...disturbing.”
The crystal ball lit up, projecting its image into the centre of the room.
The court watched exactly what Rarity had watched with largely the same expressions throughout. Disgust and horror filled the faces of all before them. Even Wiremane LeTerrier looked repulsed and noticeably edged his chair away from his client. Photo Finish’s eyes seemed to widen in their spectacles as she caught the whole thing on camera.
Manny Collars’ face twisted, twitched and writhed like a plate of worms and right when he saw Rarity burst in, he babbled out at the top of his lungs.
“It was all an act! She likes me talking like that! It’s a turn-on for her! You’ve got to believe me!”
“Sit. Down.” Wiremane barked, his face flat.
Bryte slammed his gavel, wiped the back of his neck with a handkerchief, and spoke.
“Perhaps...in light of the plaintiff’s statement that this was consensual-”
“Objection, your honour.” It was Wiremane who spoke.
“Mr LeTerrier, why are you objecting to your own client’s statements?!” Brye bellowed at his lawyer who shrugged dismissively.
“My client did not mention this when he gave his statement. Therefore, it cannot be added to in light of contradictory evidence.”
“Th-this is not evidence!” Bryte snapped “This...How did the defence acquire it?! Truthfully, now! Was it through legitimate means?!”
Fancypants face fell. He couldn’t lie in court, else he was no better than the Collars’.
“The evidence had been taken by illegitimate sources beforehoof. There was no other-”
“Overruled!” Bryte was close to screaming, a grimace of triumph etched across his features “If this evidence was not acquired through legitimate, read any means by which the owner was subjected to deceit or coercion, it is inadmissible!
“Are you saying, your honour...” Fancypants gave his monocle a curt adjust “...that I cannot deliver proof of the plaintiff’s sexual abuse without his permission?!”
“That is the law, Mr Fancypants. And you have broken it. Thus your judge, and with him the court, find the defence in co-”
“Wait!”
Breathless and wide-eyed cantered Twilight Sparkle, throwing open the doors and yelling for all to hear. Spike tottered in afterwards and belted after her.
“I object!”
There was a pause as all stared dumbfounded at the newcomers.
Twilight coughed and whispered to her assistant.
“That’s for weddings, Spike.”
“Oh yeah...sorry.”
“What is the meaning of this?!” Bryte thundered, purple in the face which, Rarity had to admit, went nicely with the green coat below, if looking slightly too much like a plum on its stalk “I have already told you the defence counsel of Twilight Sparkle has already been found in contempt!”
Twilight stood and spoke firmly to the old stallion who’d imagined himself in control.
“I come not as a defence counsel, your honour, but a humble messenger. I come to tell the court...that Coco Pommel has come to bear witness.”
The court was locked into silence, the only noise being the faint whine of a wheelchair as Nightnurse carefully carried a sullen-looking Coco Pommel into the courthouse. Rarity’s young assistant’s eyes were wide and nervous and couldn’t meet with her harasser who had risen to his hooves with a face that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a violently-unhinged Windigo. As Nightnurse helped her to the podium, she spoke a moment.
“I would like to point out that, due to the witness’s injuries, a member of the medical staff must ensure she is supported. Her blood-loss has made her physically frail but she insists on speaking her today in court to make her statement.”
Bryte Collars’ face was twitching and quivering so much it may as well have been sculpted from jello.
“You are certain this witness is credible?” he blurted out.
“Your honour, she’s the victim of the sexual harassment in the claim of my client.” Fancypants said plainly “She’s as credible as we’re going to get.”
“...does the prosecution object?”
Wiremane was flat-faced and sullen.
“No, your honour. I have invited the defence to prove their claim. I will not stop them in the attempt, merely judge the effect of it.”
“What are you doing?!” Manny hissed.
“My job.” his lawyer answered plainly “Now let’s have some quiet. Let her speak.”
Coco looked out at the crowd and took a deep breath. Fancypants walked slowly over to the new witness and spoke gently.
“Miss Coco Pommel...have you seen what is on the recording crystal from your employer’s security room?”
Coco shuddered as she answered, her voice quiet and shaky.
“I don’t have to. I...I was there...”
“Of course. But, for the interest of protocol, to confirm whose claim is correct...is it true that what we are seeing is the plaintiff, Manny Collars, forcing you into a sexual situation against your will?”
Coco winced as she mustered up the answer.
As she opened her mouth, Manny Collars’ screech cut her off.
“DON’T YOU DARE! DON’T YOU BUCKING DARE! DON’T YOU SAY ONE WORD!”
“Order!” The hammer finally came down on Manny’s side of the court. Wiremane pulled his client into his seat.
Fancypants gave him a sickened look and spoke to the plaintiff’s father.
“Permission to have the plaintiff held in contempt, your honour? He’s displayed less temperance than anypony threatened with the same today.”
Bryte pressed a forehoof against his brow, a vein showing in his forehead.
“The plaintiff will be silent for the duration of the witness’s statement.”
Manny stared, goggle-eyed.
“But father, she-”
“That’s an order!” he roared as Coco caught her breath back and willed herself to continue.
“Yes...Manny Collars came to Carousel Boutique and, during his visits, he’d...he wouldn’t leave me alone...no matter how many times I asked...and he’d touch me...he’d say horrible things to me...and he said if I didn’t let him or told anypony, he’d use his money to send ponies after Rarity...or Sweetie Belle...”
“I see.” Fancypants said with a nod, “And afterwards...the incident where Rarity caught him...”
“He was going to...try harder...” Coco answered with a sniffle, “He liked the fact I was crying...he wanted me to be afraid of him, he said it felt ‘right’.”
There were murmurs among the court. Manny was staring at his desk as if he was planning to break it.
Photo Finish was catching the whole thing. As Twilight and Fancypants had hoped she would.
If they were right...
“And...Rarity came to your aid. The attack she made on Manny Collars was in your defence.”
“Yes, yes, of course.” Coco said sincerely “She wouldn’t raise her hoof against anypony for anything less.”
“I see...” Fancypants brushed his chin with a forehoof “And...if you would be comfortable answering...the reason you took it upon yourself to...harm yourself?”
Tears welled up in Coco’s eyes as she came close to positively squeaking the words.
“...I saw Rarity in prison...and then I heard that Mr Collars’ father was the judge...that the trial had started without her lawyer...Rarity’s parents and Applejack told me they’d been barred from the court. I felt sure that Rarity was going to prison for...for something I...”
“Don’t.” Fancypants interrupted her gently, bringing forth a handkerchief, forgetting court protocol for a moment to tend to a mare in distress for nothing else would befit a gentlecolt “It was not your fault.”
“I should have said...”
“You should’ve...but you couldn’t. There are few who could under such threats as he made. Know that today...you have shown bravery beyond description. Would you like to sit down now?”
“...okay...”
The quiet, quivering Coco Pommel was taken round the count, avoiding Manny Collars, and sat down beside Sweetie Belle who reached over to hug her as gently as it would allow.
Fancypants turned to the court victoriously.
“Your honour.” he announced “You asked me to bring full and indisputable evidence to the claim that Rarity Belle assaulted Manny Collars in order to defend her assistant, Coco Pommel, from his sexual harassment. Material evidence of the recording crystal and verbal confirmation of Coco Pommel’s claim have been brought forth to the Civil Court, retrieved from a private place of holding where it was originally to be held illegally from the court. The claim of my client stands verified and the claim the plaintiff, sitting there before you so full of venom, has been refuted once, again and over. And with that, your honour, the defence rests.”
Bryte Collars’ expression had turned flat. The hoof that held his gavel was shaking.
He was staring at his son with eyes that blinked wildly, as if trying to see something other than what he’d been shown.
Clearing his throat hard, he steeled himself, his voice low and somewhat pained.
“I see...that it is clear this was a highly inappropriate act on the plaintiff’s part...all evidence confirms it.”
Manny stared at his father with shock and opened his mouth but no words came out.
“But perhaps...” Bryte swallowed hard “We may look at this as a serious lapse in self-restraint. Ensure proper procedures are in place so that the culprit may receive better...mindfulness of his actions...so that this may not be repeated.”
“Your honour?” One of the bailiffs looked up from a phone whose ringing had largely gone unnoticed in the fracas presiding “I’m afraid that door seems to have shut already. I’ve been speaking to a Miss Gardenia of Manehattan. She says she’s been watching the feed of the court case, as supplied to the news by Miss Photo Finish, and having seen Coco Pommel bring evidence to Manny Collars’ sexual harassment, she wishes to say that the same thing happened to her three years ago at a social gathering. Manny Collars cornered her in her chamber and molested her for the duration of his visit over a period of six days.”
Bryte stared speechless at the bailiff while his son gave a strangulated sound, one forehoof slamming into the desk.
“No! She’s a liar!”
“As it happens, your honour...” Fancypants stepped forward and, with his magic, held the cards high, spun them round and held them before the judge, then the jury, then Photo Finish’s camera “We acquired this from anonymous sources. For the sake of relevance, we elected not to show them unless the possibility that this was not Manny Collars’ first sexual harassment offence was brought to light by the wishes of potential victims. Now, at last, the court may see.” he felt the crowd’s clammer wash over him like the trumpeting chants of a military triumph as he singled one out “This photo in particular was taken in Manehattan. Whether or not it is Miss Gardenia, I shall not insist she confirm it here and now, we can see clearly that the young mare’s expression is anxious and uncomfortable.”
“You can’t prove it!” Manny wailed “Father, tell them they can’t prove it!”
“We’re receiving another call. The bailiff thundered “From Miss Ghost Gum of Baltimare from two years ago...Miss Honey Locust in Los Alicornes, Miss Crape Myrtle in Baltimare, Miss Tulip Lancewood from Manehattan, Miss Lapacho from Albercalque, Miss Pimenta Allspice from Neigh Orleans-”
“Enough!” Bryte Collars screamed, slamming his gavel so hard cracks could be seen edging their way up the head of it. He breathed heavily, gave his son a look that stood between shock, disgust and something resembling betrayal, before gathering himself and speaking.
“Has the prosecution anything to say?”
Wiremane sighed, not looking at his client.
“No, your honour. And if I did, I hardly see any way it could help.”
“What’s wrong with you?” Manny squealed “We paid you to get me out of this!”
Wiremane cast Manny Collars a disdainful sneer.
“Buddy...you couldn’t pay me to get you out of this if you were the richest stallion in Equestria.” And with that he put his files away in his suitcase, edged himself slightly further away from his client and folded his forelegs patiently as Manny Collars stared into the abyss with a collapsed expression.
At such a time, Fancypants was reminded of a little jingle the apprentices used to sing to those found guilty in the Jurist’s Guild where, on the insistence of his aunts, he learned his trade.
“You’re nicked, you’re picked, you’re interdict.
Your pretext really sucked.
Your worm’s been hooked, your goose is cooked.
You’re well and truly bucked!”
It look less than half an hour for the jury to return and deliver the result of a unanimous vote. Even as family, friends or colleagues of the Collars family, they were damned if such a creature would walk free, knowing what he’d done.
“The jury finds the defendant, Rarity Belle, innocent or otherwise justified in all charges. Furthermore, we find her countersue sanctioned and carried. The plaintiff, Manny Collars, we find guilty on multiple charges of sexual harassment.”
With heavy shoulders and a Bryte Collars at last had his say.
“It is all very clear.” he said severely “This civil court has been the victim of a terrible deception. Some involved in it may not have been aware but it changes little. The damage is done and those responsible must be punished for nothing less would befit this house of law.”
“Father, please!”
“Enough!” he cut his son’s pleas off with fury as he spoke “I will not go without saying that I believe this will be the last time I sit the judge’s chair. Before this trial began, I believed I had seen all manner of depravity and ill-will towards one’s fellow pony. Now, I confess...I have made a grievous error in judgement. And such is not acceptable for a stallion of such a profession. Miss Rarity Belle, I find you innocent of all charges. The Civil Court of Equestria issues a formal and sincere apology for all damage to your reputation and emotions that may have been sustained through your wrongful accusation and arrest and for your defence counsels who, it seems, were not treated with the respect and credibility due to them. You shall receive compensation in due course. I hope you may find it satisfactory.”
Rarity did nothing more than give a polite, ladylike smile and nod with a flutter of her eyelashes, a free mare once more.
Fancypants relaxed his seat, dusted his monocle and gave a small, satisfied chuckle.
Twilight Sparkle let loose a colossal sigh of relief and sat down next to Coco and Sweetie Belle, the little filly planting a large, grateful kiss on her and Spike.
With a face of stone, Bryte Collars turned to his miserable son.
“As for you...Mr Mancheron Underhott Collars...I find you guilty of lying to a court of law, a judge and a solicitor on multiple occasions. I find you guilty of falsifying and fabricating evidence, using money for illegal means, blackmail, conspiracy to inflict harm on a minor...and multiple counts of physical, emotional and sexual abuse upon young mares of Equestria. Your trial will begin a week from now, after...my resignation. And between you and me, father to son, I’m glad your mother is no longer here to see what you...what we have become! Dismissed!”
Rarity remembered what a suave, nonchalant, in-control figure Manny Collars had seemed when first stepping into Carousel Boutique.
And she could think of no better picture of the exact opposite as the stallion let forth an ear-splitting screech as he was dragged, flailing and wailing, by all four hooves out of the court, his mind and body completely separated, pure frenzy and rage at the world emanating from the pathetic figure, finally about to be shut out of it.
“I HATE YOU!” he screamed at the top of his lungs, sounding more like a slightly articulate train whistle than a stallion “I HATE YOU ALL! I HATE YOU! AND YOU! AND YOU! HATE YOU! HATE! HATE! HAAAAAAAATE! HAAAAAAAATE!”
As the doors shut, his screams grew more and more muffled as the sound of him finally subsided.
“And good riddance to bad rubbish, I must say.” Fancypants chuckled, getting to his hooves. He and Wiremane stood as Bryte Collars departed with his head down and his shoulder sagged, pestered by Photo Finish and an armada of journalists on his way out.
“You reckon he was involved?” Wiremane asked.
Fancypants shrugged.
“If he was, the results were seen on camera by thousands. His days of judging those he has the audacity to stand above are over for certain. And the more ponies put two and two together, he’ll be judged whether it’s official or not. A pony stands by one who’s so clearly guilty of Celestia knows what, insisting that he’s ‘misunderstood’ and ‘A victim of persecution’, ponies will wonder if he doesn’t see himself in such a criminal in more ways than one.”
Wiremane sighed tugging his beard.
“So be it. The day’s yours, Fancy old pal.”
“Think nothing of it.”
“Tell me...” the lawyer asked with a bashful grin “Do you still play golf?”
Fancypants scoffed.
“Only when I want to ruin a good walk.”
“Just as well I don’t take those.” Wiremane chuckled “How about this weekend, for old time’s sake?”
Fancypants’ mustachios danced as he chuckled.
