Marking The Only Time 'Cut' Ever Really Got Involved
In the wake of this level of box office disaster, there was always the question of who to blame. The stallion sitting on the ornate bench behind the precisely-overpriced desk (probably for the last time), was already keenly aware that it was going to be him.
It just wasn't fair. How could the studio heads place the responsibility for the ticket numbers on him? He was just the director-producer: in fact, given what he had once seen as stunning insight from his parents, he was Director-Producer, and that meant he didn't really do that much of the actual work. His primary job was to tell other ponies to start working and when to stop. This was typically followed by dissecting exactly why everything which everypony else had done was wrong, and then you moved on to Take Two. So how was any of this his fault?
He looked down at the desk again. Lovingly-carved depressions substituted for a pair of In trays. One of them held the latest copy of the Saratoga Way Standings: his assistant had already opened this to the page which displayed estimated box office totals, without mercy. It was easy to find his latest production on the list. He didn't even need to draw on his rough familiarity with the title for that: he simply read down the numerical column, and looked for the place where the commas died.
The other depression held a sealed envelope, which had been sent by the studio heads. Those missives could always be distinguished by the blue and black foil embossing, something which made it look like the letter had been bruised. Given what typically happened to those who were blacklisted by the studio when Security finally got the chance to seek payback for several years of 'Have you considered standing over there? The lighting might make you less ugly,' this could be seen as a sneak preview.
He hadn't opened it yet. There was probably some legal technicality which said he wasn't officially fired until he saw the words and given that, the letter could stay sealed for a little longer.
D-P looked at the estimated box office receipts again, failed to locate anything approaching a fourth digit, and gloomily turned to his assistant.
"You're seeing the same thing, right?"
"Yes!" the elegantly-combed jenny happily declared, grey hooves briefly cantering in place from sheer delight. "Isn't it horrible?"
D-P, who would have responded to just about anypony uttering those words with an attempted throttling (something which was rather difficult for an earth pony to manage, but he kept his mane long, wore it fully hanging to one side, and felt he could get behind somepony quickly, then whip his head fast and catch the far end of the hairs on their way back), simply sighed. There was no real point to calling her out on the reaction: she wouldn't even understand why it had been wrong. He'd wanted a donkey assistant, because hiring someone from a species which was forever looking out for the worst-case scenario was one of the best ways to avoid going through it. He just didn't always listen, because he was the director-producer and there was usually this little voice in his head which said anyone lower in the ranks just had to be wrong.
Donkeys knew their magic revolved around endurance and survival. They believed that life was suffering. In both cases, the movie industry provided.
The jenny was capable. But if there had been a warning, he hadn't picked up on it. And she enjoyed being right just a little too much.
"The way I see it," he eventually proposed, "that letter is one of two things. Either we're fired, or the studio heads want to know why the ticket sales are short of my projection. And if we can't give them a good answer, we'll be fired."
She gleefully nodded. The step after getting fired was unemployment forms, and that was just guaranteed to make everything worse.
"Ticket sales projections," he mused, then tried to sort through an endless forest of phantom numbers. "Which lie did I tell?"
"I'm not sure," she readily admitted. "There's been so many. D-P, maybe we could just tell them to hold off until we start seeing the international release numbers? Those reels haven't even been mailed out yet."
"Equestria with a two-week exclusive," he groaned. "Sure, because we just know ticket sales usually go up in the second week, and that'll buy us time to pretend the foreign figures are late."
"Ticket sales hardly ever --"
"-- that was a lie, Grimderp."
"Oh." The jenny smiled. "It's a good one."
"This isn't my fault."
"No, D-P," she automatically said, and he squinted at her.
"Was that a lie?"
"You tell me, D-P."
His chin slumped onto the desk. After a moment, the rest of his face followed up.
"It's the book," he muttered into the wood. "They said it was unfilmable. Maybe they were saying that before there was film, just to make sure they had coverage. Eleven hundred pages and we brought the whole thing down to just under two hours."
"It's a classic," Grimderp happily decided. "They teach it in Eeyorus, you know. Hardly any pony books get into our schools. They just have the wrong kind of ending!"
He'd never read the book. It wasn't the fact of the hardcover being eleven hundred hardbound pages, just barely captured by the kind of spine you could shatter rock with. (It was always a hardcover, because glue technology hadn't advanced to the point of creating a paperback which didn't suicide after three minutes.) He'd barely read the script, and what he had read had been out of order because that was how the scenes were shot. Ultimately, what had attracted him to the project was having heard that every single character died at the end. It was just the sort of thing he liked, although his usual directorial efforts tried to have it happen with more explosions.
"Classic?" he irritably asked, because it was potentially his last day as a director-producer, he was about to become a normal pony, and he didn't remember what those were. He worked in cinema. He read trade magazines. Newspapers came in two forms: Entertainment Section and Useless Filler. D-P was at least three years behind on the news at all times, and generally only found out about major world events when somepony warped them into a script. "What makes it a classic?"
"A classic," Grimderp happily said, "is any book which a teacher forces you to read. Then when those foals grow up, they pass the experience on."
"Are they enjoyable?"
"No! That's the best part! And when it comes to this book --"
"-- maybe it was the title," he desperately cut her off. "We should have done something with the title."
She briefly frowned. "I'm pretty sure that's the one thing the writers couldn't change, D-P. Otherwise, how would everyone know what we were adapting?"
He softly bashed his snout against the softwood portion of the overpriced desk, which had been designated for exactly that.
Writers were pointless. They were the single stupidest part of moviemaking. If they were so essential to the process, then why did they have to adapt somepony else's work in the first place? Why not just come up with something original? Besides, with an adaptation, you needed to secure the rights and that meant having to pay the estate. With an original script and some creative accounting, you might never have to pay anypony.
