I'd like to walk around in your mind someday.
Her bracelet was beautifully green.
It was the first thing Rarity noticed about the mare waving to her from across the train platform. Each broad, obnoxious wave of the orange mare’s hoof kicked fresh sun off the brilliant jade coiled around her leg and the reflected light struck her like an enraged serpent. The mare wearing the bracelet continued yoohooing and waving, apparently at her, and the bracelet kept dancing with the light.
Green wasn’t normally her color, but Rarity made exceptions for jewelry and something like that bracelet certainly deserved such an exception. It hung loose enough around the leg of the mare—who was still waving and yoohooing insistently—that it could bounce and turn just so slightly with each wave showing off each separate perfect inch of its brilliant green scales of alternating emerald and tourmaline as the bracelet turned and turned and turned toward her and Rarity saw the yellow diamond eyes smiling at her from the serpent’s face.
“Yoohoo! Oooh, yoohoo!”
At this point, Rarity realized she’d been staring for several minutes.
Her face flushed, but the yoohooing and waving mare seemed unaware of her faux pas and continued yoohooing and waving.
Which was incredibly annoying. She’d managed to knock the hat off at least one passing pony as she stood leaning across the railing around the train station café. Others were starting to stare at her and Rarity who she was apparently hollering at wondering why these two nuisances had chosen to be here to put on this show.
Rarity did the only thing she could think to do in this situation and walked over to the mare pulling her luggage trailer behind her acutely aware of the annoyance being cast her way by everypony passing around her belongings.
The orange mare continued to yoohoo.
Rarity did the only thing she could hope to do and smiled at everypony as she passed and hoped desperately that her façade of cheer would be enough to make them join her in thinking this wasn’t intolerable. It wasn’t working; this really was intolerable. It didn’t help that Rarity now noticed the mare also had her own pile of luggage, assembled without any sense of proportion or matching colors and textures.
It was evident from everyone Rarity passed that they thought she and the other mare must belong with each other, two matched cases of a kind containing something wretched and better ignored if only one could stomach to look away.
“I just saw you over there and simply had to yoohoo,” screeched the mare directly into Rarity’s face.
Rarity continued to smile and struggled to overwhelm the situation with grace. “My na—"
“I saw you’re also a mare of good taste, carrying the whole world with you wherever you go,” the mare interrupted before Rarity had a chance to finish getting some control on the situation.
Before Rarity could defend her need for her luggage, the mare interrupted her with a light punch and screamed. “I’m just joking of course.”
“Oh, of course,” Rarity laughed politely, although the verbal and literal jab annoyed her.
This was already A Day and it was barely noon.
“You simply must sit down!” The mare commanded, “this is such a wonderful little café and a mare like yourself must be famished!” She laughed hysterically and jabbed Rarity again. “Only joking, of course!”
Rarity desperately wanted to be away from this nuisance, but just walking away would result in this mare—who apparently didn’t care at all about anything—following after her and shouting at her.
And Rarity was famished she had to admit.
And she couldn’t keep her eyes from the bracelet. The yellow diamond winked at her like a familiar friend that she needed in this impossible situation.
So, Rarity let her luggage sit beside the mare’s pile, acutely conscious of everyone who cast an irritated eye her way, and sat across from her persecutor.
The orange mare stared directly into Rarity’s eyes and demanded, “this is such a wonderful little, seaside town, isn't it?”
Rarity swallowed and averted her gaze back to the bracelet. She should probably hate it for getting her into this situation, but how could she hate it as it turned slowly around the mare’s leg, seeming to writhe as if enjoying the sunlight like something only recently released from the dark, impossible depths of the sea.
It was fortunate, Rarity should probably admit, that the other mare was so oblivious. Anypony would feel justified in being offended by her behavior, but she just couldn’t quit staring.
“I’ll only be here for a couple days,” Rarity said, not breaking eye contact with the smiling serpent.
“You must be staying at the wonderful little seaside hotel too?”