“Righto, old sport. I’ll invite old Prince Blueblood, shall I? That way, we’ll at least have something to amuse us?”
“Oh, too right. Is he still as bad as I remember?”
“I daresay, if possible, he’s gotten worse!”
As the two former arch-rivals, now firm friends laughed, Wiremane offered a hoof for the serene, sitting-pretty Rarity.
“I hope you can forgive me for my harsh words your way. I truly had no idea the Collars were capable of such but once I take a job, I follow it through, like it or not. I’m actually kind of glad to lose this one. But I hope you won’t hold it against me.”
Rarity gave a polite smile and shook his forehoof.
“As I said before we began, Mr LeTerrier, I had nothing to hide. I admire your dedication but recommend you choose your clients with a bit more discernment in future.”
“For certain, Miss Rarity...I’ll tell my niece the good news, shall I?”
“Thank you, darling.” As he departed, she couldn’t help but whoop a little as she stood liberated. Sweetie Belle rushed over to hug her tight enough to burst a seam were Rarity made of fabric and promised to whip her up a yummy home-made breakfast come morning which Rarity discreetly steeled herself for.
Coco could not hug her in her state but the smile on her face was the first real one she'd seen since this whole nightmare began. She could at last rest easy, her intrepid employer having plucked her safely from this pit of nightmares. As Nightnurse took her back to the hospital, she gave Rarity a grateful beam and a gentle wave, replied in turn by the Bearer of Generosity who'd more than earned her element.
“Well, if that’s all sorted, are we on for anything amusing this evening?” Fancypants cheered.
“Well, if you’ll join us for something of a celebratory meal at a place me and the girls frequent, we’d consider it a great honour, Mr Fancypants.” Rarity said with a blush “It’s nothing too refined, it’s actually a milkshake bar Twilight introduced us to in Canterlot, but we always enjoy it. Fleur’s welcome to come of course. I can introduce you to Spike, he'll be overjoyed to see me, the little cherub.”
The gentlecolt brushed away his powder-wig and put on his top hat with a merry laugh.
“Hurts doesn’t it.” Shining leaned forward against the bars with a cheeky grin “To hear the truth coming from somepony who doesn’t think your backstory is the saddest thing they’ve ever heard. It was all Grand Ruler, you know. He used his brainwashing, as he always does, to convince us you were this betrayed artist who’d never recovered from such a terrible slight. It was an illusion. And you knew it was an illusion but you wallowed in it to your heart’s content because you knew, deep down, it was the best you were ever going to get!”
Manny Collars’ sulphurous eyes bulged so erratically, Shining was afraid they were going to burst like egg-yolks.
“I lost everything because of her!” he screeched.
“No, Manny. You lost everything because of you. Rarity just ensured you had nopony else to take it out on. So Grand Ruler used you. You kept the torn design she’d been making for you, a guy like you would be just the sort of stallion to keep a memento of his greatest failure, to nurture that hatred, the one thing you had driving you. You used your own name as a pseudonym and between you and Grand Ruler, you birthed Needle Stitch, ass-hat from nowhere with a grudge no sensible pony would hold.”
“I hurt her. I still hurt her.”
“For a while. A short while. And no longer. Because unlike you, Rarity can move on and be a better pony. She doesn’t let one bad turn make her stop of the next.” Shining said flatly “We laughed at you when you were gone. When Rarity had been discredited, Grand Ruler stopped his magic and all could see Needle Stitch for who he was. So even if you were who you said you were and if Rarity did what you said she did, I tell you now...it wouldn’t have mattered. The way you behaved, Manny Collars, the way you felt entitled to treat everypony around you for one thing gone wrong in your life, was unacceptable. You had no passion in your art. It just stung that somepony else had done better than you with the things you failed to make work. You knew nothing about the trials an entrepreneur can go through, the sacrifices they make, the things they have in their minds as they push themselves forward. Rarity may have wounded you but you’re the one who kept on rubbing salt into it, just so you remembered it was there and to ensure you thought about nothing else than that. One failure, one slight, was enough for you to turn your back on the basic rules of decent, social behaviour. And that doesn’t carry here in Equestria. But that was never really an issue. Because you’d learnt that lesson years ago...and you sold everything you had just so you could try to forget.”
He shook his head.
“There are very few ponies beyond all help, for whom the magic of friendship really doesn’t work on, but they all have something in common...They all made the choice. They all choose to be the horrible pony they are because what they are is all they’re ever going to get. And it hurts. It hurts bad. But the thought of being anything else scares them. So they would rather believe, doing anything to make that belief seem logical in the process, that the world is out to get them...than accept that maybe, just maybe, they’re not all that swell a guy. You can’t come to terms with your mistakes because that would mean accepting the fact that you, Manny Collars, are the one who made them.”
Manny shot him a look of utter hatred.
“You must really like the sound of your voice.”
“It feels good to get off my chest at the end of the day.” Shining said with a shrug “You don’t listen to reason, Manny Collars...but you will listen to the truth. And the truth is that you, Manny Collars or Needle Stitch or whatever you’re calling yourself, you deserved everything you got. And you’ll get a whole lot more when this is over. That I promise you.”
“Well here’s what I promise, Shining Armour!” Manny gripped the sides of the cage in fury and spat “You’ll die! Your family will die! The Bearers will die! But Rarity, Rarity will die...slowly, painfully, in every way I know she fears! But not before she watches her baby die just as slowly and painfully as she will. I’ll see it happen, I’ll make it happen and I will enjoy nothing else more than that!”
There was a pause. Shining looked at Manny’s burning yellow eyes with quiet contempt.
“The sad thing is...I kinda’ knew you would.” he said flatly “A pony saying how much they want to kill an innocent baby filly should shock me...but it really doesn’t. Because it stands to reason you’d go for the smallest, weakest target and call it an achievement. That’s what cowards do. And that’s exactly what you are. A coward who runs from every trouble he faces...Well, you’d better hope you’re good at it, Manny...” he leaned forward against the bars, eyes and grin wide.
Either the bars were no longer that cold or the outside was getting colder.
But he grew conscious of more footsteps.
An old stallion was making his way up the steps. He was a pale yellow creature, bespectacled, wizened and hunched with a bald scalp and wispy grey hair at the back of his head and around his cheeks. He struck one as one not built for combat.
Which was a shame since his garb actually looked the closest Shining had seen to imposing.
He wore hardy black armour decorated with rows of golden rings and belts with crimson surcoat trimmed with white fur. His shoulder pads resembled antlered skulls. A dark-gold sigil depicting an equine face gripped by rage was pinned to his chest over a tabard of silver fur.
One thing that rather ruined it was the trailing red hat ribbed with gold that made his head look like some colossal wind-sock.
Shining rested his arms against the bars and gazed at the spectacle.
“Oh, it’s Hearth’s Warming already,” he chuckled.
That set off the newcomer.
The veins in his neck and across his scalp showed through the skin and fur.
“Hearth's Warming?!” he sneered “Bah! Humbu-”
“Now I’m gonna stop you right there.” Shining held up a finger. “'Humbug' refers either to a brand of peppermint hard candy or a word meaning fraud or folly, neither of which refer to your meaning, intended or otherwise.” He paused, feeling rather like his little sister after such a summary. “It’s also the name of a gobaloid creature one can find in Stirrope. Fletcher Fray told me about them. Can’t trust anything they say apparently.”
“Shut up!" the old stallion screeched. “Your sister sent you, didn’t she?”
Shining rolled his eyes.
"What is it with every jerk I’m meeting today suspecting a mare of sending me here?! You notice I’m in a cage?!”
“It’s exactly where you DESERVE!” the stallion sneered.
“Well, you’d know what it’s like, wouldn’t you?”
“Exactly! The night your wretched little Princess had me FALSELY ACCUSED, locked me up! The humiliation! The stress! The-”
“No, I didn’t mean that part. I didn’t mean the wrongful arrest...just the arrest.” His eyes gleamed as he leaned forward “That’s right...I know...Miser Stash...Or whatever you’re calling yourself.”
“Wh...” the stallion calling himself Miser Stash burbled, his right eye twitching “Then you know the horrible truth. My past, my SUFFERING-”
“Not what I was referring to.” Shining replied “I know what really happened. To you, to your old friends, and the circumstances at that fateful Hearth’s Warming...and the little afterparty they threw for you.”
“How DARE you refer to that...MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE!” Miser screamed.
Shining gave him a look.
“I don’t know why...but I really don’t want you to say ‘miscarriage’ ever again.” he said flatly “And in answer to your question; No, I don’t dare refer to that...‘travesty of justice’ as you should have called it. Because it was no travesty.”
“You know NOTHING!”
“I know enough.” The young unicorn retorted “And I remember every word Twilight told me...‘Twas the night after Hearth’s Warming...”
Twilight Sparkle meanwhile rested against the bench...a mug of cider half-finished in her forehoof.
Her mood was downcast. She was trying not to show it and she’d been in a jubilant mood for the rest of the day but now, with everything winding down, it was hard to focus on anything but the things she could have done better. Or others could have done better.
Pinkie Pie was the first on it, honed in on the gloomy mood like a targeting system. She bounced over, plonked her round, pink behind on a stool that Twilight was certain wasn’t there before she landed and looked up at Twilight with a bright smile.
“Hey, grumpy-gallops? Why the frown?”
“Hm?” Twilight looked up, her eyes half-closed “Sorry...I’m kinda’ out of it.”
“C’mon, I haven’t seen you play around with any presents yet.”
“Don’t worry, I will. I’m just kinda...” Twilight trailed off.
“I mean, I love the gift you gave me! I’m gonna’ have lots and lots and lots and lots and LOTS of fun with these!” She pointed down to the large, responsive and brightly coloured springs that fitted perfectly to her hooves, changing colour every time they squashed and stretched.
“I mean, thanks to you, now I literally have a spring in my step!” She fell about laughing, her springs flying around in the air as her hooves kicked at nothing.
Twilight managed a half-smile.
“Glad you like them, Pinkie...” she murmured.
Pinkie stopped, hopped up and tilted Twilight’s chin up.
“You still puzzling over that bad dream?” she asked with dancing eyebrows.
“Well...kinda’.” Twilight said tiredly.
“C’mon, Twiley! Don’t worry about it! Pull a cracker with me! Or let’s make some s’mores! Or maybe let’s sing a holiday jingle! Or jing a holiday single! Or-”
Twilight gripped the side of her temples and found herself snapping in frustration.
“Pinkie! Listen! Just ‘cause you never think about the stuff that worries you...”
She stopped as she realised what she was saying. And most others in the room realised it too. The banjo stopped playing and her friends and family turned to eye her with concern and some amount of reproach. Velvet, Night Light and Shining had spoken to her in the morning so they knew how difficult it was for her. But still.
Pinkie, of all ponies.
Twilight was the first to find her voice, staring guilt-riddenly at her friend, whose soreness was already showing with her eyes widening, her lips trembling and a few strands of her mane losing their buoyancy.
“Pinkie, I’m so sorry!” the Princess of Friendship stammered her forehooves shaking “I didn’t mean it, Pinkie, I promise! I-I-I just...I’ve just been so confused and-”
“I-i-it’s okay, Twiley. I...I just...” She appeared smaller, huddling down behind the counter “Do you...do you really think that about me? That I don’t think enough about...the stuff that matters?”
“No, no, Pinkie, of course not, I just...” Twilight found herself out of words, tears forming in her eyes.
The sight of them dispelled any feeling of resentment Pinkie Pie may have had as she wrapped her forehooves around her dear friend and hugged her.
“I don’t want you to worry, Twiley. Not on Hearth’s Warming. That’s a Frowny-Face-Free Day, no backsies.” she cooed “Look, you’re a little cranky after all that’s happened and...I just want to help.”
“It’s...it’s okay, really.”
“No, it isn’t. Not until I turn that frown upside down.” Pinkie Pie steadied Twilight in her chair and gave her a determined, mother-like look “You sit there for a sec and I’ll make you some hot chocolate.”
A ‘sec’ really was how long it took. Certainly less than ten seconds later, Pinkie Pie had whipped up a hot chocolate with all the trimmings, the whip-cream almost high enough to meet her eyebrows.
It brought a small smile to Twilight’s face.
She didn’t truly know what was making her so unable to enjoy the rest of the day.
Beside her, a cyan pegasus with a technicolour mane perched on a stool and stretched her hooves.
“You still feelin’ edgy about that Miser Stash guy, Twi?” she sighed “I can barely remember his name now.”
“I don’t know, Dash, I just...” Twilight shook her head “I just can’t help feeling we could’ve done more.”
Rainbow Dash nearly spit out a mouthful of cider.
“You kidding?! Twi, you did everything and more for that cranky old jerk-wad! If he’s still gonna’ throw a hissy fit and take out his own bad mood on everypony else, that’s on him! It’s all on him! If you’re a terrible pony to know, and you act terribly, and you know you act terribly, it’s really on you if ponies think you’re, y’know, terrible!”
“Yeah but...all the good he was doing.”
“Which he never gave even a slight hint towards.” Rainbow Dash pointed out “Explain to me the logic here. A stallion acts like a complete flank-bag to everypony he meets. So ponies don’t like him, ‘cause, well, nopony likes a flank-bag. Secretly, he’s donating millions to good causes, emphasis on the word ‘secretly’. So...he takes offence to not being liked for acting like a flank-bag...while keeping the things that could get him liked a secret.”
Twilight stared into space a moment.
“Uh...you sure you got that right?” she asked, her mind still too cloudy and jumbled to make sense of it all.
Rainbow Dash shrugged.
“Like I said, it’s on him. When he was let out of prison and we all apologised and thanked him for all he did, he had the chance to realise it was all a misunderstanding, move on and actually be the pony he claimed to be, maybe meet all the ponies he’d been helping, see things in a better light and so on. But no, because he’d been treated like trash, despite treating everypony he meets like trash, he tossed it all away and vowed never to help anypony again.” She snorted “I say good riddance. Equestria’s better without ponies like him. If he’s gonna’ give up on the one good thing he was doing because of something that was both a huge mistake and pretty much his fault anyway, he was never that good a pony even in spite of that. So to hay with him...”
Twilight gave her an uneasy look.
“Well, I wish I shared your straightforwardness, Dash...I just can’t help feeling responsible.”
“You’re probably just tired.”
“But how can I be tired? I spent the night asleep?”
Twilight looked up a second after those words escaping her mouth.
Her mind was jolted out of its stagnancy and back into a rolling tide.
She was tired. She felt more tired than she had in a while, not since her first day of being an alicorn trying to keep all her friends together and satisfied.
She felt like she hadn’t slept a wink.
But she had. Her very vivid dreams were the very cause of her fatigue.
But how?
If she’d woken again and again in the night, that would make sense, a restless night was no good for the brain, but it wasn’t restless. It had gone on for hours. And it was all so...
Real.
There was a tapping at the door that brought everything to a silence again, though not as abrupt or awkward.