He knew why the film had really been made: he was rubbish on Current Events, but survival instincts had given him an unerring ear for Studio Gossip. One of the studio heads had a daughter, she'd been assigned the book in class, and she rather reasonably hadn't wanted to read it. Hers was the level of studious inquiry which encouraged watching the movie instead and when it turned out there wasn't one, she'd asked her mother to protect future generations.
Moons, trying to get it all cut down. Thousands upon thousands of bits spent on casting, design, production. And then a book which just about nopony really wanted to read had become a movie which had technically been seen by some portion of the public, mostly because projectionists were expected to stay awake.
"We're dead," D-P rather placidly observed. Perhaps he'd been hanging around donkeys for too long, because the recognition of his ultimate end didn't seem so bad. The edge of death was oddly peaceful and when it came to the feel of snout-cushioning wood against his fur, he couldn't take it with him.
"Yes," Grimderp smiled. "But at least we'll go out together!"
A hoof knocked on the door.
He looked up. Hooves didn't knock on his door when the box office estimates came in, not if they wanted to remain attached. The only way anypony was going to knock was if they'd either gotten past Security, or happened to be --
-- well, if that was it, there was no point in postponing any longer. He forced his head up. At the very least, he could go out on his hooves. Right up until the first kick landed.
"Come in."
The alicorn did.
It took a moment before he truly saw it. His experience with alicorns was something which had been acquired at a distance: he'd been lucky enough to have the Diarchy at two of his Canterlot premieres, but they had remained within their Princess Box for the entire presentation. This alicorn didn't move the way they did, with dignity and grace. She pushed herself forward in a series of furious stomps: something which almost managed to make the floorboards recognize her presence.
This alicorn was... small.
She was considerably shorter than the average mare: clearly an adult, but the size of a slightly undergrown adolescent. 'Slender' could be fairly used, if you didn't want to go with 'two missed meals away from turning into an anatomy chart'. Her manestyle consisted of the sort of bangs used when the pony understood that manestyles were required, and -- that was about it.
Her wings were slightly flared, the eyes were wide and fierce, and a surge of corona closed the door behind her. The last was something which should have blocked the sight of six helplessly cowering Security ponies from further consideration, and it didn't work.
There was a corona bubble floating at her side. It contained a stack of papers, and what little writing D-P could make out through the glow came across as weapons-grade.
The stallion recognized all of that and, judging by the little intake of breath on his left, so did the jenny. But most of what they registered was alicorn.
"You're the director-producer?" she demanded.
He looked at her horn. Then he looked at her wings. The process repeated a few times, and only stopped when one of the passes went over her eyes. They were beginning to narrow.
"...yes," he somehow managed.
"I just saw your latest film. The --" and the word was not spat, because spitting never could have been foul enough "-- adaptation. I came here almost directly from the theater, because somepony clearly should." She drew herself up to her full height: in terms of actual elevation, this meant a few extra fur strands and for raw intimidation, put her somewhere in the altitude vicinity of a cloud home. "Somepony should have spoken to you long before this! But maybe it's not too late. And I have some things to say."
I could have opened the letter.
I could be getting punted over the gate right now. Or through it.
That would be an improvement.
"Such as?" he asked, because the important thing about last words seemed to be getting them over with.
Her eyes blazed.
"I am here," the alicorn announced, "to see Justice Done!"
And while the capitals were still echoing against the wood, her corona slammed the papers down on the desk.
"Do you know how much of the intent you lost?" she demanded. "Or at least what the majority of ponies generally agree the intent might have been. I saw your so-called adaptation with one of my friends, and her class. They're literature majors, and we had a discussion -- actually, I left while some of the fights were -- anyway, you can't just edit a classic like that! Every word was Art! Each syllable a direct channel into the Writer's Subconscious! You dishonor her, sir, you dishonor her work! Her only novel, the sole gift she gave to the world! Eleven hundred pages into less than two hours, not even two hours, and you... you... the vase..."
Which was where oxygen ran out, and the alicorn spent a few seconds gasping for breath.
Jenny and stallion stared at her. Atmosphere shifted.
"That is a list," the alicorn eventually resumed, with laid-back ears and lashing tail belying the calm of the words. "Of ponies who want to see the movie changed. To be made right."
He looked at it. There were names.
"The students, of course."
Then there were more names.
"I was taking a survey on the way here," the alicorn primly added. "Stopping ponies and asking them if they wanted to sign."
He reached the middle of the first page. Some of the names were starting to look... familiar...
"These are characters," he slowly said. "From the book."
She puffed out her ribs. "Yes! They have every right to be on this list, because they need to be Honored, sir! So I wrote down their names. On their behalf."
He flipped past six more pages.
"All of them," she needlessly added. "From memory. Less than two hours, sir: not even two hours and somehow, not even the vase. You did the story no honor. Everypony says so. Everypony I spoke with. I'm sure I could have gotten even more names if I hadn't wanted to get here before Sun was lowered and so many ponies on the street hadn't kept saying they needed to get home. They all want Justice. So I am here to see Justice Done. Because all I have is a simple request, something which those who know and love this work would surely wish to see."
He couldn't seem to stop staring at her.
"In a theater," she added. "Maybe twice." Thoughtfully, "Probably at matinee prices for the students."
"And... that is?"
"Reshoot it," she precisely requested (although he didn't hear it that way). "Make it better." And, ever so softly, snorted. "Not even two hours, sir. Less than two hours for eleven hundred pages. It is an insult, and those of us who respect, defend the classics will not stand for it. The lie of an adaptation which exists, in its current form?"
He waited for it.