Rarity wanted to deny it, anything to drive a wedge between the two of them, but she did have a reservation there despite her newly found reservations, and all she could say was, “well, there’s only the one, isn’t there?”
“Yes, yes, it’s such a wonderful little seaside hotel.” Something about the way the mare kept describing things as a ‘wonderful little seaside whatever’ was starting to grate on Rarity’s nerves and she felt herself growing increasingly desperate to get away, but she couldn’t reveal it. And she couldn't break eye contact with that bracelet.
Fortunately, at that moment the station master announced that the 5:45 was boarding and the mare leapt to her hooves and hurried away, pushing her mountain of mismatched luggage with her.
Relieved of the other mare’s presence Rarity headed up through the narrow streets of the town to the hotel. Some of the alleys were so narrow she could just barely squeeze through and she heard more than a few annoyed grunts as she passed with her luggage in tow.
Such were the pains of being a fashionable tourist. And it wasn’t like she didn’t need most of these things, she was fitting an important client after all.
She tried to smile her way through it, but she was still burdened by the presence of the obnoxious, departed mare. It was as if she were an inescapable presence now latched onto her like a parasite, but the bracelet was at least some conciliation.
When she finally entered the hotel, she found a scrawny grey dappled stallion sitting at the desk and reading a blue bound book.
“Do you have a reservation, ma’am?” The stallion didn’t even bother to look up from his reading as he asked.
“Yes,” she smiled with the force of a thousand suns, “under Rarity.”
“Hm, ah yes,” he hoofed over a key and pointed her to a small elevator. “You’re on the top floor. In the suite.”
“Would you mind helping a lady with her luggage?” Rarity asked batting her eyes at the stallion.
“No, I only mind the desk,” he replied as he returned to his book.
It took Rarity the better part of an hour and multiple trips up the elevator to move all her things into the room. Between the obnoxious mare at the train station and the lazy stallion waiting the desk, she was already quite peeved with this town.
Rarity winced at the swear even if she didn’t say it out loud and sighed. It wouldn’t do her any good to work angry, so she took a long walk around the town before returning to bed.
Her walk was little better than her first trip through the town. It was not a place to be by any means or at any cost. Without her luggage, it was easier for her to walk by the bored, bearded stallions behind piles of wares that were less than worthless and asked her “what’s your pleasure, ma’am,” and walk around desperate, stringy haired detritus left in the wake of a withering civilization, but it didn’t make any of the insalubrious smells or sights any happier.
The earlier hours had left Rarity thinking thoughts typically unfamiliar to her, and it wasn’t doing her any favors. Why had everything turned out this way despite all her preparations?
She should be in her suite getting a start on the suit she would be fitting a stallion for tomorrow and knocking items off her list in true Twilight fashion, but instead she was here glancing across items of no real value.
Finally, she stopped her wondering at the harbor and sat down on an abandoned bench. The smell of fish was everywhere, and, in the distance, she could hear the slow, methodical thud of that machine which is always somewhere near a port.
She stared out across the water, trying to will some beauty into her world as she watched a ship slowly labor into port from the alien, monstrous sea with its dark, impossible depths beyond the horizon. The flags and banners of some foreign country hung ripe and yellow off it above the green barnacles clustered to its side just above the level of the water.
Thud.
Green.
Thud.
Yellow.
Thud.
All she could think of was the brilliant greens and yellows of that bracelet the mare had been wearing. It was the one highlight in this terrible A Day.
The thud came again.
As she dozed off on the bench, she saw the bracelet again and again in her drowsing.
Thud.
Awkwardly, she leaned forward and out to bite the dangled bracelet in her dreams and came to just as her teeth met each other.
Thud.
Rarity lurched out of the dark, impossible depths of her dream and off the bench looking around her like a startled, skittish lizard. The sun was setting and casting the area around her into shades of orange and strange.
The A Day was almost over; it should be time to go home.