Pinkie Pie jumped, bounced off the ceiling, somersaulted and landed before the door on one hoof, opening it with a smile.
She was wearing a hood fastened in a way the deer used to keep their antlers uncovered, the top of the cowl fastened by a brooch to the two sides, leaving two gaps beside the opening for the antlers. On a doe, they were small but still quite prominent. Her coat was a pale grey while her mane was a mossy-viridian. Her eyes, however, were bright violet, staring at the pink pony before her.
“Good evening.” she said flatly.
“Hi.” Pinkie Pie said chirpily “Happy Hearth’s Warming! You wanna’ kiss somepony under the mistletoe?”
She pointed to the sprig of mistletoe hanging over the doorway. At the sight of it, the violet eyes on the doe widened with horror as she drew back slightly.
“Please...ma’am...take it off the door...It’s very bad luck for a caribou to pass under hanging Sourtwig.”
“Huh?” the pink mare raised an eyebrow and giggled “Why? You afraid of catching cooties?”
“It’s more complicated than that, Pinkie.” Twilight’s horn lit up and took the mistletoe off the doorway and hung it over the tree, explaining to her friend “Caribou regard the mistletoe as an ill-omen. It’s said that the greatest and kindest of their kings was poisoned by his brother by mistletoe, rendering him infertile and dooming his line.”
“Quite correct.” the caribou nodded “I mean you no offence, good rosy mare, but it simply isn’t safe for me.”
Pinkie gave a shrug.
“S’okay. Wouldn’t want to scare ya’ on Hearths Warming.” she said obligingly.
“You are most kind. I wish you a good Yulefest three days from now.” the deer said calmly, devoid of much emotion “May I please speak with your town’s Princess? I tried the town hall and was told she’d be in your castle but I found no reply so I asked your apprentice at Trixie’s Travelling Circus Show. She told me she’d be here.”
“I’m here.” Twilight got off her chair and addressed her with a smile “Princess Twilight Sparkle, at your service.”
The caribou bowed her head courteously, her antlers nearly touching the floor.
“Greetings. My name is Hollicent Van Hodurheim, of Huginmunin Hall, capital of Hrafyn Isle.”
There was a pause.
“That’s a mighty mouthful.” Applejack said, nonplussed.
“So I’ve been told.”
“Can we call you ‘Holly’?” Fluttershy asked.
The caribou gave a small smile.
“You may. I like Holly. It’s a good plant. It grows bright and pretty in the harshest season yet one does not touch it without care and grace.”
Fluttershy gave an awed look, a bright smile lighting up her face.
“Of course. On the Northern Isles, you must get Awny Holly and Broomy Holly and Needlewhite Holly. Do you have any samples? I’d love to see how they grow here in Equestria with such a difference in temperate zone and seasonal cycle.”
“Not that this isn’t fascinating...” Twilight interjected “But um...why exactly did you want to speak to me?”
Holly Van Hodurheim removed her hood and shook her head a moment.
“This isn’t the first time I came to Equestria. I lived here a while before...events...”
“Now hold on!” Spike piped up, standing between the deer and Rarity with his little arms outstretched “You better not be thinking of doing anything to Rarity, caribou! Or Twilight! Or any mare, really!”
“Spike! Don’t be stereotypical.” Twilight scolded. The caribou meanwhile gave a small smile.
“It’s fine. It’s not the first time others have presumed upon that story. You may call me ‘reindeer’ if it’s easier. It’s like calling a pony a ‘horse’.” She gave her head a thoughtful tilt “There was a group of caribou who did partake in such vile acts, the Reavers of Drainn. But that was many long years ago. Our Queen Mathilda and her Shieldmaidens wiped them out.” she said proudly “Many of her Shieldmaidens came from Hrafyn Isle too. A glorious deed. May I sit down?”
“Sure, no need to ask.”
“I was just whipping up some hot chocolate.” Pinkie Pie said, hopping behind the counter “Want some?”
“An’ we got Sweet Apple cider if you fancy somethin’ stronger.” Applejack said with pride.
Holly gave the board above the bar a look.
“You don’t have any mead, perchance? Or mulled wine?”
“Well...we got Honey and Ginger Cider. Is that close enough? The honey’s from Fluttershy’s own garden. We warm it for the winter.”
“It sounds more than pleasant. I shall try some, thank you.” The caribou said calmly.
The curious thing about her was how still her face seemed. She’d smiled now and again but her eyes remained wide and staring, her cheeks high and sunken, her ears sloped even without the hood.
She took a cup of warm cider and sipped at it. Nodding approvingly, she turned to Princess Twilight Sparkle.
“You ask why I came to see you?” she said “For a while now, I have been searching for a pony, a stallion, he’d be quite old now. The search has lasted years but at last, I have found his trail with the knowledge that he has been here, in your company, most recently.”
“Is this somepony you used to know? An old friend?”
“Yes...but my current relationship with him...and my intentions toward him...are not friendly. In the slightest.” Holly answered with a blunt look and tone “If knowing that makes you unwilling to help me, I understand and shall take my business elsewhere.”
Twilight paused, weighing Holly’s words.
Ponies around them eyed each other with curiosity and no small amount of unease.
She exercised her inquisitiveness.
“Who is this stallion you’re after?”
The deep violet eyes of Holly Van Hodurheim darkened as her brow furrowed and her lips curled, as if speaking the name brought a foul taste to her mouth.
“He goes by the name of ‘Miser’.”
All eyes turned to the reindeer.
Twilight blinked.
“Miser...Stash?”
Holly raised an eyebrow.
“So that’s the surname he’s going by. It would make sense. He could have stood to change his first name, at least. Give it something to roll off the tongue.”
“Wait, wait, wait a moment.” Rarity said, sitting down the other side of Holly “You know him? He never mentioned you?”
“He wouldn’t have done. He wanted me forgotten. And it wasn’t safe to let him know I was back yet.”
“Safe? Wha...Who is he? And how do you know him?” Applejack stammered.
“I think that’s the first thing we need to know right now.” Twilight felt she was onto something.
“But was he here?” Holly asked tentatively “How do you know him? What did he say to you?”
Twilight recollected everything. How Miser Stash had appeared, a cold, bitter-minded banker who spat on Hearths Warming and the very concept of friendship and forgiveness. How she’d been visited by three spirits that took the form of the Cutie Mark Crusaders who showed her what Miser Stash had been through, the money he secretly sent to the poor and the terrible future in store for her if he was punished.
Throughout, Holly’s violet eyes flickered and twitched, the clay cup in her hoof rattling on the bar-table. Rarity and Spike backed away from her with unease, sensing this doe was an inch from utter frenzy. Cadence picked up Flurry from the stocking and made sure her ears were covered with earmuffs in case of any outburst that might disturb her.
Twilight got to the point where Miser angrily resigned from his position as head of the bank and paused, unable to ignore the rage on her guest.
“Um...Holly...” she asked quietly “Are you er...alright?”
Holly shut her eyes a moment and spoke, her tone eerily calm.
“Madam Applejack, before I inquire, I’d like to know...This cup, does it have any significant sentimental, financial or otherwise personal value?”
Applejack shrugged.
“Not really. We got a whole cabinet of ‘em. Uncle Apple Bottoms took up pottery a while back. He makes a bunch of them for each occasion.”
“Good...Now, Princess Twilight, could you please repeat for me...the name of Miser’s betrothed you heard?”
An odd question. Worded oddly. The name ‘she heard’?
Twilight had mulled over the idea that what she was seeing was a lie but it was a strange place to start. One would remember the name of their own spouse, surely.
“Her name...the one I heard...was Twinkle Belle.”
A sinew in Holly Van Hodurheim’s neck stretched, showing through her skin and downy fur. Her violet eyes bulged. Her teeth clenched behind twisting lips. The hoof that held the cup shook, steadily rising.
With a deafening bellow of rage, she hurled the cup across the barn where it shattered into fragments, before slamming both her forehooves upon the wooden floorboards again and again, wailing and cursing in Tarandric, the language of the caribou. “Bastarter! Swartlhyartan Bastarter! Henne bloth er upa den hoven ag yu taler ikke engang hens nayven! Yu deidyer henne! Yu deidyer dem alla for att kom tol meg! Och yu kom inter en mymber! Skokason! Sleynason! Lyuga, Morda Liknuller! Yavladen! Yavladen tol Muspeller!” Her rage spent, she pressed her forehooves against the floor and bowed her head, shaking like a leaf. Tears ran from her cheeks to soak the floorboards.
“Hower kun yu...” she whimpered “Hower kun yu...”
As Pinkie, Applejack and Scootaloo edged over to comfort her, Rainbow turned to Twilight.
“Did...you understand any of that?”
“Yes, most of it.” Twilight checked to make sure neither the CMC, Flurry Heart or her parents could hear and worded it in a way that upheld as much calmness and courtesy as possible.
“Okay, um...‘Illegitimate. Black-hearted illegitimate. Her blood is on your hooves and you won’t say her name. You killed her. You killed them all to get to me. And you don’t remember. Son of a prostitute. Son of a witch. Lying, murdering fornicator of corpses. Curse you. Curse you to Muspell.’ That’s the pit of fire in Tarand lore. Then ‘How could you...How could you’.”
Rainbow gave her a bemused look.
“I understood the word ‘Bastarter’, Twi.” she muttered before being shushed by her friend, Cadence, Applejack and Velvet.
In the middle of the room, Applejack rubbed the weeping Holly’s forelegs while Pinkie patted her head.
“Shh-shh-shh, let’s all calm down now, okay?” Applejack said reassuringly.
“You need any hot chocolate?” Pinkie asked tentatively.
“What I need...is that filthy liar’s blood...” Holly hissed through her tears as she was led gently to an armchair beside the fire. Applebloom busied herself picking up the fragments. Soaked in hot water and put back on the potter’s wheel, they could be remade.
Twilight edged her way forward and spoke.
“Okay...clearly, we’ve got the wrong end of the stick here.” she said slowly “Miss Van Hodurheim...would you please tell us what you know of Miser? What...what he really is. And who Twinkle Belle is...was.”
“That wasn’t her name.” Holly murmured resentfully “He doesn’t have the guts to say her real name!”
“Then what was it?” Applejack asked.
“Her name...” Holly’s voice grew plaintive, longing, fond “Her name was Tinsel. Tinsel Twine. She liked the name ‘Jinglebell’.”
“So...he didn’t want to remember her name because he hates Hearths Warming? Is that it?”
“No, no, no...” Holly nursed her temples “She’s the reason he hates Hearths Warming in the first place.” She gave Twilight a sincere look, her violet eyes gleaming in reminiscence.
“Hearths Warming...was the day I proposed...”
Twilight raised an eyebrow in surprise.
“To...to Miser?”
“No.” Holly sighed “To Tinsel.”
There was a long pause.
Twilight pulled up a chair and sat down beside Holly Van Hodurheim.
“Okay...Dad?” she began “Can you get in touch with your old friend, Colonel Peregrine, and make sure the nearest airship harbours are under surveillance. I don’t think I want Miser Stash leaving Equestria just yet?”
“Sure thing, sweetie.” The navy-blue unicorn said with a smile “If I know Perry, he’d rather be anywhere than Hearths Warming with his in-laws.”
“Okay...” Twilight relaxed, brought forth a cup of tea for both herself and Holly, and inquired.
“I think you’d better tell us exactly how you came to be involved in this.”
Holly Van Hodurheim sipped her tea and got the weight of her past off her chest.
“You might think, being a caribou, I was some kind of warrior or shieldmaiden but alas, my aptitude lies elsewhere. By trade, like my mother before me, I am a Toskhind.”
“You needn’t worry.” Holly butted in “The Toskhinden aren’t common thieves. They have creeds and codes to their livelihood. You’ve offered me shelter, food and courtesy. As such, it is now forbidden for me to take anything from your home or properties. To do so would shame the name of the Toskhind and I would have many fellow Toskhinden after my blood.”
“Did you break into my castle while I was out?”
“I was planning to but I saw you had an owl.”
“Is that...relevant?” Rarity asked. Holly gave her a piercing look.
“Thieves do not go where the owls go. Thieves cannot be seen and owls see all.”
Twilight nodded at another caribou custom.
“So...you came to Equestria to seek your fortune?”
“Not entirely.” Holly shrugged “I was still a fawn when I left Hrafyn. Jarl Broderbloth started hunting the Toskhinden and I know this sounds cowardly to you but when swords are drawn, thieves tends to run. I came to Equestria where I met a pony who spoke Tarandric well.”
She smiled at the memory.
“His name was Marten Pine. I tried to rob him at a hostel and found he too was a thief, a better one than I for he caught me in the act. But I nearly managed it...And he was impressed. Through him, I completed my teaching.”
“Marten Pine...” Twilight recollected “The name rings a bell but...I don’t quite know...”
“Goodness.” Rarity’s eyelashes fluttered with pride “This is a historic moment, Twilight. Something you don’t know...but I do.”
Twilight gave an intrigued smile of friendly rivalry.
“Oh really? Do tell.”
Rarity gave a girlish little giggle and spoke, delighted to be the font of knowledge of the group for a moment.
“Marten Pine was a civil rights activist. He succeeded in putting a permanent end to the fur trade in Equestria and campaigned for the rights and opportunities of small businesses and workers unions. I studied him for a while at college. Many entrepreneurs-en-cours like myself owe a lot to him. He became a bit of a no-show after his retirement then a couple of years afterward nopony saw him.
Holly nodded, an impressed half-smile on her face.
“That’s half the story. Marten Pine was indeed a scholar. He was also a master thief. And in both cases, he was a natural leader and a defender of the downtrodden. Like the Toskhinden, he lived by a code of thievery but his was based more on who you stole from than how you did it. He operated on a very strict code. Rob from the rich and half the takings go to those the rich rob.”
There was a pause.
“You mean like...Robin Redhood?”
“Yes. A very famous Equestrian thief apparently.”
“He was. He operated during the Regency when Celestia and Luna were still young and a circle of nobles ran Equestria who refused to surrender their power even after the Princesses came of age..” Twilight explained “Corruption was high and the poor were taxed unreasonably and punished unfairly. He was one of the many Princessist Activists who advocated for the two princesses to be given the power due to them and robbed those who were making money off the suffering of ponies, giving the bits to the poor.”
“Well, yes. That was pretty much how Marten told it too. We robbed from the rich and...mostly gave to the poor.” Holly shuffled a hoof “We kept a small percentage.”
“Oh really?” Applejack said with a bemused look.
“Listen, you need money to run an operation like that, and lots of it, from day one.” Holly explained “Resources, information, contacts, secrecy, etcetera. We made sure that enough was left for the downtrodden. What’s more, a local bigwig finds his diamond ring missing and sees it in the hooves of some foal in the fields the next day, there’ll be hay to pay, won’t there. Our operation ran on secrecy. We stole items from the scum in high places, found ponies to sell them to and gave the money to those that needed it. We called ourselves The Magpies.”
