It wasn’t far into the morning when the door was knocked upon, waking the dizzied mare inside. She felt groggy and her head felt buzzed and confused, but she forced herself to her hooves anyway. Her muscles strained, as if she were trying to move the planet down instead of herself up. It cripped her muscles and she was hit by the permanent overwhelming urge to just go back to bed, but she pushed through it, shaking her head free of the burdening weight that she seemed to face most mornings. Her brown mane fell around her eyes, ratty and tangled but otherwise clean, as if blocking her view on purpose so she'd have to stay, she brushed it aside and moved on.

Her hooves forced their way through clutter and trash, candy bar wrappers and empty tin cans shuffled aside in a cacophony of crackling and dings. Another knock shattered her consciousness and she snapped immediately in response. “I’m coming! Calm down you self entitled prick!” She realized her words immediately after she said them, then hoped against hope that they hadn't heard her. She knocked over a glass half full of soda, decorating her carpet brown, but she didn't pay attention.

She rammed against the door, her hoof fumbling with the door knob, no matter how much she turned it the door didn’t want to open. With a curse she turned to the locks she had forgotten about. She twisted it hurriedly then tried again. The wood swung inward easily and the mare managed to trip as she backed up, falling onto her back into the bubbling liquid that had only just recently filled her landing spot. She was full of nothing but apologies and pleas as she brought herself to her hooves again, mentally cursing about the soda that had already managed to soak into her mane.

After fighting with herself in a clutzy fit she turned her full attention to the patron at the door, who still had yet to speak. Her veins froze and her eyes widened in fear, the appearance of the stallion inspiring nothing but fret and worry in her heart. He stood there. his jawline tight and strong. He stood a little below average, just a bit above her height own height, but had a much more imposing form than similar stallion’s did. With shadowy eyes and a tuxedo and tie combo he slowly entered the house, closing the door behind himself and looking around the cluttered house.

“Miss Filigree?” He said slowly, a haunting unplaceable tone in his words.

“Y-yes?” Filigree racked her mind for what debt he might be collecting on, she thought she’d paid them all off, but why else would a finely dressed stallion like this come to her place of work? His entire demeanor was a debt collector, and he didn’t seem interested in the examples of her work that hung around the corners of her abode.

“I see,” He stated simply, looking around the room again. “Do you know a ‘Miss Vinyl Scratch’?”

The name was familiar, she’d done some work for her, gold inlays on a turntable. It was one of the better paying jobs she’d gotten. Why would this guy be working on her behalf though? Did Vinyl decide that she wanted to collect a refund? Filigree couldn’t afford that right now, she hoped that she had maybe a month or two to put it together, she had some owed payments she could force through if need be, even if she would still be short.

A paper was pulled from inside the tuxedo and levitated into her possession. All the while the look of dark appraisal gauging her, examining her home. Careful she took it from the magical collection of magic that held it. She looked to the stranger and he released it from his hold, letting it fall limb in her hoof.

Deftly, Filigree opened it. The inner paper was a letter and so the mare took it to her couch to read it, leaving the stiff stallion at the door. She hoped silently to Celestia that it wasn’t what she feared it might be, then she began to read, though it proved difficult at first due to the hasty chicken scratch the note had been written in.

‘Heya Filla, this is Scratch. The stallion who is probably standing silently at your door with judging eyes is Watch Fob, a ‘friend’ of Octavia’s. She seems to think that he needs a mare in his life and I really hope you don’t mind that you were the first one to come to my mind, I don’t know why. Look, you just need to humor him for a bit, I know you probably don’t need a stallion, just pretend for a few days and wait for him to leave. It’ll mean a lot to Octy.

Thanks in advance,

- Vinyl’

She dropped the letter to the ground and shook her head. “Look, I know you probably weren-”

“You want me to leave right?” His voice was solid and unwavering, as if he was stating fact.

“Well… Yes…” She answered truthfully.

“Perfect,” The words bit. “Now all I need to do is rent a room somewhere in this town and tell Octavia, upon my return, that I simply am not interested in romance and we’ll both be squared away.” As he turned to go a knock shook forth from the door, anger beating through the woodwork and filling the air with tension. The dark shaded eyes of the stallion danced to Filigree who had taken on a sudden nervous edge. “Are you going to answer that?”