"Boycott," the alicorn announced. Followed by, somewhat more quietly, "...coltcott? Fillyco --" Feathers rustled. "-- the point is that I have some small influence in the literary community, sir! I speak to the students of it! And the teachers. Eventually. If their office hours ever match what's posted on their doors, and those doors stop locking. Plus I meet any number of readers, and sometimes I collect their fees. I can prevent a degree of ticket sales, I know I can. Especially when it comes to anypony seeing it twice. Because the book deserves better, and until you render Justice --"
She stopped.
She seemed to be looking at something and, after some tracking, the stallion realized it was his own raised left forehoof. He wondered when that had happened.
"Reshoot," he said. "We can do that."
Her ears went upright. The tips started to vibrate.
"You will?"
One last check. Horn: present. Wings: curled with happiness. Alicorn: in his office.
"But it'll take a few moons," he told her. "Because there's so much to do. We practically have to make it all over again..."
"Of course," she enthused. "Make sure you hire consultants! And don't leave out the intent! You have to capture the book, sir, capture it exactly as we all see it in our heads! And the best way to do that is to make sure it's fresh in yours!" With a sudden, bright smile, "So you should read it again. Immediately."
The little body began to turn.
"I'll check back to see how you're doing," she happily stated, now steadily moving for the exit. "When I can. With advice! It's a second chance, sir, a second chance to show your love! Don't waste a second of it! Or a syllable. Make sure the film doesn't lose a single one...!"
She opened the door. Several Security ponies fell over each other in their rush to get away, and she didn't seem to notice.
The door closed. D-P and Grimderp breathed for a while, largely because it was still possible to do so.
The word alicorn was on his mind. In fact, it seemed to be occupying the majority of space. But it still left room for a question and, once he was almost certain it wouldn't bring her back, he voiced it.
"Was that a madmare?"
Grimderp thought it over.
"Maybe just a bibliophile."
"What's the difference?"
"What you get hit with when they lose it," the jenny promptly answered. "But this time, the bibliophile might be more dangerous. Did you know that in six nations, owners of the book have to register it as a lethal weapon?"
"Because the spine can shatter rock," he observed.
"Well, yes," she admitted. "But there was also something about phrasing. Sir --" and there was that little hitch of hesitation in her voice, the trill of a donkey who was looking at a future filled with all kinds of disaster and didn't know which one to celebrate first "-- are we really going to reshoot? The weekly box office numbers only go down from here, you know that. If we pull the reels back to add so much as a minute... and the money, there's already been so much spent... splicing snippets back in is one thing, but I'm not even sure we still have them! And if we have to call back cast and crew...!"
"Three things," D-P said, and she put the cantering on hold. "First, we're already on the verge of being fired. Possibly blacklisted, with this big a disaster. We don't have much to lose."
After a moment, she nodded.
"Second..." and a grim smile slowly worked its way across his features, "it's not that hard to get a studio to kick good money after bad. It's like gambling, Grimderp: there's ponies who swear they only lose when they stop playing. In for a smidgen, in for a bit."
"Um..." she risked, "we've spent a lot more than smidgens --"
"Regardless," he declared. "Because the third factor is alicorn. All the studios can do is blacklist us. I don't want to find out what happens when the palace is unhappy." With a faint frown, "Just when did she even turn up? -- anyway, we'll pull back every domestic reel. Cancel the foreign mailings entirely. Claim there was an error and we're fixing it, just for the book's fans. New release date to be announced. Tell the studio heads that an alicorn's involved, and that'll be enough to keep going for a while. I could have wished for an alicorn when I saw those totals, Grimderp. I didn't, because what was the point? I just wanted anything which could save us, and... maybe this is it."
Five minutes ago, his career had been dead, and death had been oddly peaceful. Now that death was on hold, and something of the peace remained. For the equation was simple: madmare (or worse, bibliophile) put aside, Horn plus Wings equaled Must Know What She's Doing.
"Some say they work in mysterious ways," Director-Producer mused. "Let's draft the letter to the studio heads. Get this ball rolling all over again. They can't say anything but yes."
She immediately turned, went to fetch blank papers. And a stallion on the edge of death, still balanced upon that precipice, had the worst thought of his life.
With a wince, "I may need to read the book. Send out for a copy."
"Yes, sir!" Grimderp happily called back. "The production of Boring & Pointless is back on!"
The second time found the little alicorn trotting into the middle of what had been intended as a sealed soundstage, during the reshoot. She always just trotted in, because everypony was afraid to stop her.
The crew pretended they weren't there. The cast decided to go improv: the new topic was Being Statuary and as with all improv, every last one of them said Yes. And the alicorn marched past the cameras (none of which recorded her, as nopony was shooting that low), didn't quite weave past the sound equipment...
Everypony very carefully failed to watch her as she extracted herself from silver wire. And then she trotted up to D-P's bench.
"They told me you were here," she announced. "I have some questions."
"...yes," would eventually be the typical beginning of his talks with her. Really, when it came to alicorns, you didn't need another word.
Her left foreleg gestured outwards. "What's that?"
He looked at where the fourth wall of the kitchen wasn't.
In D-P's opinion, it was a good assembly. The prop department had found cheap substitutions for the majority of the antiques required by a period piece: some had been recovered from central storage, while others had been created for the reshoot. The lighting was set up properly, suggesting mid-afternoon. And the painted backdrop outside the window, carefully blurred by a camera which would spend the entire scene very carefully not focusing on it... well, that would pass just fine.
He knew it was good enough. He'd forced himself through the words which described it. Then he'd looked at what was in his head, followed by adjusting for budget. The studio was paying out because the fallacy of the cost hadn't sunken in yet, but this was already turning into one of the more expensive projects on record. He had to be careful.
But the alicorn was right there. Again.
"It's a set," he tried.
She visibly thought that over.
"A set," she decided, "is merely trying to replicate the Pointless estate. The third one, after the last two burned down under what had appeared to be tragic circumstances, which of course weren't truly explained until --" and stopped, finally seeming to notice the cast and crew.