But she had nowhere to go but her suite in that “little, wonderful seaside hotel.”
And so, she did so as much as she loathed to do so.
It wasn’t her home, but she’d successfully arranged it into the organized chaos she was used to. Here was the bag containing her sewing machine and here was the make-up bag and here was her collection of small scraps of obscure fabric. It was how she was normally able to make a home of anywhere she went.
Anywhere other than this place, anyway.
Perhaps she was missing Opalescence.
Or perhaps she was grateful that Opalescence wasn’t here to see this place. She so hated such unfashionable burgs.
Rarity locked the door behind her and took a quick shower. The shower at least sparkled at her as she expected a hotel shower should. She stood there in the flow of hot water, idly wondering about the world and its past. What else could she have done to get rid of that mare? To avoid her?
No, to get away from her. She couldn’t conscience the other way.
Rarity was washing her forehooves for the third time or perhaps more. It was almost a wasted day, but she fought not to let it weigh her mind. She was failing to do so.
Tomorrow could be better she assured herself. She could take it straight on with a good night’s sleep.
As she lay in bed, she focused on her work tomorrow, after the fitting. She’d have to work quickly, but she’d done all of this before. In her head, she pictured the suit she’d make, how the pieces must fit together.
Just as she was drifting off to sleep, she—
Thud.
She lurched up from her bed glancing around the room in panic.
The room was still an exercise in organized chaos. Everything was in its scattered place. Her bags with her sewing machine and fabrics were by the table. Toward the bathroom, spread by their priority were the bags containing make-up and the other tools with which she made her appearance. It was all as it should be in the light of the moon.
There was nothing to see or hear.
There was nothing to see here. From her open window, the only thing that flowed in was the sea breeze. She was too mature to believe in monsters under her bed. That’s definitely why she didn’t get out and look under the bed. Something was coiling and twisting under the bed like a serpent preparing to strike. Because she knew there was nothing to see there. She wasn’t not looking under the bed because she was afraid of what she might see.
No, she was just too mature to get out of bed, and because she was so mature and worldly wise, she just lay back down on her bed and waited too drift off to sleep again.
Thud.
Rarity lay still.
She wasn’t going to get out of the bed. There wasn’t anything under there to see moving in the dark. Rarity gripped the sheets so tightly in her hooves that they started to ache. She hadn’t actually looked under the bed, had she? Something was laying across her chest, forbidding her breath. It was just the fitted sheet she slid under like a serpent entering a hole. Why did she think that? Why wasn't she looking under the bed? Why would she? Could she? Something was beneath her, seeking her death from the dark, impossible depths it called home; something was burning behind her eyes from the dark, impossible depths it called home, seeking her embarrassment. There was no such thing as monsters under the bed; there was no—
The third thud nearly bounced her off the bed and onto the floor.
She jumped out of bed now, dignity totally forgotten as she ran screaming through the suite to turn on every light obliterating the shadows.
With magic and hoof, she hit switch after switch and paused not even for long enough to see anything happen. All that mattered was flooding the room with light. All that mattered was sending all the trauma demons away.
Finally, she found herself in the bathroom and she stood there.
She stood there panting with one hoof on the light switch. Outside her window she heard a siren rushing past. Everything around her was lit up brilliantly. She was safe. She couldn’t not be safe standing here in the brilliantly lit bathroom surrounded by the polished tiles.
Especially not in a wonderful little seaside hotel. She was being absurd.
Instinctively, she looked in the mirror and nearly passed out. Her eyes were red on the verge of fillyish tears and her mane was a disordered mess.
Instinctively, she splashed some water on her face and started to comb her mane despite the late hour.
As she tended to her appearance she calmed down and her breathing slowed. She was being ridiculous and wasting perfectly good beauty sleep. The scratching started softly and slowly. She’d look awful in the morning if she didn’t get right back to bed. Something was just beneath her awareness dragging its claws across metal. She tugged at a particularly frustrating area of her coiffure. There was nothing under the bed. Had she checked? The claws were growing insistent, scraping away at the metal, searching some way out. Of course not, but there wouldn’t be anything under the bed. That was ridiculous. But she hadn’t checked, had she? She stopped, holding the brush aloft.