“Hm...” Rarity raised her eyebrow “You wouldn’t be interested in knowing where Prince Blueblood keeps his things, would you?” But Twilight shushed her.
“Well, round about when I finished training, Marten Pine took two students. One was a filly at the university he lectured at who’d uncovered his true identity without getting caught by anypony other than him at the very last minute. The other was a homeless colt who’d followed him unseen back to our base. Both had astounding potential in the field of Thievery.”
“Tinsel Twine...” Twilight supposed “And Miser.”
“Correct.”
“So, what about Golden Heart and this bank of his?”
“Ah, yes, we come to him.” Holly sighed “Golden Heart was our fence. But that was a pseudonym. His real name was Rowan Gold-Rush. He owed the survival of his small business to Marten’s civil activism and was interested in taking part in Marten’s ‘unconventional philanthropy’ as he called it. He knew ponies who he could flog the stolen items to undercover and fetch the best prices. Through him, we were able to set up a system of robbing the rich and giving to the poor.” She chuckled “And we loved every minute of it. Tinsel especially. The smile on her face as she scaled rooves, dodged the guards, left the Baron of Bitterberry waking up the day after his tax-skimming with only himself and a pair of his great aunt’s bloomers in his master bedroom or waved goodbye to Milan Stilton as we left her in an emptied penthouse, tied to a toilet seat with a bucket of fertiliser over her head.”
“Wow!” Rainbow Dash chortled “Sounds like you two had fun.”
“Oh we did...And eventually, I realised that everything I did with her was fun. And everything about her was enough to brighten up the darkest day. Her sweet, insightful words, her voice like the first nightingale of the evening, her coat like an evergreen on a mountaintop, her soft, gentle wings like a warbler of the wood, her mane like bubbling mead and those eyes...like the sweetest berries...just twinkling...”
She looked around, wondering how long she’d been reminiscing.
Holly gave a bashful smile and looked close to blushing.
“She was overjoyed. Wrapped her hooves around me and wouldn’t let go for hours, kissing me all over. I picked a special day for it. While the caribou don’t celebrate the winter solstice on the same day as Equestria, your day of Hearths Warming is the day the caribou first discovered Equestria. Thanks to the great explorer Hingr Dingr Durgen. But it was a good day for both of us. I’d never seen her so happy. Marten was happy too. He gave us both his blessing.”
“But Miser?” Applejack asked, the name extinguishing Holly’s smile like a shot.
“He was not happy. I could tell...It was then that I began paying more attention to just what he was up to. You see...Miser Able, for that was his real name, was difficult. He had great potential as a thief, very skilled, like I said, he followed Marten home to our secret lair without anypony knowing until he revealed himself. And he enjoyed stealing from the rich as much as we did...But he was still very difficult. Very different. We all saw it.”
“How different?” Fluttershy asked.
“Well, he saw things different to other ponies...As in he saw other ponies as things.”
“You mean like...he didn’t value their lives?” The timid pegasus gave a gulp.
Holly sighed.
“Marten told me once he compared Miser Able to a shattered mirror. Brilliant, sharp and dazzling...but fundamentally and irrevocably broken. There was just something...very wrong with the way he was. The first problem was when I started noticing funds were going missing from the Golden Heart Bank. At first, we assumed one of our contacts was ripping us off but then I noticed patterns.” She shifted in her armchair.
“Once, you see, there were these two young mares Miser and Tinsel knew. They were at her college and they passed by Miser on the street. They always laughed at him, called him names, threw trash, you know. Anyway, not long after the funds went missing, Tinsel found out these young mares had been checked into Canterlot Emergency Ward.”
“You mean Miser went after them?”
“No, no. The attack on these two mares was perpetrated by a group, at least ten stallions. There was a group we knew that fit the bill. Violent, bigoted thugs. We didn’t affiliate ourselves with them. They’re long gone now. But they weren’t local to where these mares lived. They’d been hired...paid.”
“To...do what?” Fluttershy asked, dreading the answer.
Holly looked around at the faces before her and sucked her teeth.
“I don’t think I should tell you in words. Foals present and all that. But to put it bluntly, they’ll never walk again, their own mothers could only identify them through their cutie marks and they can’t stand to look at a male creature without screaming in terror.”
There was a weighty silence. The ponies in the room looked to each other one by one.
“Miser...hired these stallions to do this?”
“We couldn’t prove anything of course. A master thief covers their tracks. But we knew...And they weren’t the first. From a rich colt who tripped him over in the street to a waitress who spilled his coffee, they’d turn up crippled, maimed or worse and often those they loved would be left in a similar state. Marten told me he’d handle it himself. He was just happy me and Tinsel were getting together. At this point, me and Tinsel just wanted some time with each other. We’d found a house on the northern shore, beautiful in winter. We were going to live together, just us. We’d probably go back to thieving after settling down but just to pass the time really. Marten understood. As a sort of going-away party, he organised the biggest heist yet.”
She leaned forward.
“We were going to steal from Mr Stash.”
Twilight weighed her words.
“So...this isn’t Miser’s father, Stash?”
“No, no. Mr Stash was one of Equestria’s most dreaded moguls. He ran Tox Corporation. Broadcasting, sports, entertainment; I use the term loosely.”
“Yeah, I remember him.” Rainbow Dash scowled and curled her lip “He was the jerk who called the Wonderbolts a bunch of ‘Useless, Airheaded, Liberal Filly-Foolers’.”
“Yeah, well, he also had his hooves in every site of crime and corruption in the big city. Gambling sinks and game rigging, drug distribution, porn and pimping, you name it.” Holly continued “Marten had heard of him and decided there and then he’d be our next target. You see, when we raided the rich, we’d find the stuff they were hiding. And sometimes the stuff that stank was a lot more valuable than the stuff that sparkled. If any of our victims had crimes they’d covered up, we’d uncover them and anonymously send it to the ponies who could act on it. Our way of showing the authorities whose side we were on. But Tinsel had come down with a fever so Marten took me and Miser Able with him. Anyway, we break in, deeper and deeper and we find more than we bargained for. We find enough to get Stash and everypony he’s worked with sent to prison for the rest of their lives...Then all Muspell broke loose.”
She cricked her neck and related the events.
“Stash came down unexpectedly. Started yelling. We thought we’d rigged the rotors to send off the security for the night but apparently not. That was Miser’s task. They surrounded the room. Marten told me and Miser to cover the doors while he took Stash hostage and tried to negotiate with the guards. That was when...Miser Able stabbed me.”
“What?” Twilight gasped. Holly reached over and pushed her cloak aside, showing them a small thick, pale scar running down her solar plexus.
“It just missed my heart. He twisted it and I saw his face. His eyes...I saw madness. Pure madness.” She shook her head “Marten turned and...that’s when Miser drew a bolt gun. He shot him, once, twice, thrice...” She choked back a sob, her eyes brimming with tears “Then he shot Stash in the head and took Marten’s Emergency Teleportation Crystal. In a flash, he was gone...then the building blew up.”
Rarity cupped her mouth with a hoof, staring with horror.
“How...how did you survive?” Shining asked.
“Well, we were in Stash’s safe-room. The whole thing was built like a bunker. But when I came too...there was nothing I could do for Marten. He was bleeding out. He had just enough time to ask me, beg me, to protect The Magpies from Miser Able. And...then he died in my forehooves with blood running down his chin.”
“I’m so sorry.” Twilight said, shaking her head, her face bathed in the flickering light of the fire.
“I...found a way out of the rubble. My teaching came in use. But when I reached the Magpies lair, the trainees tried to kill me. I was luckier to escape from their blades than I was to escape Miser’s...You see, he’d told them I did it. He’d framed me for Marten’s death, Stash’s death, the embezzlement, the attacks on Miser’s old enemies, the guard rotors and the deaths of everypony close to Tox Corp Holdings when it blew up.”
“I remember that day.” Velvet said with unease “You could see the explosion all over Manehattan.”
“I had to go into hiding. I was never far away from a Magpie Miser had duped that wanted me dead. And none of my former contacts were prepared to help me. So...I took a chance and wrote to Tinsel in a way she’d know was me.”
She looked down at her hooves.
“My worst mistake...” she whimpered “I didn’t hear from her at all afterwards until about a month later. I hired somepony anonymously to watch what was going on at Golden Heart’s Bank. Rowan had been duped like the rest of them and...I heard about Miser marrying Tinsel...” She tensed her neck “And the way they described her mood. Dull, quiet, monotonous, quietly helping Rowan with figures and trailing on Miser’s foreleg...It was the fever. Repeatedly. All the symptoms...”
“Miser was...poisoning her?”
“A toxin made from Devil’s Snare, Valerian and Ephedra. We’d sometimes use it to induce sleep, dizziness or forgetfulness in guards or onlookers. Marten had his suspicions. But Miser thickened the substance with the juices of Crested Cactus and Summer Shrinewort. The chemical compound was a recipe he found among Stash’s works. In the city, they call it...”
“Cantata!” Twilight exclaimed “One of the most infamous date-rape drugs in Equestria!”
“Exactly. Miser’s raw, hoof-made strain was slower and less obvious but the signs were there.” Holly shook her head “Well, Tinsel found the message and showed both Miser and Rowan. I don’t...I don’t know if she remembered anything but...” Holly was tensing again “Miser must have found out before she could act...”
“You mean...” Applejack said with a horrified look “He...he killed her? His fiance?”
“But Miser said she was the love of his life.” Twilight added.
Holly gave a resentful snort.
“Miser?! The only thing that creature’s capable of loving is himself! He wanted Tinsel, that was for sure. He lusted after her. It was her he followed to Marten’s lair in the first place, not Marten himself! And he hung on her, tried to show her up, spoke ill of me to her, called me a monster...She wouldn’t listen to him. Not without his poisons. He’d rather have her broken than the way she was.”
“So...if you don’t mind me asking...How did she die?” Rarity said tentatively.
“The same poison. An overdose.” Holly took a handkerchief from Fluttershy and wiped her muzzle tearfully “I don’t know if it was deliberate or not but what I do know is that he sent the body in a box to the house where we were supposed to live together.”
“Sweet Luna!” Applejack exclaimed.
“Unbelievable...” Cadence murmured quietly, shaking her head “How? And why?”
“A message. I think it was his way of telling me to stay away. He didn’t know if I was still there but he knew what it would mean. And what’s more...” She nursed her temples with frustration “Miser’s a pony who can’t ever accept when he’s done something wrong. Whether it was her death or his inability to truly win her heart, he wanted me to take the blame, in his own mind.”
Twilight nodded. Somehow this all sounded very familiar.
Anypony’s fault but Miser’s...
Pinkie steadily drew one foreleg around Holly’s shoulder and gave her half a hug, her pink, chubby-cheeked face full of sympathy.
“I’m really sorry, Miss Van Hodurheim.” Shining said solemnly.
“And...Rowan?” Twilight felt it best to get to the bottom of this sordid story “How did he...”
“It was a few years afterwards.” Holly explained once she’d found her voice again “He wrote to me and Tinsel’s old house. Miser had shut down the Magpies and Rowan couldn’t contact any of the old members. He’d also noticed more funds were going missing from his bank. He wanted to see me...He was scared. And he was right to be.”
“But...did Miser kill him too?”
“No. He couldn’t. Rowan had left Tinsel charge of the Golden Heart Bank and its ties to the Magpies. Miser wanted that bank. So he did what he’d always done...Got somepony else to do the deed.”
“The bank robbery!” Twilight exclaimed, everything falling into place “They were never there to rob the bank at all! They were there to kill Rowan!”
“Most likely.”
“So, one thing I don’t get.” Rainbow asked “Why does he take the name ‘Stash’?”
“Convenience, really.” Holly summarised “Stash’s murder at the Magpies hooves gave him the perfect excuse to close it down. And he’d had access to Stash’s personal files and private messages, all that could be salvaged from the explosion. So he forged the hoof-writing and left details of a supposed son, horribly abused and taken into Golden Heart’s care...His new identity. He inherited the entire estate which he promptly sold off for solid bits just as he did for the Magpies contacts, the earnings of which paid to silence those who had any suspicions, one way or another.”
“You’re telling me.” Holly Van Hodurheim at last got to her hooves “But one thing he forgot remains in my possession. Marten Pine’s journal. He carried it with him always and entrusted it to me in his last moments.”
She drew something out of her cloak, a small but thick burgundy-covered book with a silver padlock, decorated with engravings of four dancing sables. Her eyes flickered with anticipation as she continued.
“You’re good at solving problems. I’ve come to get help in solving mine. Miser wants me dead. But I don’t want the same for him. No...” Her violet eyes flickered with fury “I want him to feel the very same twisting wound he gave me. I want everything he’s managed to steal for himself snatched from him, his past uncovered, his name ruined, I want him to receive what he deserves...Call it my Hearths Warming Present.”
“You don’t need to ask me twice.” Rainbow Dash somersaulted in mid-air, punching her forehooves together “I’m looking forward to get even with that jerk that gives jerks a bad name! Who’s with me!”
“Right. This is a job for...for...eh...” Twilight rose and found herself slipping into the armchair.
The difficult was taking its toll.
“Don’t worry, Twilight.” Pinkie Pie said hoofing over another cup of hot chocolate “Take the edge off. You’ve earned it.”
“No, no, I...I wanna’ help.”
“What about your Hearths Warming present?” Rarity asked “What did you call it again?”
“A Polyhedricon.” Cadence answered, her horn lighting up to bring it up from where Twilight had left it.
A big, beautiful jewel of a twelve-thousand facets, the device was the pinnacle of crystal technology. For Princess-Use-Only, it served as a total national database. Using it, Princess Twilight Sparkle could find out everything that went on in Ponyville as long as it was officially documented and recorded.
Essentially, once a transaction of any party was completed, she knew.
It required a significant amount of magical power and every alicorn in Equestria could sense when a Polyhedricon was being used. It was a powerful tool that was not to be abused or exploited.
Twilight simply planned to use it to better categorise paperwork or small-print.
But tonight...
“Yeah...” Twilight sat down properly and gave the crystal a burst of magic. It started spinning in ever faster circles and misty images filled the air above it.
“I might be able to find out how Miser got his hooves on Stash and Rowan’s businesses.”
“One thing that still puzzles me.” Rarity declared “A pony that is capable of multiple murders, psychological abuse and seizure of property doesn’t strike me as one who donates generously to the poor. Yet according to Twilight, Miser does so.”
“Look, I wouldn’t take any of that dream seriously.” Rainbow said tiredly “Crazy things happen in your dreams.”
“Not to Twilight.” Pinkie giggled “Crazy things happen when she’s awake.”
Something clicked.
Twilight grabbed the Polyhedricon and lit up her horn.
“I’ll be in Friendship Castle. Find Miser’s place of work and see if he made any anonymous payments. Then check his vault. I’ll be with you soon. Take a crystal communicator.”
Cadence had just enough time to nod before Twilight vanished.