"No spoilers!" she happily told them. "Although I'm sure you've all read it by now! Three times! Including the hoofnotes in the Extended Edition. Don't those just fly by?"
Nopony dared to cough. Coughing would have been inadequate and when it came to a soundstage, fainting generally meant falling on something.
"Anyway," she continued, "this is so obviously fake! That glassware? It doesn't have the right patina for a Mustangia import, because nopony's ever duplicated the glaze! You need the real thing! I can recommend some antique shops --"
"Antique shops," was slightly hollow.
"-- because private collectors generally don't do loans. Especially not if they know what happens on Page 387. And --" her voice dropped a little "-- the table is slightly too high, the benches aren't cracked enough because of course nearly everypony who's read this assumes a few of them survived the last two fires, and that mare?"
"That's our mare lead --"
"-- I know! I did see your first try, remember?" Followed by, in a whisper, "But her fur is two shades too bright, the eartips have to be a little more pointed, and when checked with the author's comparison against the size of the Rightsstag Folly, something known on the historical record... she's half a hoofheight too short. Plus her upper lip is very furry. More than was in fashion for the era. It stood out. I couldn't take my eyes off it the whole time."
The alicorn gently smiled.
"None of which is her fault," she added. "I did enjoy her performance, actually. She did the best she could with what she had to work with. There's certainly no need to recast. Just reshoot. After you tell your makeup staff about the adjustments."
He stared at her.
"Painted shoes for her height?" she helpfully offered. "I've never tried them myself --"
Alicorn.
"We can do that," he found his own voice saying, mostly for lack of other choices. "Is there anything else?"
She nodded, and he wrapped his soul in dread.
"When they gave me directions to this building," the alicorn told him, "I wasn't sure what I would find you doing. Editing, possibly." Brightly, "The film, of course. I'd hope you'd have learned your lesson with the book! Not one syllable, sir. Not when it's a classic. But I see what you're trying to recreate, I do! And I can see how much better it'll be when it's accurate. But it does beg a question..."
Inquisitive purple eyes drilled into his brain.
"Why are you here?"
He blinked.
"I don't understand --"
"The book's description clearly says they were in Mazein! With Equestria closed to them, because of the -- you know! This scene is set in Mazein! She looks out the window to regard Mazein!" Carefully, "You... did see that, didn't you?"
The description had been four pages long. It had taken some time before his dreams had stopped seeing it. "Yes."
Triumphant. The victory of a mare who had gone to war against The Obvious and won. "So clearly you need to be in Mazein! For accuracy! Something any true fan will recognize at once!"
He blinked at her again. With just about all of his mind running calculations on the cost of moving the entire production to the minotaur nation, blinking was what he had left.
"If they've been to Mazein," she added. "But they'll appreciate your dedication, sir. They truly will. So you'll just have to go and shoot here. Also, this is a good start, but the thing to do to is rebuilding the house. Because that way, you can just move from room to room, for all of the thirty pages they spent there before the acid." Conspiratorially, "The mysterious acid."
"Sets for the whole house," D-P forced out as what had to be heat from misdirected stage lights began to bubble up sweat in his fur. "That might be --"
"-- mandatory, I know! If you're thinking of things as sets. I'm talking about a house, sir! The actual residence! It's certainly described clearly enough! I could tell you about every warp in the wood!"
So could I. The wood warps were six paragraphs.
"Go to Mazein," he said, just to see if the words gained in sanity when emerging from his mouth, "and build a house. A fully-functional home."
"So you can shoot through the window of it," she helpfully reminded him. "I know literature scholars who can give you the most frequently suspected inspirational location of where the house would have been. If it existed. Unlike the vase, which we're almost sure did exist in the author's fillyhood home." She hopefully looked around the area. "I know it's not in this scene, but I'd just love to get a glimpse!"
"Build a house," D-P considered. Well, it wasn't as if there weren't enough carpenters on staff. "I suppose we could... just sell it afterwards..."
The alicorn frowned, and did so incredulously. A number of actors, who hadn't been aware that expression was possible, defrosted enough to start taking notes.
"Sell it?"
"To recoup --"
"After it's been melted by acid?"
She described the process, being careful to include all of the little touches which would let a viewing chemist (and of course she knew chemistry) know that the process was fully real, as true fans of a classic would expect and that very much meant her. Then she went around to the prop people, helped them to draw up a comprehensive list of antiques which needed to be destroyed by that acid, said a few comforting words to the shivering lead mare on the topics of extensive reshoots (with makeup adjusted), and left.
Once the numbness started to wear off, he gestured to Grimderp. The jenny approached.
"You studied this book in school?"
She beamed. "It's a classic! And it was announced well ahead of time! Everyone was dreading having to read it so much, we were miserable for the entire moon leading up to the first page! The perfect mood for --"
"-- I haven't finished it," he told her, which seemed reasonable for a pony who was on the edge of death and still had to get through eleven hundred total pages. "I know there's some scenes in Canterlot, and we can shoot before we leave. Reshoot. Now Mazein is involved. How many places does this story go?"
She told him.
Eventually, he woke up, and she helpfully told him again.
They were just outside Protocera, because the book had technically never reached the griffon nation and so there was no need to actually cross the border. They had found the latest most frequently suspected inspirational location, the hospital bills from clearing out the occupying monsters hadn't been too bad when compared to everything else, and now they were building the sixth house. A lot of houses were being destroyed over the course of the book (as compared to a pair in the original adaptation) and somehow, not one character had been able to think of a primary suspect. Apparently descriptions of fur which was stained with accelerants were only visible to the readers.
Oh, and there was mane discoloration resulting from proximity to acid. Everypony on the crew knew about that by now and for actors who'd been too close to the melt, it added one more aspect of realism.