The sound of a claw being dragged across metal continued.
Rarity turned around and looked out of the bathroom at the bed which she only realized now she’d been avoiding since she jumped out of it. The sheets were still in disarray and half-spread across the floor and the scratching continued.
“Hello?” She said.
The scratching stopped.
Silence slowly rolled into fill her suite.
“Hello!” Rarity demanded.
There was still no response.
“I’ll have you know, I’m,” Rarity stumbled at a loss for words. Applejack liked to make threats, what would she say in a situation like this? “I’m ready to ho-down if you are.” No, that wasn’t right at all.
There still nothing. Unless? Was that something whispering?
Or was it just the wind coming off the sea outside her window?
Was that the siren still wailing so far away?
Her curtains swung and twitched.
Her tail swung and twitched.
Otherwise the room remained still.
She felt the heat still building up behind her eyes. The desperate longing for some sort of release, whatever it was. She needed to cry. She needed to scream.
Instead of accepting that release, Rarity stepped back into her bedroom brandishing her hairbrush. She made it only two steps before realizing the futility of using it as a weapon.
Not to mention, it would damage a perfectly good hairbrush.
Keeping her eyes locked on the bed, she lowered the brush onto a small, useless, circular table with a bowl of wooden fruit that populate furnished apartments and suites.
Instead she lifted one of her suitcases and practiced swinging it a few times. It felt like she could probably knock a pony down with it.
“I’ve got a weapon and know how to use it, partner.”
She was honestly surprised that whatever it was wasn’t laughing at her. Channeling Applejack was not working for her.
Slowly, she crossed the room still wielding the suitcase.
Each step brought her closer to vomiting in terror. The bed did nothing, but it didn’t need to do anything else.
It had already done enough.
The heat behind her eyes had proceeded up and forward and out and down her cheeks in the form of hot tears as she reached the bed. The silk sheets spilled across the ground and reached out toward her hooves like pouring water.
She reached out with a hoof and lifted the sheet aside, revealing the dark under the bed, and she stood there still as a statue.
Waiting.
This was the point that something would reach out and attack her.
But nothing did.
She was just standing here threatening the area under her bed with a suitcase.
Swallowing, she dropped low and looked under the bed.
All that greeted her was another case.
Not just any case, though. A shockingly green trunk that would clash with any of the one’s she owned. A quite large steamer trunk that just barely fit under the spacious Princess sized bed and which glittered at her with emeralds and polished jade set in platinum.
Rarity set down her own suitcase and reached for the green one. With a great struggle, she wrestled it out from under the bed. The trunk continued to be silent now that it had been exposed. In the full light of the room, the polished green leather reflected quite demurely.
Feeling ridiculous, Rarity tried speaking to the trunk again. “Hello? Are you a changeling?”
The green trunk responded only twinkling quietly from the emeralds along its exterior.
“If you’re a changeling you have to tell me.”
The trunk was made of some sort of brilliant green leather which did not identify itself as a changeling.
Rarity walked in a full circle around the trunk. Moving from fear of it to annoyance that housekeeping had apparently failed to clean under the bed after the last occupant had left. Even if they did leave quite a fetching green trunk.
Feeling increasingly ridiculous, she knocked on the lid as if it were a door.
Still no response.
“Is anypony trapped in there?”
Nothing.
“Knock twice if you’re being held hostage.”
Nothing.
“Can you hear me?” She spoke each syllable clearly and loudly at the edge of the trunk, which still did not respond.
This was ridiculous.
She must have been hearing things.
And feeling things.
It would make sense. This had been the A Day to end all A Days after all.
Her hooves slid along the edge of the trunk feeling its cool smoothness and the bumps of the emerald studded platinum lip.