Landing with a flash and a thud on the floor of Friendship Castle, imbued with fresh vigour as she sensed breakthrough, Twilight rushed up to her bedroom and sniffed around.
There it was.
A bizarre stench. Weak now but she could have sworn she smelled it in her dream.
It was acrid, uneven and as Twilight honed in on it, she felt slightly dizzied, yet her fatigue cleared up significantly.
Something to make one keep awake yet not keep hold of their senses.
There. On the small table beside one of the massive bookcases.
Clumps of soil, a viridian leaf, a couple of long pale thorns and dustings of bright yellow fuzz.
Pot-plant residue. And she knew which kind well, she’d once done a paper on it in relation to the disproval of doomsday prophecies seen in Zebrica.
The Cape Sweetthorn. A Zebrican tree which, as a sapling, let off spores at certain seasons. The spores, once breathed in, produced powerful psychoactivity, suggestible hallucinations coupled with insomnia and stupor. The Witch Doctors used it to keep their cults in line and the Ivorium Slavers used it to quell revolts.
One had most definitely been placed on her desk.
And if her theory was correct...
There, just under the doorway. A stain from a drop of something.
Her horn lit up and she magically tested the substance.
A magical image of a yellow-petalled flower with thin, dotted leaves, as if perforated by needles.
She knew the plant too.
Summer Shrinewort.
An antidepressant and an antidote to the psychoactive toxins produced by such plants as the Cape Sweetthorn. The size and shape of the droplet stain indicated being shot out of a bottle when the top was taken off.
Somepony had taken the antidote right before putting the Sweetthorn sapling on her bedroom table. Then acted out a scene enhanced by the hallucinations that kept her awake and senseless.
The leftover residue indicated that it was very recent, barely a night ago in fact.
Twilight tensed herself, propped up a pillow, made sure Owlowiscious was alright, and got to work unravelling Miser’s tapestry of lies and corruption.
Miser must have thought he’d been so clever. Using his old Magpie tactics and hidden influence to manipulate her.
If she was correct...
She cracked a smile.
Oh, it would be so very satisfying making him sorry.
But one question still nagged at the back of her head.
Miser was in prison at the time of her hallucination.
So who was in her room?
It wouldn’t have been the Cutie Mark Crusaders, who the Ghosts of Hearth's Warming Then, Current and Later claimed to take the form of, for reasons unexplained. Their sisters or guardians never let them stay up that late, certainly not on Hearth's Warming’s Eve which required them to stay in bed for the presents under the tree’s sake.
But if not them, who?
*
It was early evening.
In the frosty dusk, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Shining Armour, Night Light and Velvet stared up at the old soup kitchen Twilight had told them about.
They then stared down as the thick wooden boards blocking the door and windows.
“You...” There came a sickly wheeze from a nearby alley. The five ponies turned to see a bedraggled-looking mare with sunken cheeks and eyes, lips and hooves cracked by the cold, dirt in her mane and an angry scowl.
“It’s-s-s all your f-f-fault!” she stammered in a sickly state “You and your s-s-stupid, meddling princess!”
“Now, see here...” Night Light started with a scowl of his own but Applejack raised a hood, pacing forward.
“We don’t mean no harm, ma’am. We’re here to find out just what happened here.”
“You all know what happened! Your Princess had the poor house shut down!”
“When?! How?!” Pinkie blurted out.
“You know how!”
“No, we don’t. Else we wouldn’t be asking.” Velvet said plainly “When did this happen, who did it and on whose orders?”
“You know! How can you not know?!” the homeless mare snapped “The state’s been trying to close this place down for years but Miser’s generous donations always kept us going, even when the collectors took nearly everything we had. But when Miser was wrongfully arrested, he vowed to leave Equestria forever! And now there’s nopony left to help us!”
“Apart from just about everypony.” Shining Armour butted in “How come nopony else knows about this? This has never been seen or heard from by anypony in Ponyville or Canterlot, a town and city full of good-hearted generous ponies. Mayor Mare, Fancypants, Filthy Rich, the Princesses, any of them. What’s been going on?”
The homeless mare sighed frustratedly.
“Because Miser didn’t want anypony to know about his donations, remember?!”
There was a pause.
“So...doesn’t that kinda-sorta make it kinda-sorta his fault?” Pinkie asked.
“Never mind that, you said the collectors were taking everything.” Velvet said firmly “That doesn’t happen in Equestria, not on the Princess’s orders anyway. So who does the collecting?”
“Why do you care?”
“Because she does! Now answer her question!” Night Light said gruffly.
The mare gave a step back, blinking several times, as if confused by the state of affairs.
“Bleakhouse.”
“Bleakhouse?! But...” Velvet blurted out “I remember them! My gosh, they’re...It all makes sense!”
“What is it?” Shining asked tentatively.
“We need to get Twilight on the comms. She and her Polyhedricon could get right to the bottom of this in minutes!”
“The bottom of what? What’s Bleakhouse?” Applejack said loudly, losing patience.
“Well...not too long ago...Bleakhouse Repossession Department was a subsidiary of Tox Corporations.”
*
“You’ve got a lot of nerve coming here after what you did to Miser!” A sharp-tongued deputy manager was berating Princess Cadence in the hall of the closing bank “Thanks to you, we lost one of the best bankers Equestria’s ever seen.”
“Weren’t you complaining how horrible he was and how he’d fire ponies who even said the words ‘Hearths Warming’ to him?” Rainbow Dash asked with a raised eyebrow “As early as yesterday?!”
“Don’t change the subject!” the mare in spectacles retorted “That was before we heard about all that was done to him. All he’d done for the poor.”
“All the lies, you mean?”
“Rubbish! Miser knows your sort! You’ll blame anypony but yourself.”
“Ha!” Rarity guffawed sarcastically “Oh that is a hoot coming from him!”
“Everypony calm down!” Cadence declared, bringing Holly Van Hodurheim forward “This doe has important information. Proof that you’ve all been deceived by your former employer. And his predecessor was keeping the truth from you also, though for better intentions.”
“What? This caribou? What business is it of hers?”
Holly retrieved the journal, found the right page and slammed it down on the desk along with the letter Rowan had sent her.
“Here. Golden Heart Bank. Funds keep going missing. Marten Pine noticed and later Rowan noticed. Then both end up dead not long afterwards. And the fever Tinsel, or ‘Twinkle’ as Miser called her, eventually died from was reminiscent of poison that Miser was adept at crafting.”
The deputy manager glanced at the documents, removing her spectacles with unease.
“How...how do I know any of this is real?”
“Is it at least enough for you to consider helping us?” Candence asked “What we need to know is how the vault looks, when it was last opened and who checks it.”
“Uh...well, I don’t go in the vault. But it’s checked regularly. The security agency we have on contract are very thorough.”
“And the name of that agency is?”
“Bleakhouse.”
Cadence and Holly gave each other a knowing glance.
“Could anypony open the vault and confiscate its contents? Apparently, Miser always worked late.”
“Well, yes, but he couldn’t take anything. We’d have noticed things coming out even if we don’t go in there. And besides, he’d need the keys. He has one but to actually take anything from the safes in the vault, he’d need every key for them. The caretaker manages those.”
She gestured to a creaking old stallion with a bent back and rheumy eyes who slowly retrieved a ring of jingling keys.
“I keep ‘em on me at all times. An’ anypony takin’ ‘em signs and records themselves in the log.”
“Miser doesn’t need keys. I already showed you.” Holly said with frustration “He’s a Master Thief and he ran this place behind everypony’s backs.”
The caretaker shuddered and the deputy manager started looking quite ill.
Shaking, she gave her orders.
“Open the vault. Quickly.”
The keys jingled like bells as they opened the gigantic vault. The mighty black doors creaked open with a hellish groan.
Princess Cadence, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy, Spike, the deputy manager, the caretaker and Holly Van Hodurheim stood with eyes and mouths open wide.
For a moment, one could have heard the dust settling in the silence.
“It’s gone...” the deputy manager croaked “It’s...Oh my holy Celestia, it’s all gone!”
All around them, the sighs of empty chests and bare safes arranged across shelves that took up the walls, greeted them almost mockingly.
“B-b-b-but how?” the caretaker whimpered, barely keeping on his hooves.
At this Fluttershy spread her wings and glanced at the fine figments of her feathers.
“There’s wind. A draught.” she noticed “Something made another exit.”
“Th-th-that’s not possible, the security would’ve-”
“The security robbed you in the first place!” Holly barked “You’ve all been tricked. They must have covered it up by saying they were adding some security measures. That’s if they didn’t do it while only Miser was about. They were working for him, privately, from the beginning.”
“Here!” Fluttershy’s voice sounded from a high shelf. A primrose-maned, buttercup-yellow head poked out from above and gestured.
“There’s a grate that’s been covering a large opening. It’s got a rubber and mesh lining. It looks like a vacuum shaft. They must have used the ladders down there to funnel all the bits up here.”
“Are you serious?!” the deputy manager shrieked.
“I can have a look.” Spike piped up. Rainbow obligingly picked up the little drake and flew him up to the highest shelf.
“Do be careful, Spikey.” Rarity called up to him. The little dragon gave the ‘okay’ gesture and, with a bit of pushing from Fluttershy, crawled through the open grate and wriggled out the other end. After a moment, his voice called back.
“There’s an airship pad over here! It’s small but pretty well-made! The shaft back here’s next to a fuel pump! The roof’s closed though and there’s no ship in sight!”
Cadence spun round to the deputy manager.
“Is anything connected to the upper bank from that end?”
“Well, Miser said it was the ventilation system. He never bought anything better-working and he didn’t like anypony talking about it.”
“Did you know he had a private airship?”
“Uh...I never saw him outside of work.”
“Did he say where he was leaving?”
“He just said ‘A place where Hearths Warming doesn’t exist’.”
“That doesn’t exactly narrow it down.” Rarity sighed.
“I’m sorry. He...wasn’t the sort of pony you really talked to much.” the deputy manager said apologetically.
Holly Van Hodurheim gave a loud growl of fury and kicked a nearby empty safe, sending a flurry of dust in the air.
“Yavlader!” she shrieked “He could be anywhere by now!”
“Don’t worry. Twilight will get everything we know.” Spike said as he was flown down in Fluttershy’s forehooves “Even without her Polyhedricon, she’ll think of something.”
“Wait, shh...” Rainbow Dash held up a wing for silence, her ears pricking to the sound of an argument. Two stallions.
One sounded like the doorpony they’d met outside.
The other wasn’t anypony they’d met today...but was definitely familiar.
“Wait here...” Rainbow Dash whispered as, panther-like she crept forward, casting her suspicious magenta eyes over towards the door.
“What do you mean he’s not here?!” a whiny, petulant protest was coming from the mouth of a corn-yellow young stallion with an unkempt clay-brown mane and dull-blue eyes, dressed in a grey, hooded coat “He still owes me a lot of money!”
“Sir, I am certain you will find the money in your account if not now then sometime this week.” The doorpony said flatly.
“No, no, he promised bits in hoof! Strictly!”
“That...isn’t the way we work.”
“I want to speak to your boss right now.”
“He’s gone abroad.”
“I don’t care if he’s put on weight!”
“No, sir...abroad. As in overseas.”
“Well when’ll he be back! I have some things to leave with him anyway.” He held up a bag of distinctly odd items. Coat and mane dyes, coloured contact lenses, a filly’s playtime make-up kit and a large red mane-bow very similar to the one Applebloom always wore.
“I mean, I can’t be seen with these things, ponies will think I’m up to something!”
“Are you?”
“Wh...That’s none of your business!” The colt was close to screaming “Listen! I was up all of last night doing what he ordered and if I don’t get what he promised me, I...”
He stopped as he noticed the multicoloured-maned mare standing before him with a look of furious bared-teeth realisation.
“You!” she hissed.
“Wh-wh-what’s she doing here?! No! NO! KEEP HER AWAY!”
The colt tore away from the bank and sped off down the sidewalk, knocking over pedestrians as he ran screaming.
“Dash?! What’s out there?!” Rarity called.
“Back in a second!”
Drawing her forehooves across the frost on the pavement, Rainbow Dash spread her wings, drew back, hooves crackling with energy and bolted forward.
The young stallion had placed about half-a-mile between him and the Bearer of Loyalty by the time she rendered it all insignificant.
Like a brightly-coloured bolt of lightning, the pegasus found her mark.
With a crash, the two ponies connected with each other, her right shoulder to his flanks, and the two rolled across the sidewalk where the civilians had made way for them in the street-wide commotion.
The stallion cartwheeled straight into a lamp-post, bending it slightly and sliding down with a mouthful of snow from its top landing in his mouth.
“My leg!”
Spitting and spluttering, clutching his foreleg, he could do nothing as Rainbow Dash stomped over to him like a centaur and slammed him against the metal.
“Fancy running into you.” she snarled with a menacing, wolfish grin.
“No, no, you can’t do this! You can’t...” the stallion whimpered “Don’t...don’t hurt me!”
“Why not?” the pegasus gave a mocking coo “Don’t want another nice fat cheque for all your troubles? After all, isn’t that what you were here for?”
The stallion’s face furrowed with hate.
“I...I don’t have to explain anything to you!” he spat.
“Wrong answer.” The pegasus lifted him up by the collar and flew him back to where they’d both started running. As Cadence, Rarity, Fluttershy, Spike and Holly flocked outside to watch, Rainbow Dash spun in mid-air and slammed ferociously the stallion upon the paving. He gave a groan and crawled feebly on the ground.
“Dash! Calm yourself!” Cadence ordered with shock “Who is this stallion? What’s he done?”
“Wait...I know him. We all do.” Fluttershy murmured.
Dash dusted her forehooves and chuckled.
“Looks like it really is Hearths Warming, girls! Look what Miser gift-wrapped just for us!”
As the stallion wrestled to get back on his hooves, his coat folded over and they saw a familiar cutie-mark. A stage-light.
“Of course...” Rarity gasped.
Unimposing at first, they remembered the stallion well. A failed actor, a self-interested slacker and an all-round egomaniac who’d made the Bearer’s acquaintance and parted soon after, both on distinctly bad terms, some time ago.
She spoke the name.
“Talon Ted!”
“And the Ghosts of Hearths Warming. Three in one, seasonal offer.” Rainbow Dash laughed, throwing down the bag Talon had been carrying. Along with the filly’s bow-tie, dyes and lenses, there was also a tiny, empty glass bottle and a strange foreign pot plant; a dark-green tree with white thorns and dusty yellow buds.
Applejack shared the laugh.
“At least now we know what ‘offer’ he’d been given before he left.” she declared “The performance of a lifetime. The Hearths Warming Special...Oh Talon Ted...”
She drew him up, muzzle to muzzle, snarling with trepidation.
Cold and cramped as he was, Shining was enjoying himself.
The scowling Miser, much less so.
“I knew I should never have hired that whining little idiot.” he muttered.