They were trying to work quickly. Part of this was because the alicorn had visited during the Canterlot shoots and openly frowned on artificial lighting, which meant a scene which took place at two in the afternoon had better be filmed at that time because every true student of the book had read forty-nine words describing the precise angle of sunlight. The rest was because the monsters occasionally tried to come back. Also, there had been earthquakes. Just little ones: strictly localized, fully unexpected tremors, which seemed to be centered on the other side of the border. It had meant picking up a lot of equipment, along with two house frames.
But then there was a flash of light, blooming right in front of what was now a very well-traveled bench. And then there was an alicorn.
"Hello!" she beamed, and the remaining portion of her tail gently swayed with contentment.
"...yes?"
"I was just in the area, and I knew you'd have to set up here eventually!" Smiling, "Exactly here. Because that's what somepony who loves the book would do. And I had a few free minutes, so I thought I'd see if I could find traces that you'd filmed the Great Disintegration Bit. You know. The dusty particles which never completely came free of their fur for all their lives. There would almost have to be some left!"
It had reached the point where the entire production could stop moving within the same heartbeat, along with having all of those heartbeats sync up so that everyone had the chance to wish for death at the same time.
Also, because they'd picked up a few along the way as ponies had dropped out due to exhaustion, dislike of international food, and not wanting to deal with clearing out monsters any more, 'everyone' now included every minotaur, griffon, yak, cattle, and one very confused zebra who still thought it was some kind of construction game where whoever destroyed the most houses won. She was ahead.
"But I didn't expect to find you shooting!" she happily declared. "Isn't this just lucky?"
Multiple species found their blood pressure increasing in tandem. Grimderp, who lived for such moments, was inventing her third new dance.
"Why are you here?" D-P managed to ask.
"I'm trying to make a new friend!"
He looked at the familiar little body. Horn. Wings. Battered fur. Vacuum dominating the bangs.
"...really?"
"I make friends easily," the alicorn stated. "After some work. Anyway, we had a break, so here I am!"
She looked around. Most of the local atmosphere was temporarily stored in assorted lungs.
"Oh, the house looks perfect! For now, of course. And --" her eyes widened "-- is that The Vase?"
The alicorn charged, racing across acid-scorched grass (no part of any local scene, but that one monster had protested) until she was in front of the clear protective case.
It was green. It was the sort of green which exists when you take bile, pus, and vomit, then blend them for six hours at a rather precise temperature, distill the results, and pour the liquid into a mold. Director-Producer knew that for a fact, because the author had described it that way. Several times. Additionally, he'd been part of the clear-out three locations back and the vomit had been his.
It was hideous. It was travesty with a bottleneck arrangement. It was filled with withered flowers, because the book always had it filled with withered flowers and with this vase, anything you put in cooperated.
It had to be taken in and out of the case. Everyone on the crew had been assured that they would never have to touch it more than once. A number had still quit on the spot.
"It's just like I always imagined it," the alicorn whispered. "Exactly..."
The stallion heard the love in her voice and for a moment, the multiple number-separating commas which danced across his vision during almost every waking moment faded away. A happy mare, looking at a solid dream of something which had never been. That was cinema. It was what he was meant to do.
Also, she'd looked at it for more than three seconds without turning away. It was more than anypony else had managed.
"So how are you planning to make it stand out to the viewers?"
The commas crashed back in, then invited a new friend.
"Stand... out?"
"Yes," the alicorn beamed. "Maybe -- a patch of light? Around the vase at all times, in every shot. Because of course the readers will know, but I've been thinking. There's going to be ponies who meet the book for the first time this way! And while it's possible to highlight words through the usual font tricks, you can't translate that directly to film! Because you probably can't scroll the actual text along the bottom of every scene, to make it clear as to how faithful you're being." Hopefully, "Unless you can...?"
The force of the final hundred thousand unspent bits crashed into the left side of his head and pushed it. After a moment, it came back around the other way, and thus negation was simulated.
"...oh," said the disappointed alicorn. "So maybe just a patch of light. A slightly conspicuous one. Because the vase is just that important."
He was on Page 894.
"Did you know," the alicorn helpfully began -- then paused. "Oh, I'm sure you do, with all the consultants you must have been hiring! But you probably didn't hear the story behind it. How so many ponies came to feel that ultimately, this is a novel about the journey of a vase?"
D-P took a slow breath.
"Through, just as an example, Page 894," he exhaled, "the vase has been mentioned six times." The vase which rested within glass between scenes, to keep it from disrupting the shoot, the light, and possibly gravity. "If there's a central inanimate object of focus up through that point, it's the bridle."
"But of course the vase dominates from Page 1038 on," the alicorn countered. "I can see how if you're trying to limit foreshadowing in the same manner as the author, you'd focus on the bridle for a while. But you're only sixteen pages away from losing it."
Spoilers! shouted a rather stupid part of his brain.
"And the vase is the truest subject," the alicorn said. "The majority of literary ponies say so!"
Eight hundred and ninety-four pages of eyelid-gluing paragraphs got together and collectively made a mistake.
"What did the author say?"
She drew herself up to her full height again. The nearest minotaur tried to hide behind a tree: two experienced griffons went for the branches.
"Sir! Are you not aware of Death Of The Author?"
The stallion took another last breath. It had been moons since he'd first seen the alicorn, and everything since had been a last breath. It gave them a certain flavor.
"The book was published four hundred and six years ago," he replied. "I've been presuming she's dead."
Outrage crossed her features, taking out several hanging eyelashes along the way.
"Death Of The Author," the alicorn haughtily declared, "means it doesn't matter what the author said!"
(He thought about scriptwriters, and his mouth almost found time to open. But then she kept talking.)