It was such a wonderful trunk.
All the same, she couldn’t just keep this wonderfully green trunk. It’s former owner no doubt was missing it quite badly. If Rarity lost something like this, she’d probably not be able to sleep for weeks.
But that was a problem to be dealt with tomorrow. First thing, of course, before she went out for her morning fitting appointment, she’d tell the staff about the trunk so they could contact its owner.
Just in case of further misbehavior, Rarity shoved the trunk into the bathroom and closed the door before she went back to bed.
The next morning Rarity put on her best face as she returned to the desk and stallion with his blue book.
“Excuse me, but I found a trunk in my room.”
“Okay,” was all the stallion replied.
“I believe a previous tenant may have left it there?” Rarity asked trying to lead the stallion toward somewhere that might involve even the tiniest shred of customer service.
“Oh yeah,” the stallion said as he looked up, “yeah, you’re in 3A, right?”
“Yes, the third-floor suite.”
“Some mare sent a telegram and said she’d be returning to pick the trunk up this evening. You can bring it down here if you want.”
This stallion’s attitude did not inspire any faith in Rarity that he’d actually see that it got to the right mare, and she’d hate to think of such a striking trunk being stolen by some ne’er-do-well.
So, she sealed her fate and said, “I can keep it up in my room until she gets here. I’ll be in during the evening.”
“That’s probably irregular,” the stallion replied, “but I don’t care. So, yeah, keep it.”
“Only until the mare who owns it comes to retrieve it, of course.”
“Yeah, sure.” The stallion had already returned to his reading.
“You will send her up to my room, won’t you?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Rarity took a deep breath and held it while she walked out the front door of the hotel.
It was only then she realized she hadn’t gotten the name of the trunk’s owner, but she was determined never to speak to that useless stallion at the front desk again.
She also realized she’d left her work bag in her suite.
Avoiding looking at the stallion at the front desk she rushed back up to her suite kept running right in through the door to where she’d left her work bag.
Grabbing it, she spun and stopped dead.
The bathroom door was open.
She’d closed it before leaving the suite, hadn’t she?
The trunk sat quietly in the middle of the bathroom, still doing nothing as it always did when she could see it. Like a predator waiting in ambush hoping to blend in with the reeds by being still.
It wasn’t a predator.
It was a green trunk.
“Your owner is on her way,” she told the trunk.
The trunk said nothing only brilliantly kicked the light of day back to Rarity’s eyes. It shined, and in shining showed how little it cared for the attention it was getting. It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
“Please don’t misbehave anymore today. I’m … I’m talking to a trunk.” Rarity sighed in exasperation and pulled the bathroom door closed and jiggled it to make sure the latch caught.
The rest of Rarity’s day was uneventful. The fitting was over by afternoon and she had plenty of time to wander the town. It was a wonderful, little seaside town, after all.
She caught herself admiring a green scarf and rebuked herself. She would never wear such a thing. Maybe a brooch or a bracelet or small highlight, but she’d never go so far as a green scarf. She was just out of sorts because of that green trunk and her rather fitful day yesterday.
It had seemed like such A Day at the time, but now she was confident it was all behind her. She was moving on, strong and proud as ever. No baggage other than her matched baggage, of course.
When she returned to the hotel the stallion was still sitting at the desk. It took ten minutes to extract the information that the trunk’s still unnamed owner had not yet arrived, and Rarity walked back up to her room in a huff.
Future visits to this town would not be overnight stays, unless she could find some other lodgings in town.
Rarity stopped outside the door of her room. Her ears twitched and she faintly heard it. The scratching again, the same one she’d heard last night. Long slow claws dragging across metal.
Or was it tiles this time? The floor of her bathroom?
Was it on the loose?
What was it?
