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If You Give a Little Love...

by Quillamore

Chapter 1: Prologue: Everypony for Themselves

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

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

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

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

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

****

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe you can finally get out of this place.

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

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

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

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

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

A single whip cracking.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

****

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You won’t be without one for long. It just can’t be me.

Author's Notes:

After several comments about the quality of this fic's first part, I've finally decided to split it into two! For the purpose of those reading it for the first time, basically, this story originally timeskipped back and forth during the first chapter, which I admit would definitely confuse readers. I know it isn't "normal" to write the prologue last, but enjoy the newest and best edition of If You Give a Little Love yet!

Next Chapter: Act I: Love is an Open Door-- Scene 1: A Special Kind of Somepony Estimated time remaining: 16 Hours, 32 Minutes
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