"Is not writing a direct channel to the subconscious, sir? Dredging up terms and imagery which our waking minds refuse to face? Ultimately, the writer is nothing more than a conduit, and how can they be expected to truly recognize what they have created? Nopony can explain their own subconscious, or it wouldn't be the subconscious! It's up to everypony else to decide what those words mean, because the author just gets in the way! And that was demonstrated at the Vase Conference!"
There were things you could safely say in the presence of the alicorn. Most of them consisted of whatever she'd just said.
"Vase Conference."
She glared at him.
"Obviously the book wasn't declared a classic when it was published," she huffily lectured, with a little forehoof stomp to match. "A true classic takes at least three generations to identify. But it did gain a certain early reputation in literary circles. A number of schools were already considering adding it to the curriculum. So they invited the author to a conference, because they wanted her to know just what would be taught. They spent a full three hours telling her exactly what she'd intended: a courtesy, sir, a true courtesy! They didn't have to let her know! They could have just started the course in the next semester! But they thought she'd earned the right to have her creation explained, and they did just that! They counterpointed the surrealism of her underlying metaphor!"
A director-producer (and Director-Producer) who knew where to find every newspaper's entertainment section and the inevitable lurking film critics who lived to inform him of what he'd meant, didn't even bother to resist. He couldn't resist, especially as most of his energies were being devoted to wondering why he suddenly wanted to kick somepony out of a high-altitude air carriage.
"And what did she say?"
The alicorn's expression collapsed.
"Nopony knows," she miserably said. "Once the door's locks were finally released, she supposedly walked out of the room without speaking to any of them. And she was never seen again. That's why it's her only novel."
"...oh."
"The most popular theory is that she left town," the alicorn added. "The most comprehensive account suggested the last pony she ever talked to was one of the building's janitors. She asked him for directions." A little frown. "Something about needing to know where the tallest bridge was. Something which went over fast-running water. And of course that was the western departure route."
"She exited stage left," emerged as something slightly beyond his control.
"...yes, in your own terms, I suppose," the alicorn agreed. "It's a pity, really. A lot of ponies have searched for things she might have written in other nations, under a translated name. But there just hadn't been any luck there --"
-- there was a low rumble, and the ground rippled. Portions of it heaved. The bench rode it out. Two cameras fell over. One griffon, squawking in outrage, was shaken from the tree.
"-- and that's my cue!" the alicorn declared. "I couldn't stay that long anyway, since clearly you're shooting two in the afternoon On The Day It Happened Yet Again! But now I have to go see what my next friend wants!"
The protective case vibrated. The vase was undisturbed. Nothing disturbed it. The vase was the disturbance.
"Although she still thinks her wants come with shockwaves," the little mare added. "We really need to talk about that. Until next time!"
Light flared, and she vanished. D-P gestured to Grimderp, who pranced all the way.
"She's a real auteur, isn't she?" his assistant merrily asked.
It was something no director-producer should have ever had to say. "I don't know the word."
"It's from Prance. Their cinema."
Well, that explained it. A sensible pony tried to have nothing to do with Prance's films and their obsession with crying clowns -- but of course, she was a donkey. "And it means..."
"'Know-it-all control freak'."
He took a breath.
"We need to reshoot the bridle scenes," he softly told her. "To keep her happy."
The jenny nodded.
"Without the conspicuous light patch."
Again.
"That's another two moons. Counting the backtrack to get the locations. Assuming some of the monsters didn't move in again." And because he could no longer stand to do so and had sixteen emergency pages to get through, "Will you tell the crew?"
"In a minute," Grimderp delightedly offered. "Can you imagine the stories they're going to tell after this wraps?"
"Of being part of the most expensive, most dangerous, most exacting shoot in history? I've looked over the reels, Grimderp."
"I haven't," she said. "Not even during the screenings. I always like to wait for the end, and then I run the booth myself. To get it all at once --"
"I look at them in sections. It still takes longer every time. I've got technicians trying to figure out new equipment, just to hold and change them, because no reel has ever been that big before and if we keep them to the standard size, it's endless swapping. Not a word wasted, not a syllable, just as she told us. And when you add that all up, across what's going to be eleven hundred pages, plus hoofnotes..."
She danced, and he let her go.
It was finished.
On the last visit, he'd asked the alicorn to endorse the film. Be part of the advertising. But she'd declined, saying nothing more than having once had a bad time in the Tangle (which was expected when dealing with the oldest, most dubious part of Canterlot), although she had apparently found renewed love of Literature and those who shared it there (which was not).
It had been among his last hopes. He'd spent... everything. There were no bits. There were no smidgens. If there was anything smaller than the hundredth-bit coin, that would have been gone too. As he'd predicted, the studio heads had decided that nothing was lost until they stopped playing, and... it was also a little like being drunk, really. You didn't see the sunk cost until you stopped long enough to sober up, and realized that everything in the coffers had drowned.
An alicorn's wishes had been what had led him on the mad chase: that and a desperate final hope of saving his career, that the alicorn was working in mysterious ways and all the paths across the world would lead him back to his overpriced desk, never to worry about having to be a normal pony again. Not when he didn't know what they did, other than see movies. An alicorn's open desire, expressed as advertising, could have gotten ponies through the cinema doors...
He didn't understand normal ponies. But he knew they saw movies. So he'd arranged for a test screening.
It wasn't something he usually would have done. You typically got the opinion of the audience after they'd paid for the ticket: it was just that his last audience opinion had come from the alicorn. It had been something which made him feel as if he needed a little more in the way of advance warning, because...
...the shoot was finished. The film was in the cans or, given the new technology, the cartwheels.
They had to start booking theaters, and soon. There was no other choice. No other hope of getting their money back, even a fraction of it, for what had turned into the most expensive shoot in cinema history. And if he didn't turn a profit...