Her nose itched and her ears swiveled forward, trying to catch the noise. Every time she thought she’d caught the noise it faded again and slipped out from between her hooves like a stubborn thread. Maybe it was another guest on this floor? Except that she hadn’t seen anypony else at the inn during her stay, which was hardly surprising given the uselessness of the stallion at the desk. But this was the only hotel in this awful town. There was the scratching again and there it went. She stood paralyzed outside the door of her own room.
But she couldn’t just leave, her things were in there. Clothes and make-up and bags and thread and her very beautifully green trunk and brushes and her sewing machine and all the rest of it. It would take years to recover if she just ran away.
Why had she brought so much with her? If she’d just traveled lighter, she could have avoided all of this. That departed, orange mare said it was because of her luggage. Why was she even thinking of the orange mare now? There was the scratching again and there it went. She couldn’t just stand here. No. This was too much.
Rarity hastily unlocked the door and slammed it open, ready to catch the culprit in the act.
But there was nothing there. Her room was the same as she’d left it.
Except …
Except ...
The itchy pressure traveled up her sinuses and took root behind her eyes.
Except ...
The bathroom door was wide open.
Everything was the same as she'd left it except ...
The trunk.
Everything was the same as she'd left it except ...
The trunk was sitting in the middle of the floor of the suite.
She’d definitely closed the door, hadn’t she? She’d definitely left the trunk inside her bathroom? She'd made sure the door latched, hadn't she?
Rarity shook her head; the door was probably in need of maintenance. That stallion downstairs was the only one she’d seen working here, and he was not up to his job.
No, she wouldn’t be staying here ever again in this wonderful, little seaside hotel, and she only wished that there was some sort of way she could complain about the poor service here. Maybe Twilight could whip something up. A service you could use to complain to the entire world whenever you were offended by poor service.
But how had the trunk moved?
It had chosen a wonderful, little place to move to, resting at just the right angle to the setting sun's light as it crept in through the windows and leapt brilliantly off the emeralds that adorned the trunk.
Rarity slowly walked into the room toward the trunk. It lay there as still and silent as it always did when she could see it. The emeralds reflecting the light of the setting sun from the windows of her suite. Only now, a scrap of yellow cloth was hanging down the side of the trunk from where it was pinched in the shut lid.
The cloth was a faded yellow, faded almost to white like puss and hanging over the green leather exterior it reminded her of gangrene and decay.
The cloth had not been hanging out of the trunk when Rarity had left it there this morning. There was no way to miss something like that.
She froze again and the itching moved from her eyes across her face as she was paralyzed, staring at the yellow against the green. Yellow and green could work as a color combination, she’d done marvelous things with Fluttershy’s bright yellow and some cheerful greens, but this yellow was too faded, bordering on white, and the edge of it against the green looked gangrenous.
More importantly, there hadn’t been anything sticking out of the trunk when she’d left. And the bathroom door had been closed.
And the trunk had been in the bathroom. Not resting so seductively in the middle of her suite.
The hot pressure behind Rarity’s eyes was about to make her cry, just because of the feeling itself crawling up and through her face burning all it touched.
Rarity cleared her throat, desperate to say something to the trunk when she was interrupted by a voice from behind her.
“Yoohoo!” An incredibly annoying voice from behind her interrupted her thoughts. “Yoohoo!” The voice repeated, now directly beside her, and Rarity turned to see the mare from the train station, still wearing her shockingly green bracelet that Rarity now realized matched the trunk perfectly.
The only parts of the mare that matched. The parts of them that matched.
“Oh, it is you again! And you’ve found my wonderful, little seaside trunk!”
Rarity oscillated in confusion between anger at the mare just coming into the room and terror at the trunk’s continued misbehavior, and so remained silent and hating the other mare for being there. She felt the dams behind her eyes break and knew she was crying through her make-up.
How could this mare be here?
The mare didn’t seem to care if Rarity said anything and only invited herself further into the room standing uncomfortably close beside her. “I hope you didn’t steal anything from it! Only joking, of course!” And the mare accented her statement by giving Rarity a “playful” punch in the shoulder.