“Apparently it doesn’t take one to know one.” The blue-maned unicorn chuckled, dodging Miser’s punch. The wizened earth pony indeed hit his knuckles on the bars and cried out in pain, clutching his hand and snarling.
“You’ll regret that!”
“I somehow doubt it.” Shining couldn’t help himself laughing “You were one of the richest stallions in Equestria and you couldn’t bear to hire anypony but him.”
“It’s not your concern how our paths first crossed.” Miser sneered “But evidently he didn’t take long to crack.”
“He was cracked long before you came along, buddy. But that didn’t mean my little sis couldn’t pick up the pieces. Even without what we found out about him, I can’t imagine him being a bigger jerk than how we met him. And like you, he thought that by making a grand show of giving money he shouldn’t have been allowed to have in the first place to those less fortunate gave him a good reason to sit on his flanks and act like an unmentionable to everypony around him. And it took Rarity to tell him where he could shove it. Twilight remembers how it went and she told me and I have to say...”
Rarity watched with unease as the argument between sister and brother grew more and more heated.
The spry and formidable Ath-Lita stood with blazing eyes and railed upon her shifty, sullen brother, Talon Ted.
Despite all that Twilight and her friends and done to try and help her convince him to do something with his life, they were getting nowhere fast.
“So you’re saying you want to keep being a burden all your life, huh?” she barked “Well, fine, see if I care. I don’t want any part of your sloth and misery any more you selfish loser!”
At this, Talon turned and snarled, his brown mane wild and his one eye twitching.
“Maybe this selfish loser should take back the one-thousand bits he kindly donated to the charity!”
There was a pause.
“Talon...donated the money?” Fluttershy asked.
“That’s right!” Talon replied “And that money came from my work at the toll booth, not the cash settlement, but you’re right, I guess I really am selfish and slothful.”
Ath-Lita didn’t reply. Her eyebrow was raised and her lips were tight.
Then, shaking her head, she turned and left.
The Bearers’s heads turned to Talon who stood smugly and spoke.
“I think she has a lot to think about, don't you?”
There was another pause as he noticed how unimpressed they looked. His self-satisfied grin became a look of confusion.
“What are you looking at me like that for?"
It was Rainbow Dash who broke the silence with a small but curt rebuttal.
“That was low.”
“What?!”
The technicolour-maned mare shook her head, her expression declaring herself tired of the whole endeavour.
Yet her voice was unusually calm and collected, just disappointed.
“That was...that was rock-bottom, hooves down, lowest thing I've ever seen. I'm outta' here, I'm gonna go check on Lita...”
“Ah’m comin’ with ya.” Applejack said, following her as she was joined by a concerned Fluttershy and a slightly-peeved-looking Pinkie Pie. Twilight stopped by the doorway and did her best to monitor both scenarios.
That left Talon with Rarity.
The young stallion was spluttering with shock.
“You...You're on HER side?!” he was close to screaming “I just proved to her, to you, to everyone, that I'm better than her!”
“No, darling, you didn't.” Rarity said flatly.
“Yes! I did! You saw me!” Talon was railing “She called me SELFISH and SLOTHFUL! But I gave all that money to charity!”
Rarity’s face was completely collected and her reply came in two quiet but clear words.
“Which charity?”
There was another pause, although less room for it to spread this time.
“What?”
“Which...charity?”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“This isn’t a trick question, Talon.” Rarity was speaking with the frankness and severity that could give a schoolmaster a run for their money “What was the name of the charity or charities you gave the money to?”
“Wh...There wasn’t one. It was just charity.”
“So what then? You just threw it out the window and into the street? Is that it?”
“No!” Talon yelled, fast-exasperated “I...There’s a poor house down the street! I gave them the money!”
“In cash?”
“Yeah. I packed it in a paper bag.”
“And you gave this to...whom? Specifically?”
“The stallion serving the soup. I told him to make sure it went to the poor.”
Rarity blinked, her eyes half-closed, dripping disdain.
“So...what would stop that stallion...or anypony who found the money...just...taking it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you didn’t exactly give it over securely. Anything could happen to it. Is that not an issue?”
Talon shook his head and shrugged.
“It doesn’t change the fact that I gave it to charity! That’s what matters doesn’t it?!”
Rarity held her mouth open a moment, her eyes still half-open, looking more exhausted than anything else, then turned away, placing a hoof before her brow and shaking her head.
“Good...grief...” she sighed.
“Why are you on her side?!” Talon shrieked “I proved her wrong! About everything!”
“What you proved, Talon Ted...” Rarity looked up with a look of fury and contempt “Was that your spite and resentment of your sister means more to you than your future.”
Talon looked at her, nonplussed.
He’d gotten this kind of talk from his sister but now this pony who he thought would understand was dressing him down.
“What are you talking about?”
Rarity rolled her eyes and sighed loudly.
“Dear, take it from the Bearer of Generosity, charity is something you do for others. You donate money because you care more about others happiness than you do about your own. When others are struggling and miserable, you take time, effort and your own resources to make their lives easier.”
“Your point?”
“My point, dearie, is that was not what you did. What you did was not charity, it wasn't about thinking about others and making them happy because it has become very clear you are incapable of that!” The Bearer of Generosity spoke with robust vigour, drawing herself up like an elegant white tigress “Whoever you gave that money to meant nothing to you! What you did was throw one last spiteful 'buck you', if you'll pardon my Prench, at your sister and throwing away everything life has given you just to make her give up on what has clearly been a very arduous job of getting you do something with your life! You just proved to everypony that the only thing that matters to you is not your career or your dreams but your overbearing, overrated but ultimately meaningless pride.”
“But...I...” Talon was staring blankly, his mouth hanging open.
“Look at yourself...Just look...” Rarity snapped in exasperation “Have you any idea what a horrible little creature you are?! Do you?! All you give off is this endless display of narcissism and egomania and a desire to make every little thing in the world revolve around you, treating everypony you meet like guests at your personal pity party! You're broken because you can't have everything you've ever wanted carried to you on a gilded platter with little to no effort on your part! You haven't sought out your dreams, you've just expected your dreams to come to you! Life does not work that way! I learnt that when I was still in diapers and had only just learned to crochet!” Rarity’s voice was close to a roar, her chest puffing as she spoke in stride “It's a wonder poor Lita has lasted this long! If I were her, I'd have made a grab for the bat a decade ago! I'm surprised she didn't give up on you the moment you turned into this spiteful thing I see before me but she hasn't! Likely out of some sense of deep-rooted familial loyalty or sympathy, none of which she ever bucking gets in return!”
Rarity’s chest rose and fell like a pair of bellows as she caught her breath, her eyes wide and blazing blue.
Twilight stared at the spectacle.
Talon finally broke the silence, pale and sweaty with trembling lips.
“I...I don't understand.”
“I know...” Rarity said flatly, straightening her unevened mane “And that's what I find most frightening...You have a lot to think about Talon...Good day.”
And with that, for fear of breaking her rule of courtesy being next to friendship, Rarity turned and headed back where her friends had gone. As she passed Twilight the two checked and nodded at each other as if to determine when one had ended and the other could begin.
“I want you to know something, Talon.” Twilight Sparkle said, pacing over to him “I was genuinely prepared to look at you in a better light. I was prepared to find the good in you and help you bring it out. Now...I’m significantly less prepared.”
Talon’s brow creased so prominently it threatened to fold in on itself.
"Why are you talking to me like this?!” he hissed “I just showed to you-”
“What you failed to show to yourself, evidently.” Twilight interrupted, wringing one forehoof in frustration “Your action itself has been made redundant due to its fashion and its motivation. The mentality behind it is what makes it so objectionable. You gave a lot of money to charity, yes...but you didn’t do it out of the kindness of your heart. You did to get back at your sister and try to shame us into getting us off your case. Do you realise what that means?”
Talon gave a blank look as Twilight answered.
“You tried to disprove your supposed selfishness and sloth...in a slothful way...for selfish reasons. And that’s why it failed.”
“But...” Talon was spluttering “B-but...What do you want from me?”
“What do I...What the hay do you think I’ve been telling you all of today?!” The Princess of Friendship had thoroughly lost her patience “All six of us have been trying to get you to do something with your life and you just keep on ignoring us and trying to do things the way your ‘pride’ prefers! Pride in what? Your acting skills that you never make use of? Your sense of charity that only seems to come out when you need an instant moral high-ground? Pride in your lack of any real, lasting achievement that you’ve made any use of since coming of age?! What the hay have you to be proud of and how have you ever put such things to good use?!”
“I...you...” Talon’s eyes narrowed with bitterness “You sound just like my sister!”
“Yeah, there could be a good reason for that.” Twilight said in a more levelled but very dry tone.
“She HATES ME!”
“She could be the only pony you know who actually cares about you.” The lavender unicorn’s face was flat and stern “She’s stood by you and tried, again and again, to get you to wake up and do something with your life. And I can’t imagine it’s been easy.”
“She hit me with a baseball bat!”
“As much as I’d discourage that kind of thing in other cases, your attitude would be considered a mitigating factor by just about any court of law, I’m sorry to say.”
“You don’t mean that!”
“Talon...me, the Bearers and Spike were in your room listening to your excuses, evasions and boring, senseless, rambling and hysterical ranting that would make Trottingham tabloid talk shows look reasonable and sincere, for what seemed like hours and I can say without a shadow of a doubt that all us were thinking of picking up the bat and carrying on where she left off by the end of it...even Fluttershy!”
Talon blinked as the butter-yellow pegasus poked her head out the door and mumbled.
“I don’t think I’d hit him...just...prod him a bit...not too hard.”
“How can you treat me like this!” Talon was close to howling, his face strained and stretched with resentment “I told you! I told you and told you and TOLD YOU why I can’t go into acting or college! Because-”
“Yes, yes, I heard you the first time. You wanted to be a foal actor and now you lost your chance and now you think you’ll never be as good as actors who’ve acted their whole lives and so you’d rather not bother.”
Twilight brushed her mane out of her face and sighed.
“Talon, I’ve a confession to make...I remained reasonable and understanding in the face of your explanation because I hoped that approach would push you closer to understanding yourself and our own explanation. I thought that getting it off your chest would make it easier for you to look up and see a better way. Now I see that isn’t the case and it’s really just an excuse for you to sit on your flanks and be lazy while blaming everypony but yourself. So now, I’ll give it to you straight.”
She took a deep breath.
“Your explanation is some of the dumbest reasoning I have ever heard, ever! You’re afraid to try because ponies have got there before you?! What, did you want to be the first and only actor in Equestria?! If anything, that suggests you’re not all that good after all, which I wouldn’t count out of the question. But you could at least try! And do you honestly think that all our best actors start out that way?! Plenty of great actors go into the business in their teens or adulthood, usually by taking a college course!”
“Name one!”
“I can name three!” Twilight barked, marking three prominent roles she’d taken a great interest in.
Trottingham actors that her old librarian friend, Purple Patch, often gushed over endlessly. Not, she found, without good reason.
“Mysticer Lee. He started his career as a Royal Guard, fighting in the Ibex Incursions. He began acting after the war ended and he needed work. He signed up for Charm School acting college and got minor, uncredited parts in the Gothic Film crowd. steadily working his way up from there. His first real mainstream role was an uncredited spear-carrier in Olive-Branch’s Stablet. He learned multiple languages so that he didn’t have to be dubbed by another actor. He and his best friend Seater Cushion would then work the primary roles in the ClamourFilms Horror Series and together they made theatrical history! And in his spare time, he worked with his old guard buddies to hunt down runaway Grogarians and traitors of the realm!”
“Well...”
“More recently, Cucumber Patch wasn’t given a proper film role until he was close to thirty. He did junior theatre but he was never a mainstream foal actor. He needed a college degree. But I remember last year, after he played the part of Dr Odd in the Disneigh-Excel Heromania Trilogy. Spike was willing to wait for four hours in line just to get his autograph at comic-con! He’s now become the President of TADAH, the Trottingham Academy of Dramatic Art and its History.”
“That...”
“In less mainstream but nonetheless prominent circles, Wulf Inessence! He studied theatre at college while working as a cricket coach! He got minor roles in major films until just recently, he played Malgrin the Hunter in the new Red Crystal: Age of Revolution series, said to be one of the best characters in the show! He’s going places because he pushes himself forward! And he gets himself involved in things no matter what he’s done or what he’s doing now! What have you done?!”
“But...I have talent! Artistic potential!”
“Which. You. Do. Not. Utilise!” Twilight bellowed “Nopony has roles like they did tossed into their lap! Talent is something you project, you carry around and share! You don’t just keep it bottled away to show off to whoever walks into your room!"
“But I could be better than them! I will be better! I’d be the first actor who didn’t get schooled. It would just be raw talent!”
“Oh, you mean like Cruise Missile? And Bacon Steakham?” Twilight listed off names with biting brusque “And Metaphor Florence? And Ken Princeley? And the late Leaf Hedger? And Canny Havel, right now making history playing the star role in the television adaptation of The Mager series? They never had any real acting training but they still became stars. Each of them had what you lacked, an ability to utilise their talent for the pleasure and pride of others, not just themselves!”
“BUT THAT’S NOT HOW I LIKE TO DO THINGS!” Talon screamed at the top of his lungs “I won’t be someone else’s servant to act how they want! I act the way I like and I’ll show my acting how I like! And that’s IT!”
“...So you’ve told me. Multiple times. But what I’ve been trying to tell you is that you can’t have it both ways. It really doesn’t matter how good you are, or think you are, ponies just won’t be interested in you if you don’t give them the time to see you.” The lavender unicorn shook her head as she explained as she would to a petulant colt “Do you understand what I’m saying, Talon? The way you act makes you an unpleasant pony. And nopony likes those or wants them to succeed. I’m sorry, Talon Ted, I truly am, but I can’t help somepony who’s so unwilling and so unprepared to help themselves. So...good luck, I guess, doing whatever you’re doing.”
“...you failed.” Talon hissed, his mane bristling as his neck trembled, beads of sweat running from his brow “You failed to help me! Your Friendship Mission failed!”
“You refuse to help yourself, as I said. The failure is on your head.” Twilight replied bluntly “And besides, we made a very different friend out of the endeavour.”
She gave a smile as there came from Ath-Lita’s room the sounds of laughter, mended wounds and reassurances for the future.
“Your sister. We’re inclined to help her out. You’ve left her with a great deal of pent-up frustration and unnecessary stress and, for the duration of our visit, we’ll settle for helping the one who actually came to us asking for it. The one who was actually willing to work with somepony other than herself.”
She cast him a glance of severity.
“Learn from her, Talon Ted.”
“I don’t think I could have said it any better.” Shining said in reminiscence “I suppose he didn’t tell you any of that.”
Miser’s lips were stretched tight.
“He barely told me anything. He just said he wanted to help me make them suffer. Actually, he never said he was an actor until I told him what I needed done. I should never have-”
“Hey, it’s you!” A voice came from down the steps and the stallion of the particularly overstayed hour strode into view.