He was waiting outside the chosen theater. Something he'd been doing for some time. Because you flagged down ponies on the street, you asked them if they wanted to be part of something special and if they were stupid enough to say yes, you gave them a time, a location, and an extensive legal waiver to sign. They would come into the cinema on the next day --
-- it was night now --
-- and be told about how they were the most important part of the process, they would be given quills and ink and feedback cards and a reminder of the massive fine which would be coming if anypony talked to the press, and then the lights would go down. They would sit on their benches and be... the first.
Technically the first. He'd seen it, of course, in bits and pieces. Most of the crew had gotten glimpses. Grimderp, currently standing on his left just in case he needed anything, was still waiting. And the alicorn... he didn't know how to contact her. All he could do was hope for her appearance and when it hadn't come...
There were more foil-embossed envelopes on his desk, now that he was home again. He couldn't stall.
He was Director-Producer (and director-producer), reduced to waiting outside the cinema on a fast-chilling night to collect feedback cards. But he had to know.
The doors opened. They did so for the first time since the screening had started, because the test theater had timelocks and he'd moved them all to the soundproofed screening exits.
A pegasus staggered out. Looked up, squinting towards the dark sky as if she wasn't quite sure what it was. Her wings flared out for a moment, then sagged. Feathers brushed against the ground.
He hurried forward, desperate to catch her before she tried to fly again. "Your feedback card!" he frantically reminded her: he could see it, just barely balanced in the small of her back. "My assistant will just take that..."
The jenny gently nipped the paper away from the mare's fur. She didn't move. She just... stood there. Staring at nothing, because 'nothing' was an option again.
D-P loudly cleared his throat. The pegasus didn't react.
"So what did you think?"
Her mouth opened a little. He watched as her tongue roamed around her cheeks, searching for that last pocket of saliva.
"Reem."
"...sorry?"
"Reem," the pegasus firmly stated. "Bar adoo reem. Reem adoo? Adooreem. Barbarreemadoo."
Her wings steadied, flapped. There was a downblast of wind. Then there was a clang.
After a few seconds, she picked herself up from the base of the lamppost and tried again, quickly leaving the pool of light. It meant they only knew when she went into the building on audio.
"...what language was that?" D-P asked his now very-well-traveled assistant. "I know the forms mandated Equestrian."
She thought about it, and continued to do so as the first unicorn staggered out. Looked at them, or at least in their general direction.
"Glick," the stallion decided, and fainted.
"I'm not sure about her," Grimderp admitted. "But that was fluent Dehydration."
"...oh."
"It's to be expected, really."
"You think?"
"He was in there for eleven hours. Should we give him some water?"
"Do you have his waiver?"
"Yes."
"Then, just like all the others, it clearly says No Refreshments Will Be Served. Anyway, we would have had to let them out."
She considered that.
"The screening's over."
"Do you know what theater refreshments cost? We spent --"
"-- and water's free."
They fetched him a dipper from just inside the lobby. Most of it wound up soaking into his fur.
Time passed. The semi-conscious unicorn licked at his own face.
"They're not coming out," D-P shakily observed.
With what, for a donkey, was rather unusual hope, "Maybe they're still stomping? The theater is soundproofed."
They went in.
Later, after the ambulances had sorted the victims into categories -- dehydration, cracked hooves from endless pounding on the doors, the ones who had found a way to faint in self-defense, who needed to be divided from those whose brains had received the equivalent of eleven hours of fully adapted Literature and, given the subject matter, had also been issued fire, acid, and one disintegration -- once all of the barely-breathing forms had been carted off to the three hospitals it took to handle the collective load, after he'd lost track of Grimderp and the strength of the waivers had been tested against a spontaneously-materializing firm's worth of lawyers -- only then did D-P venture to the projection booth, where he climbed over the wall of stacked reels which had served as protective armor, to find the trembling form of the traumatized projectionist.
She'd done her job to the last. He appreciated that.
Just like he'd done his. What the alicorn had told him to do. Every word, every syllable...
Then he fell down next to the projectionist and cried into her fur.
It had been a day: a full one, now turned back to night as Sun and Moon changed shifts. A day of trying to sort out everything, of stalling one last time as the studio heads howled and demanded results. And when he was at the point where his true last breath was approaching, stumbling through the capital so they would at least have to come looking for him, D-P let himself admit it.
It was over.
What cinema would host it? Even if anypony was willing to try sitting through the thing, perhaps on a dare or in an attempt to prove some level of machismo... there were several inconvenient facts in the way. Equipment would need to be modified for the giant reels, because he only had so many prototypes to offer.
The film was eleven hours long, eleven utterly faithful hours which had never accounted for the fact that when it all got to be too much, a reader could just put the book down. And he, who'd had to deal with it every day in varying doses, had gradually become... immunized.
But he was the only one.
Cinemas relied on a certain amount of daily client turnover in order to maximize profit. A one-screen would never book it, and for those who had more space to offer... how many ponies would be willing to pay five and a half times the going price of a ticket?
It was more than that. How many owners would want to take the legal risk involved in testing their own version of the waivers?
He'd been through all of the feedback cards. Ponies off the street, every last one of them. A random cross-section of the capital, whose only commonalities were that they all had eleven hours free for a movie and none of them could teleport out. It was interesting to watch how their reactions had changed as the film had worn on. In some cases, it was possible to see exactly where the break had occurred. Ponies who were about to make a mad charge at the door tended to trail their punctuation off to the right.
Early portions remained legible. (Occult symbols only manifested at the bottom or, for the dedicated, in some of the larger loops.) It usually started by commenting on the beautiful cinematography. Praise was given to the comprehensive nature of each set. At the line designated for Three Hours In, ponies generally started to ask if something new was going to happen.