Full of regret she approached the door, knowing full well what was to come this time. Only one stallion had that kind of knock. Fighting her instincts with every single movement she eventually turned the knob and looked at the red faced foe who filled the doorway like a monster, standing at slightly larger than even Big Mac this tank of a stallion had taken to one specific fear inducing job.

“Yoooouuuu’re late again!” He shouted, his voice building with every passing moment. The sound blasted a shockwave from his mouth, rattling the door hinges by sheer volume. It forced Filigree to back up, and several items around the placed around the house shook where they stood, threatening to tip over the edges of their stands. The stallion behind the door seemed unaffected however, aside from raising a hoof to his forehead, massaging it lightly.

He hadn’t gotten far when the landlord’s explosive voice echoed out. “You had a stallion over? You know we have a strict policy against guests!” He turned to face Watch Fob, “Where do you think you’re going? You have to pay the fee!” When Watch Fob turned around he saw a pair of eyes filled with greed.

“Excuse me?”

“The fee, for being a guest in one of my houses!”

Filigree knew such a fee didn’t exist, but she didn’t want to be the one who tried to step between her landlord and gold he felt he was owed. She watched as Watch Fob withdrew a cigarette from the inside of his tux, rubbing his forehead again. He lit it with a golden lighter and drew from it in a powerful inhale. He exhaled a powerful stream of smoke into the air before he leveled his gaze at the landlord, his eyes seeming darker than they had been before and his voice was tense with his next words.

“How much is it?” It seemed more like a dare than a question to Filigree but her landlord didn’t catch on, his common sense too dulled by the possibility of bits.

The landlord’s face twisted into a hideous smile as his eyes judged Watch Fob’s worth. Thinking how many bits he could get out of the obviously rich stallion. Watch Fob puffed on his cigarette steadily as he waited for the answer, his own eyes mirroring a darker form of the landlord’s.

“Fifty bits,” Watch Fob took a second cigarette from his tux and lit it as well, smoking both sticks at the same time. A smile spread across his lips for but a second like a villain who had just seen a trap of theirs trigger on the would be heroes.

“You are horrible at your job,” The landlord looked affronted, but was unable to speak before Watch Fob continued. “I could sell my cigarette ashes for fifty bits in the right market, you think that’s the most you can charge me without me caring? You should bid closer to one hundred if you wanted to hit it right on the mark, but what you shoulda done was one hundred and fifty, that way when I bargain down to one hundred I feel like I cheated you.” He pulled his tie looser with a burst of magic while keeping it tied around his neck.

“I will give you five thousand for your entire business,” The landlord’s eyes widened with the sudden proposal. “And that’s a good deal and you know it, you get maybe half that in a year, I can tell by your attire.” The landlord looked back at Filigree then to Watch Fob again. He thought about the new lesson that had just been taught him, and decided to try his luck.

“And I get all outstanding debts on top of that.”

“Any less would be illegal,” Watch Fob said stiffly.

“Then it’s a deal.”

“Great, we’ll fill out the paperwork later. I’ll write it up tomorrow and bring it around to your home.” The landlord nodded and left, going to prepare his paperwork and everything he would need to have in order for it to go over as quickly as possible. Watch Fob and Filigree watched him leave, but Filigree was the first to look at the other, and she noticed how tight his skin was around his neck, showing divets and bones.

He looked within a quick sprint of death’s door.

Watch Fob turned to face her and her perception of his swiftly shifted from dying to threatening. He let one of the cigarettes, already burnt up, drop to the grass, where he stomped it out. “Why did you…” Filigree began, letting the rest of her words die away.

“I flip property as a living, After a little work I can sell the same thing for three times the amount, and that joker won’t be any wiser. I seldom find such idiots in charge of gold mine and I couldn’t chance him denying the purchase, so I made it a bit better than I should have,” The second cigarette dropped to the ground. He stomped it out in quick succession and began to walk away. “Besides, saves me the trouble of getting a hotel room.”

She looked at the stomped out cigarettes. “Why don’t you collect it? Didn’t you say it was worth fifty bits?” She looked back to Watch Fob.

He looked over his shoulder with an evil grin. “I didn’t say it was worth fifty bits. I said that I could sell it for that.”

When she was back in her house Filigree shook her head. For a moment, just a moment, she had thought he'd done it for her. She sighed and looked at the mess that held her carpet in a death grip. She took a few steps then decided that she may as well do it now. After all, apparently she only had a day at most to show her new landlord that she could take care of herself.