The young sand-yellow stallion entered, wearing some of the most peculiar garb Shining had ever seen. A metal helmet shaped like an oversized donkey’s head with bright pink jewels in place of its eyes and tongues and a colour of white fur and the same pink jewels arranged like pomegranate seeds. His shoulder pads were crafted to resemble open grenadine-fruits and his gloves were so thickly trimmed with grey fluff that they stopped him closing his hands and attached to the sides of the gloves were black and white cords connected to his shoulder-pads. What on earth for, Shining couldn’t imagine.
“Aha!” he yelled “I’ve been looking for you! For what your sister did to me, you shall suffer more than-”
“Shut up and get upstairs!” Miser yelled, one of his eyelids twitching “No-one asked for your opinion! I’m talking!”
Talon’s face fell, burbling desperately.
“B-b-but, I was gonna’ talk to him about what happened and-”
“Yeah, I know already, Talon.” Shining interrupted.
“He knows.” Miser added meaningfully.
There was a pause. The failed actor blinked multiple times and looked at his shuffling feet.
“Okay then, I’ll...I’ll go meet up with the others...ahem...” he cleared his throat and “They must be dying to know how I escaped the fiendish grasp of the evil Equestrians.”
With a heavy stride, tripping now and again, he walked upstairs.
“You keep thinking that...” Miser muttered.
“Don’t like him then? Whaddya’ know, you do have standards.” Shining chuckled.
“It’s his fault your sister caught me!”
“You hired him, remember?” Shining asked.
Talon squirmed uncomfortably in his chair as the chill of the police interview room began to get to him.
The door opened and Applejack entered. Walking steadily and quietly, she pulled up and chair, sat down in front of the stallion and tipped her hat lightly.
“Howdy, Talon.” she said flatly “You know why yer here?”
“...you...you can’t do this! I’m...I’m a professional actor now! I’m a celebrity!”
“Even if that were true, what you’ve done is both illegal in dang near all forms. Better celebrities than you’ve been sent down for less.”
“I’ve done nothing...Miser just offered me a job.”
“A job and a Cape Sweetthorn. You done broke into the home of an Equestrian Princess, drugged her an’ tried to psychologically manipulate her.”
The hardy farm pony tilted the brim of her hat and stared him down, her bright green eyes gleaming under the shade.
“Son...you’re in a freshly-fertilizered-field-full of trouble.”
Talon’s hooves shook on the desk.
“Why are you treating me like a criminal?” he mumbled “I just did what Miser told me...”
“So what yer’ tellin’ me...” Applejack mused “Is that he told you...to make your way into a mare’s house at night, place a hallucinogenic plant beside her bedside, dress up as a trio of little fillies and act out a scenario that could have caused her serious mental an’ emotional trauma...and at no point did you think ‘Is this legal?’. You cannot be that stupid!”
“I’M NOT STUPID!” The stallion’s mood was swinging. Applejack was started to wonder how purposeful it was.
“An’ ah’m not convinced.” The farm pony hadn’t moved a muscle. Her mood, in contrast, was utterly consistent and controlled “Ah remember well how you threw away job offers. Did yer ‘pride and preferences’ really take priority over stayin’ outta’ prison?”
“Yes.”
He hadn’t even paused.
“Well...frankly ah think that says more about you than it does about us.” Applejack drew up some papers “Princess Celestia had a full psychiatric analysis drawn up after Twilight’s experience with you. There is a good chance you could be labelled a narcissistic sociopath for what you’ve done.”
“Where’s Stager!” Talon was beginning to wail “He understands me! He’ll tell you what a wonderful actor I am! Then you’ll be sorry!”
The mare sighed and drew up another paper.
“We’ve spoken to Stager. And he wants you to stay in the cage for a long, long time.”
The stallion gaped.
“Wh...wha...”
“I am...struggling to understand...your train of thought here...” Applejack said slowly “To get yourself out of the stagnant pit that is your life, you won’t budge an inch...But to spite your sister, for a bare moment, you are prepared to stalk a stallion three streets away; watch him on a date with another stallion four streets away; find out his uncle, the unofficial breadwinner of the family, exhibits certain intolerances when it comes to stallions who are romantically attentive to other stallions; confront this aforementioned stallion about his attentiveness and blackmail him into taking your place...right after doping your sister with simulant pills to make her exceptionally suggestible. All that, more effort than you’ve ever spent on anything to make you a bigger an’ better pony...all to hurt those you’d rather believe were responsible for your mess...” Her green eyes narrowed and Talon felt a grey pit open up inside him, starting at his larynx and going all the way down to his bowels.
There was anger in those eyes. More than that, a genuine loathing. Not the stinging, miserable hatred he was used to but something raw, something controlled and powerful and yet horribly dangerous.
Somehow, he’d angered this mare. He wasn’t sure how but once he was sure, he felt certain he was going to regret it. Just looking at those eyes prophesised the world of hurt he was encircling.
“Your behaviour an’ intentions put you in a very bleak position. Even if you escape jailtime, your crimes will be made public. We also have footage and witness accounts from your ‘accident’ that indicates you deliberately threw yourself into the path of injury. This will also be made public. You will have killed any chance of becoming any sort of actor whatsoever...all because the pride you had in nothing mattered to you more than the pride you could have had in something.”
Talon shook in his seat. His guts felt like there were eels running through it.
Applejack spoke in a calmer tone.
“But there’s something that can help ya. Yah may not have cared when one pony who employed you was doing stuff that turns the stomach of decent ponies but ya’ll care about this one.”
“What was Miser doin’ durin’ the time you knew him?”
*
Aha!” Twilight exclaimed between a sip of warm tea as she lay propped up in her bed, the Polyhedricon spinning fast as she pieced together various pieces of information. “It’s all becoming clear now.”
Lavender-tinted magic mist became reflective and spectral, like fragments of glass, as they collected information. The Princess of Friendship was building herself a literal mind-map.
She spoke on another crystal, a small bright yellow communicator which the Bearers were speaking on the other side of.
“Okay. So...Bleakhouse was indeed a subsidiary of Tox Corporations and after his so-called father’s death, Miser laid off all but twelve members. These same twelve operated as a gang close to where the Magpies worked and, several years before, travelled by train to Canterlot City. The very night following, two teenage fillies were violently and indecently assaulted, left with life-threatening wounds.”
“Ah.” Rarity said “I suppose then that they both could be counted on to back up the other.”
“These same thugs knew Miser from the beginning. They operated as his hitponies. And the way the donations work is really quite crafty. Basically, they keep their affiliations with Miser completely undercover and with Tox Corporations assets being sold off once by Miser and then by his successors, they can’t be traced back to him. So, as far as anypony knows, they’re government-run.”
“So how do they take the donations that Miser sends the poorhouses in the first place?” Applejack asked.
“Red-tape. Very effective in its simplicity.” Twilight explained “Miser sends his donation anonymously. Then in about a week, Bleakhouse arrives at wherever he left his donation and tells the owners that one or more of the donations they received were delivered via illegal activities and transactions, thereby needing to be confiscated. And since Miser leaves such a large donation, nopony notices them confiscating more than that, the excuse being the added interest. These are poorhouses, soup kitchens, and both Miser and Bleakhouse bypass the state’s notice by various means. Nopony keeps clear records and nopony asks questions. But by linking Miser’s financial transactions with Bleakhouses’ contracts, one notices a pattern.”
“So...Miser doesn’t just take back his own donation...but he takes everypony else’s along with it?”
“Why he leaves it anonymously. They don’t know which donation is dodgy so they all need to go. Bleakhouse takes the lot, claiming it’ll be gone over by the state’s financial ministry...and delivers the whole lot into Miser’s stash.”
“Let me understand this...he’s making money by stealing from the ponies who have no money?”
“It’s a donation scam but one he manipulates rather than actually orchestrates. He donates. Others donate. And he takes the lot. It’s like rigging a betting game except he’s the only player and everypony who isn’t playing loses.”
“It’s...It’s...It’s flat-out disgusting!” the farm-pony said with distinct distaste.
“That’s one of the kindest words for it.”
“But where’s Miser gone with all this money he’s taken?” Spike piped up over the communicator “He never kept any offshore accounts, according to the bank.”
“That’s more difficult. I’ll need to look closer.” Twilight answered “He’s been careful. Very careful. But at the same time, Miser doesn’t think all too far ahead as what we’ve seen recently demonstrates. Somewhere...I can find a pattern.”
But what did she have to go on?
Until as early as that afternoon, Twilight had assumed that Miser leaving Equestria forever was simply an angry impulse, such as often as she’d seen from him, and thought little of it.
Now, it seemed, it was his plan from the beginning.
It was all so planned. Miser set himself up as a recent business, made a scene, got the Princess’s attention, made another scene, got the town’s attention, got himself arrested and had Talon Ted waiting in the seams to bait her into his deception and gave him the perfect opportunity to make his sudden emigration seem entirely justified.
And now he was fleeing somewhere ‘There’s no Hearths Warming.’
But what kind of land would offer promise to such an individual?
Of course, Hearths Warming wasn’t widely celebrated outside of Equestria but then each land had its own celebration which, from what she’d seen from him, was not what he wanted.
He seemed to hate others being happy when he wasn’t.
But how could he ensure that?
Twilight looked at the vast sum of bits her calculations had determined he’d acquired in his account over his years of scamming and extortion.
It came to twelve figures.
Only the Princess, the Crystal Empire, the Hasbrethren and the Disneigh Corporation had that much money to spend.
And they at least spent it on good things.
What was Miser spending it on?
What could anypony need so much money for?
...Unless...
Twilight blinked.
Surely Miser wasn’t that insane to...
Using the Polyhedricon, Twilight sent an emergency request to the Sinople Tower, an old Equestrian surveillance outpost on the Hazarian Sea.
Information regarding any single-pilot airships passing near the coast.
The query was confirmed.
Twilight Sparkle stared into space.
With a shaking hoof, she picked up a teacup and sipped it uneasily.
“Twilight?” Cadence asked “Have you found anything?”
There was a pause before she answered.
“Eeyup.”
“What have you found? What’s Miser doing?”
The Princess of Friendship took a deep breath and spoke.
“Miser Able is going to buy a country.”
This time, the pause came from the other end.
“I beg your pardon?” Rarity’s voice came through.
“Miser is going to buy himself a country to rule over and ensure nopony he meets can be happy when he isn’t.”
“How...How the hay do you figure that out?!”
“Well, a lot of it just comes down to what I know about Miser. It’s not just the fact that he’s miserable that makes him hate Hearths Warming. It’s the fact that other ponies are happy.” she explained “Think about what we’ve seen from Miser. He locks himself away from society and yet is prepared to spend vast amounts of time and resources gaslighting a Princess. The only reason he’d go to such lengths to accumulate such vast sums of money is to spend it on something so completely ridiculous that the audacity of it all is something he can basically take refuge in. Nopony would ever believe it until it was too late. He wants a place to call home where ponies do as he tells them and don’t feel joy without his permission. I’ve checked Equestria surveillance on the Zebrican shores and it’s confirmed.”
“Zebrica?” Night Light asked “That doesn’t exactly narrow it down. He could be anywhere.”
“No, dad. Where he’s going is very specific.” Twilight said, drawing up the information in the magic mist.
A large strait of land on the Gulf of Adag. A flag of pale blue with a silver teardrop drew itself up.
Twilight shook her head. The history of the state was a depressing one, one she’d studied during her extended history courses. Equestrian ambassadors and Zebrican activists had done what they could and saved many but the scars still lingered and what was left told a bitter tale.
It went by an infamous name.
“The Crossing.” she explained “It’s gone by several names in history. Ssmet, Tigrippo, Damodhul, Zigossica, Pasadera, Ped Xing, Plunderpad, Port Caury. It’s had some of the most widely-varied conquerors in history and some of the bloodiest, unfortunately. The post-Tirek Ivorium Invasion was catastrophic and split the once-great state in two. The native zebra now reign free in the Sultanate of Haqodishu but the west of the land has never seen stability. After the Ivorium were driven out, the state saw itself without clear leadership and a conflict between economic and military leaders lead to a piracy crisis. Ex-militants raid the coasts daily while the local government figures rotate constantly. No zebra wants to rule it, you’ll either be a scapegoat or a pirate’s plaything. The country officially declared bankruptcy five years ago.”
“Doesn’t sound like the kind of place Miser would want to rule.”
“No, no, the money he’s acquired is nearly three times as much as it would take to buy the presidency of the country. What he plans to do is pay off the pirates. I can’t trace the financial transactions yet but his bank’s sent private messages to and from individuals in the area of the Crossing, addressed to a party calling themselves ‘Saviours of the Sea’, something the pirates often call themselves; being militants of fallen regimes, in their eyes the rightful rulers of the Crossing...”
“Okay, Twi, you don’t need to hammer it home.” Applejack said with a sigh “So...if he manages to pay off these pirates and the local government, how many bits will be have left over?”
“Barely four figures. But I don’t think that matters to him. He’ll have what he wants; misery. And if anypony ever called him out on it, he’d have the perfect backing story. He spent all his ‘hard-earned money’ saving the zebra of The Crossing from the pirates that neither they, nor Equestria, could control.”
“And I suppose that’ll give him the right to treat everypony he meets like crap?” Rainbow Dash asked morosely.
“In his eyes, yes. And the zebra of The Crossing are in a difficult position as it is.”
“He’s already committed mass murder, grand theft, sexual abuse and high treason. I don’t plan on seeing what he’ll do to a whole nation of innocent, downtrodden zebra.” Shining barked “How do we stop him?”
Twilight thought a moment.
“We’d need definite proof. Take apart his biggest strength, that of hatching a plan so absurd nopony would believe it.”
She drew up various figures and focussed her magical grasp.
The figures stretched, spun and opened up like flowing puddles.
“Okay, I’m into his financial records and hopefully, I can bring up his promised price with the pirates if...Damn it! It’s password-protected!” she cursed, finding a row of misty cubes in place of a password.
“Do we need his voice?”
“No, he’d need notice from government security to do that. Bleakhouse doesn’t have the means on their own. So it would be a word. A word that...”
She paused and knew there was only one thing it could possibly be.
“Humbug.”
The cubes opened up like boxes and there, before her, was exactly what she need.
Now, she thought, for the easy bit.
“Cadence is with Holly, right?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Teleport her here. Then I’ll get Starlight and between us, we could manage to teleport to Port Bubera. He’ll land there for sure. I’ll also have an Equestria Task Force ready and inform the Sultan of Haqodishu to have a contingent of his own troops sent over. As of now, Miser is now considered one of Equestria’s Most Wanted.”
“Go get’ em, sweetie.” Velvet said with encouragement.
The airship was a small and simple mechanism but fitted with a very powerful fuel tank. It had taken him just under a day to cross North Zebrica. Grevyssinia and the Hyrax Mountains had spread for miles. At last, the rocks of the gulf greeted his surreptitious gaze.