Rarity barely suppressed her urge to bite the offending hoof and instead managed a muffled “of course.”
The mare still didn’t seem to care if she got a response—she probably never once in her life had cared if anyone responded to her or welcomed her anywhere, in fact—and instead headed directly toward the trunk. As she approached it, she noticed the yellow fabric hanging out. “Oh, what’s this? I hope you didn’t open my wonderful, little seaside trunk!”
The mare turned back to Rarity who stood transfixed.
“Only joking, of course,” said the mare as the trunk lurched violently enough to leap off the ground.
Rarity wanted to warn her. Whatever the trunk was, it wasn’t something to be meddled with, but the mare wouldn’t have listened anyway, and Rarity couldn’t fight past the panic keeping her rooted to the spot.
The orange mare reached toward the clasp at the front of the trunk and undid it.
Rarity was going to throw up. She was going to cry. She was already crying. She was going to faint. She really meant it this time. This was the worst possible thing. She was going to explode. She wanted to die. She wanted to do anything other than stand here paralyzed as if sleeping and unable to speak or move under the weight that burdened her chest.
No, she was going to remain very still and hope that whatever came next passed her over if she didn't resist.
One of the mare’s hooves gripped the yellow fabric, ready to push it back inside, and the other gripped the lid.
The mare turned back to Rarity to say something as she lifted the lid. Instead, there was only a flash of something bone white and clad in decaying yellow rags erupting up from the impossible, black depths of the trunk and grabbing the mare's back legs before yanking her up into the trunk.
Rarity’s mouth hung open.
She really did vomit now.
The other mare’s forelegs gripped the lid and base of the trunk, barely holding her back from being pulled all the way in.
A string of puke hung thick and wobbling from Rarity's lip.
It, whatever it was, was still pulling the mare into the impossible, black depths of the trunk. She pulled back desperately, trying to keep herself out and made eye contact with Rarity as she gasped “hilf mir …”
The burning in Rarity’s eyes grew hotter as she started to weep truly. Waterfalls fell from her eyes as she watched the mare be consumed by the trunk.
The mare shifted, trying to fight whatever was pulling her inward. She yelped and slid further in. Her hooves scraped across the fine leather exterior and found no purchase on the brilliant, polished emeralds. Her hooves scraped across the platinum lip desperate as claws. She plead, “bitte rette mich…”
Rarity’s eyes were drawn to the bracelet as it scratched slowly along the cases exterior. The yellow eyes of the serpent winked up at her against their jade setting.
The orange mare jerked suddenly as she suddenly lost purchase. Her face was nearly totally inside the trunk now. The only thing visible were her own yellow, pleading eyes and her hooves still struggling to hold the lips of the trunk swallowing her.
And the bracelet, turning slowly as it rolled across the lip of the case.
“… bitte,” she gasped.
Slowly, Rarity walked toward the mare and reached out her hoof.
The next morning Rarity pulled her bags down the stairs and loaded up two luggage carts herself because the grey stallion waiting the desk remained rooted and useless as a potted plant.
As she was about to leave, the stallion showed, perhaps for the first time in his life, some initiative and said: “That looks like the trunk the other mare had.”
Rarity glanced nervously at the green leather trunk and its glinting emeralds and smiled, “Ah, yes, well, when I saw her trunk, I just had to have one just like it, so I, um, bought one.”
“I didn’t think you could buy anything like that around here.”
Rarity laughed. “You just have to know where to look, darling.”
“Okay.” The stallion slouched back to his normal role as an inanimate lump.
Rarity sighed in relief and left the inn, promising herself never to return. Although, she couldn’t say the trip was a complete waste.
The light of the morning sun kicked brilliantly off the beautifully green leather of the trunk and the emeralds along the platinum edge. It was almost too green and clashed horribly with the rest of her luggage, but it did match her bracelet quite well.
She lifted her leg and admired her new acquisition as the sun played off the jade and yellow eyes.
Yes, her bracelet was quite beautifully green.