At the five-hour mark, words began to duplicate themselves. You could find the vase, the vase, the vase on a lot of cards. Sometimes it wrapped in a circle.
Some of the seven-hour cards were jammed into the doors, because ponies who kicked over and over raised breezes and paper traveled that way.
If you wanted to make out whatever was written for the finale, it was best to go back into the theater. Presumably those who had chewed at their benches had left a few embedded words behind. Subconscious ones, which only the reader was allowed to interpret...
...he was back at the theater.
He hadn't been aware that he was heading in that direction at all. Just moving down lonely streets in the dark, getting away from anypony who seemed to be looking at him in case they were Security.
There were police ropes hung in front of the whole thing, of course. Investigations would probably be under way at some point. It would be easy: all of the evidence had been left behind. The bench damage, the desperate dents in the doors, the reels, the modified equipment...
...one of the ropes was hanging loose, with the free end draped across pavement.
He stared at it. And as he did so, the door opened.
An elegantly-combed jenny staggered out. Behind her, the flickering lights in the main theater stopped as the last frame ran through the projector.
She looked at him. Blinked a few times.
"It's over," she said.
He just barely nodded.
"Again."
That was something he could agree with.
"I wanted to load it up for a third time," she happily told him. "But there's only so many hours in a day! Even for a donkey, you have to stop sometime! But I've got the theater to myself until the police come back, so I thought, you can't live on popcorn, I'll just step out for a little while..."
He stared at her.
"You watched it twice." He'd had the jenny as his assistant for three years and somehow, during all that time, she'd never mentioned the immortality.
"It's horrible," she solemnly stated. "It's the worst thing I've ever been through in my life. It burned me, D-P. It dissolved and disintegrated, and dared me to come out the other side..."
She smiled, and a sapient for whom life was suffering found her hooves breaking into a canter.
"It's a religious experience!"
Every theater in Eeyorus was sold out, even at six times the going normal price for a ticket. (He'd advised them to round up.) They were sold out for moons. Any jack or jenny who wanted to get in had to go on the kind of waiting list where the only hope of moving up was for someone to die and since they were donkeys, that was the kind of hope they were willing to accept.
The studio was up for every major award. Of course, those awards were in another nation, so their highest-tier nomination was Best Foreign Film, which had a subheading of It Should Have Been Us. (There was already talk of remaking the whole thing with an all-donkey cast.) And he was going to attend those awards. Even if he didn't win (and of course he was going to win!), he'd been asked to present: the first pony ever to be so honored.
It had him in his office, taking a few things down and putting them in his suitcase, on the day before the long trip began. Grimderp would be waiting at the carriage, and he didn't want to keep her waiting long. But he just wanted to take a few things to show the locals. Notes. Drafts. Distilled vomit.
He spotted an Accounts Received sheet. It listed the profit margins on the modified equipment they'd sold. Something only his studio knew how to make. And he smiled.
The door opened.
"I wanted to ask you something," the alicorn said, curiously tilting her head to the right as she approached. Behind her, several Security ponies slumped over.
"Go ahead," he offered. "Anything you like."
Her expression twisted into abject misery. "Why is it only in Eeyorus? I wanted to see it..."
"That's where the market is."
Nothing about her face changed.
"Well," D-P felt obligated to explain, "there is one copy in Equestria still. I sent it to the palace, for eventual preservation in the Canterlot Archives."
The smile flashed into place. "Oh! Then I'll just go to --"
"-- but it's on hold."
And gone again. "...why?"
"They're waiting on a judgment from the international court."
The alicorn blinked a few times.
"...sorry?"
"It's the Treaty Of Menagerie. Princess Luna said the Beastriality is trying to figure out if forcing somepony to view it against their will is a violation." And said a silent blessing for airtight waivers. "But she's keeping it close, just in case they need to interrogate somepony before that happens."
More blinks. Her lips twisted a little at the corners.
"I don't get it --"
"-- was this your plan?" he softly asked her, as Sun dipped on the other side of the office window. "To save me?"
Her tail twisted a few times.
"I was trying to make sure the movie honored the book," the alicorn eventually said.
And of course that was all an alicorn was going to say.
"What are you doing four weeks from today?" he asked her.
"Why?"
"You can teleport. Can you reach Eeyorus?"
"...with relay points," she admitted. "And a lot of rest on both ends. Again -- why?"
The spotlight was supposed to be his. He'd earned that, because he wasn't a normal pony. But neither was she.
"Come to the awards," he told her. "As my guest. You can talk to everyone you see there about the book, because there's going to be a new printing released soon. And afterwards, we'll attend a special screening of the movie together, just us -- and their entire government." He grinned. "Some of them are seeing it for the fourth time. At least."
Her eyes shone from within -- but only for a moment, and then they clouded.
"I... I don't really... with --"
"It's not a date," he assured her. (Not that he intended to tell anyone else, not with an alicorn at his flank.) "It's a place of honor. Because none of it would have happened without you. See the movie, in the presence of its truest fans. Explain your vision. And take just a little credit. Please?"
And after a moment, she nodded.
Six moons later, the Canterlot Archives started a lending program for branch libraries. The chance to air old films, things cinemas no longer cared about, along with the offer of a projector. Ponyville was among the many to accept.
But whenever the equipment was being set up, with happy colts and fillies filing in next to nostalgic mares and stallions, Twilight wasn't there.
Oh, she might come in after the lights began to flicker, and stand near the back. But if the projector was being loaded, then she was in the basement. Within the second groove, the newer and deeper.
She'd timed herself. It currently took fifteen seconds to kick herself all the way around the track. But she'd improved over the passing moons, which was only natural. And of course, she now engaged in the activity for a much shorter period.
The first time, which had come immediately after her return from Eeyorus, had lasted eleven hours.