Slight smoke was nearing the ship’s window. Miser gave a glance out.
Burnt, blackened houses and towers were standing unsteadily on the northern shoreline. One of the roof-top supports collapsed, showering embers and letting loose a cloud of darker, deader smoke. The remains of a sea-raid. Three, maybe four days old.
His eyes gleamed.
One just didn’t get this in Equestria.
Just smiles. And chuckles. And simpering graces and syrupy poises. Surrounding him. Mocking him.
They all thought they were better than him. All his life, he’d been ignored. Outside of their stupid little world. The creature on the side, too miserable to worry over.
He’d never taken their money. He always threw it into the gutter first chance he got.
That wasn’t what he wanted. That wasn’t what he was.
He wanted to show them the real side of life. The side they all hoped wasn’t there. He wanted to jerk them out of their stupid days of smiles and sunshine and bring them down, down to his level, below his level, and keep them there, forever!
He wanted to be better than them. And that couldn’t happen if they were helping him.
At least those two fillies had noticed him.
‘Creep’ they called him ‘Dirty weirdo’.
Oh, he had hated them for it. Hatred that had driven him. That, at least, he was thankful for. It made him feel alive.
They at least had given him a reason.
A reason to hurt them.
And it was sweet when he did. It gave him joy like nothing else ever had.
Other ponies never did that. They never gave him a reason to hate them.
He never understood why. If he was in their position, he knew he would’ve.
It made him sick. It wasn’t right.
But now, he’d never need to be part of their pathetic little lives again.
Here was his new home.
A land without smiles. A land without laughter. A land without love and friendship and hope. None of these jabbering stripies had it in them to stand above him. He’d show them all and then...
They would do whatever he wanted them to do...
Forever.
He grinned, the sides of his lips tugging at the corners of his face, wrinkled and worn after a lifetime of avoiding the world around him, wracking himself to find what he so wanted.
The streets below were dark, dirty and joyless. The zebra he could see threadbare and thin.
They all looked as he had once done.
And they’d never be anything else. He’d see to that.
He took a deep breath through his nostrils.
He’d found it at last. His paradise. His kingdom.
Nopony would ever look down on him here.
Nopony could.
Port Bubera showed itself through the chilly haze of Zebrican winter, a set of squat pale-yellow ziggurats with workers bustling in a dreary manner. All of them were hurrying off the landing bays in groups.
‘That’s it, gnats’ he thought ‘Run from me. Know your place and get well used to it.’
Pushing up a lever, the Mulberry Hawk slowed, turned sideways and steadily lowered itself. Miser jumped from the ship before it had even finished landing.
Before he could properly take in the sight of the land of bowed heads and humbled hearts that would all be his, there was the sound of a crash behind him, a falling object and crumpling metal
He tripped and scrambled round to face his airship. Atop it, having bent some of the supports holding the deflating balloon in place, was a hardy pegasus in armour, speckle-coated and steel-eyed with a mighty battle-axe slung between his wings.
Colonel Peregrine gave a menacing smile and greeted the fugitive.
From down the port, there came a mix of Equestrian and Zebraic barks and calls as the Royal Guard of Equestria galloped or flew up to greet him, flanked by zebra in gleaming armour of copper, brass, gold and black iron, topped with tree-shaped talc figurines letting forth bright green and cyan silk streamers as plumes for their helms, white cloth wrapped around their heads and limbs; the Myrrhic Guard of the Warsan Sultan.
Their officer wore an blackwood mask shiny with resin and his mane was black and tied into fuzzy knots in the traditional North-East Zebra manner.
He glanced at Miser Stash who was getting to his hooves and seething.
“WHAT is the MEANING of THIS?!” he was screaming at uncomfortable intervals “WHO do you THINK you ARE?!”
The masked zebra tilted his head and spoke calmly in perfect Equestrian.
“Mr Miser Stash, I am Captain Taalo ‘ee Toraay of the Myrrhic Guard of Haqodishu. And it is my duty to the magnificent Warsan Sultan, Dzidic Ari-Ghali Sarqasadin, and his most noble allies in Canterlot to inform you that you are under arrest.”
Miser could have popped a nerve.
“ARREST?!” he screamed “For WHAT?!”
“You really want the list?”
A familiar voice sounded as the guard parted for a young lilac unicorn mare with a wavy mane of azure and violet. Starlight Glimmer stood before the creature that had raged at her that very morning, staring him down with a very different look. Her eyes were half-closed and her muzzle turned up before the irate stallion.
Her expression, voice and posture suggested that there was nothing Miser could do to her that she feared.
“You have been declared a public enemy of ponykind. You will brought back to Ponyville and answer for the crimes you have committed against Equestria and its ponies.”
“ON WHAT CHARGES?!” Miser was screaming at the top of his lungs.
At this, Starlight cocked an eyebrow and looked over the stallion’s shoulder.
“Ask her.”
“Hello, Miser.”
The berserk face of Miser Able flashed to a look of blank, weak shock.
He knew that voice.
He knew it well...
But...
“No...” he mumbled, fearing to turn yet locked in motion regardless, slowly looking upon the face of the caribou doe with those great dark eyes fixed upon him furiously “No...Not you...You...You’re...You’re...”
Thunk!
A blow from an antlered head sent him sprawling on his sides. His head spun as he stared in horror at his age-old adversary.
“Surprise, bitch!” Holly Van Hodurheim towered over the architect of her lifelong loss and suffering “I bet you thought you’d seen the last of me!”
“NO!” Miser screamed as he felt the caribou’s cloven hoof clasp at his throat, pinning him to the ground “No, please! Please! Don’t! Don’t kill me! Holly, don’t do this, please! We...We’re friends!”
“Friends?!” The doe hissed, her eyes blazing, flecks of spittle at the corners of her mouth “You know who was a friend?! Tinsel! And Marten! And Rowan! And all the others you betrayed!”
“No! You don’t understand! I...” the stallion whimpered, his hooves shaking in front of his face “I...What do you want? I’ll give you anything! Anything you want! I promise! Anythi-”
A clout from her forehoof silenced him. Her tooth ground against each other.
“You can’t give back what you took from me!”
"S-S-Starlight! Please! Reason with her!" Miser was screaming over his shoulder at the unicorn mare "You...you can't let her do this! Please! I...I can make it up to you! I...I'm sorry. Please, you must believe me! I'm sorry! Just please tell her to let me go!"
Starlight tilted her head, examining just how different Miser looked since last she saw him, and answered in a level, slightly sly tone.
"What was it you said to me before you left, Miser?" she asked "Oh yes...'You think you can just blame a pony for a crime he didn't commit, horribly humiliate him across the kingdom, and expect one little apology will instantly heal such scars and make everything alright?'"
Miser trembled at his own words repeated to him.
"Do you, Miser? Do you really think that's enough? For me...For her?" Starlight gestured to the seething Holly "You're a murderer, Miser Able. And we don't intend to let you off this time."
Breaking down, clutching his forelegs to his chest and shutting his eyes tight, Miser whimpered to the doe he'd scarred all those years ago.
“Don’t...don’t kill me, please...”
“Kill you?!” A dead-sounding laugh escaped from Holly’s throat “No...I won’t kill you...After all, you never killed me. You just left me with a life not worth living. For you? Kind of a lateral move. But you’ll get what’s coming to you. And that’s what I’m here to give you. After all, it is Hearths Warming!”
“And A Happy New Year!”
A beckoning cry echoed from the clouds as a lavender alicorn spread her wings above the crowd and landed with a thud of four hooves and a giddy smile.
Despite having been up all night and very much looking it, Twilight Sparkle had never felt more alive. Jumping over from one observer to another, she yelled in a fantastic festival rush.
“Your Princess has returned! Twilight the Perceptive! Twilight the Tireless! Twilight the Bringer of Justice! But if any of you would like to find themselves on my Hearths Warming Card list, Twilight the Charismatic asks only one thing-TAKE THIS PIECE OF FILTH AND PUT HIM IN THE DUNGEONS OF CANTERLOT WHERE HE BELONGS!”
The guard needed no persuading. Hauling Miser Able off his hooves, grabbing all four legs, and dragging him to the portal to Canterlot Twilight and Starlight had set up below the landing bay.
“No! No! NononononoNOOOOOOO!” the guilty stallion screeched as his world fell down all around him “YOU CAN’T DO THIS! I WAS MEANT TO GET EVEN! I WAS MEANT TO WIN! I WAS GOING TO HAVE EVERYTHING!”
“Sorry, Miser, not gonna’ happen! You’ve been naughty this year!” The Princess finished with a jibe the guard respectfully pretended to find un-cringeworthy.
Starlight sided up to her with a humoured smile.
“You’ve been up way too late.”
“A Princess’s work is never done, my faithful student! Let that be a...er...snrrrrr....” Her head lolled to one side and rested on Starlight’s shoulders.
“Um...Twi?”
“Snr-wha?” Twilight woke, blinking. She shook her head.
“You wanna’ go back home now?”
“Just looking...” Starlight was gazing out at the expanse of the Crossing.
Dry, destitute, dismal...depressing.
“So the zebra of the Crossing don’t celebrate Hearths Warming...It looks like they don’t really celebrate anything at all.”
Twilight looked out with her student.
“It’s complicated. The country’s just been bled dry over centuries. Now...it just writhes. Zebrica, Equestria and many others do what they can to improve things but...”
“Is there any hope.”
Twilight gave her a knowing look.
“Always.” she said with certainty “It’s a slow journey. But it always ends well. Like the best stories.”
“I was just thinking...Miser tried to basically show you that some just don’t have it easy on Hearths Warming...He could have just shown you this. Or maybe just in Equestria or anywhere, really. And we could have actually helped. Hearths Warming just isn’t easy for everypony sometimes.”
“I can’t but agree. But when it came down to it, he just brought everything back to him, him, him. Which is really how those sorts of problems happen in the first place. I was helping others that Hearths Warming just I’ve done for every Hearths Warming I’ve had since I came to Ponyville. He saw that and he hated that because he saw everything that proved him wrong about his small, stupid, selfish little life. So he tried to destroy that part of me...”
“And failed.” Holly Van Hodurheim’s voice interjected as the caribou stood looking out at the dunes “Thank you...for your help. All of you.”
“It was the least we could do for you, Holly.” Twilight assured her, pausing a moment to ask with unease “So um...what’ll you do now.”
The doe sighed and spoke.
“To be honest...when I started out on this, I’d planned on giving it all up right after I knew it was over.” she murmured “Laying down beside where I buried Tinsel in the house that should have been ours and...just ending it all...I have been so tired...And now, it’s all done...And yet...”
“Yes?”
“Somehow...I feel more alive than ever.” A small smile crept across her face “I feel a sense of peace and purpose I’ve not felt for some time. I like this...helping others, righting wrongs, getting involved, making more of my life and helping others do the same.” She turned to them, lamination creeping into her smiling visage “It’s a good thing you do here, Princess Twilight Sparkle...Never stop, no matter how many Misers there are in the world. One of you is greater than any number of them.”
“Thanks Holly...that means a lot.” Twilight said with a bashful blush “So...will you stay in Ponyville?”
“Just for the winter, I think. I’d like to be with good company for Yulefest. Afterward, heh...I think I’d better get back into practice.” She tossed her antlers in the gentle winds with a grin “I’m a thief at heart and I’ll go back to doing something good with my skills. Still plenty of rich bastarderen out there who need a dose of justice and I think I’m the one to give it to them. I might set the Magpies back up, bring in more students, tell them about Tinsel and Marten and Rowan and all the rest. Miser tried to do to me what he’d done to himself; stop me trying and obsess over what had hurt me.” She cricked her neck “It’s time I put him in the past...and really make Tinsel, Marten and Rowan proud...wherever they are now.”
The Princess of Friendship placed a proud hoof on Holly’s shoulder.
“If they were half as good as you say they are, Holly, they’ll have never been more proud.” Her stalwart silence was broken up by her yawn as she shook her head and focussed.
“Okay...I’m about ready to conk out and I’d rather do it in my own bed.”
“Trixie’s probably missing me by now. I’ll get on that.” Starlight’s horn lit up as a swirling glow materialised in front of them, flattened, stretched and spun into a portal, the lights of a Ponyville winter evening beckoning them home.
With comforted smiles, promising themselves that this year would be different for Ponyville, the Crossing and Holly, they strode forth for a fine festive evening among friends and family.
And a Happy Hearths Warming for all.
“And it was a Happy New Year.” Shining finished with a smile before the scowling grinch.
“Your sister spat on me...” Miser growled.
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t think she was unjustified.”
“She mocked me. She left me with nothing!”
“As you’d left countless others. I can’t imagine prison’s very kind to thieving, pencil-necked millionaires like yourself.”
The old stallion’s mouth twisted in resentment as he shuffled his legs uncomfortably.
“I’d never been so happy than when I heard she’d gotten herself killed.”
He’d hoped that would wipe the smile off Shining Armour’s face and make him feel the hurt he made himself feel.
Instead, Shining just raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah...Well, I’d say I’d never been so happy than when I heard she’d come back...but I’m not sure that’d be true. Not because I wasn’t happy then but because I name moments I was also just as happy if not happier. When Cadence agreed to marry me, for instance. Or when I was promoted to Captain-General of the Royal Guard. Or when Twilight became the Princess’s student. Or when Cadence was crowned a princess. Or when Flurry was born. You’ll notice none of those moments involve ponies who I feel have wronged me getting killed.”
“Because you’re WEAK!” Miser screeched “You cannot understand what a POWER is HATRED!”
Shining gave an amused snort.
“What are you, a cheesy sci-fi villain?!” he chuckled “I’d give you a retort but you can understand what a power is friendship and love too but I reckon you can understand it, you just don’t want to. For the same reason as the others up there. You can’t handle what a sad little creature you are and blaming it on anypony but yourself if the only way you stop yourself breaking down.”
“SHUT UP!” the old stallion’s rage was audible across the mountainside. Why nopony had heard it by now was a mystery. Shining supposed they were further away from civilisation than he thought.
“Very soon, Shining Armour, it’ll be all of Equestria breaking down! And I’ll be up there, above them all, happier than ever.”
“No...you won’t, Miser.” Shining replied flatly “Haven’t you forgotten your old story? Nothing ever goes right for you.”
A vein in Miser’s forehead twitched.
“You’re not getting out of this alive, Shining Armour. You or your daughter. Whether we win or not, we’ll make your sister and wife lose everything! As we did!”
“You keep believing that, Miser. Belief, after all, was supposed to make Starfleet stronger than us. Well, I tell ya...” He gazed at the mirthless beast with steely eyes.
“Even from where I am, here in this cage, you don’t look very strong...”
He spat through the gap, hitting Miser’s shoes.
The old stallion drew back and stared at his prisoner with loathing before turning on his heels and heading up the stairs, trying hard to ignore Shining’s final words.