“Sassy Saddles says you assaulted her!”

It was mid-afternoon. We were in the Queequeg’s outside CGS headquarters. Rarity was quivering with barely repressed rage. She was also wearing a headscarf, sunglasses, a wide-brimmed hat, and a light summer dress that that made her look like the most perfect pony I'd ever seen even as she fixed me with a death glare. If she was trying to conceal her identity, it really wasn’t working.

“I didn’t!” I clutched my cup of tea. My stomach was too knotted up to drink. Or eat. I was so upset I wasn’t even hungry. “I did throw a drink in her face. But only when she thtarted thaying bad things about you!”

Rarity poured a packet of sugar into her coffee. Then she reached for another. There was a growing mountain of empty sugar packets around her coffee cup. “Well, it’s your word against hers, isn’t it? Sassy hasn’t decided if she’s going to press charges.”

Maud sighed. “There’s an entire bar full of ponies who can back up Frazzle’s version of the story, Rarity.”

Rarity paused in mid-packet tear. “Well. I only have Sassy’s version of events. And that via telegram. Frazzle, darling, if you don’t mind?”

So I told her what had happened, as best as I could remember. As I talked, Rarity began to empty sugar packets at an accelerated rate. She soon ran out of regular sugar, and moved on to the pink and yellow packets. By the time I got to the end of my story, she was literally shaking with rage.

“Oh, so I’m a sagging old nag, am I? Why that lying, two-faced, insubordinate cunt! I will skin her alive and use her hide to make diapers!” Rarity slammed her hoof on the table. Coffee and tea splashed from our cups. Ponies all over the café turned to stare at us. Mothers covered their foals’ ears.

I squirmed, embarrassed by her display. Maud raised an eyebrow. Rarity took a deep breath. “Well. Thank you for defending me, Frazzle darling. I didn’t realize you felt so strongly.”

She didn’t? The knots in my stomach tightened.

“If I could interject,” said Maud.

“Of course, Maud darling,” said Rarity. I nodded.

“Frazzle, you said Sassy became abusive after you confirmed you worked for the CGS?”

I nodded. She had, hadn’t she?

“That’s strange, isn’t it?” said Maud. “Stress triggers a fight-or-flight response. Do you think there’s something Sassy might want to hide? Something a geologist would be particularly likely to notice?”

Rarity shook her head. “Why, no. No. Nothing I can think of.”

Oh dear. There were a number of rocks and minerals that were illegal for various reasons, or so heavily taxed that it would be be worthwhile to smuggle them.

“Do you receive large shipments of gems at your boutique?” said Maud. I don’t know if Rarity could tell — Maud’s tone of voice was nearly unchanged — but I could tell from the way she leaned forward ever so slightly that Agent Pie’s blood was up.

Rarity nodded. “I often need them for my work. It depends on the client, of course, but I do rather like doing the sparkly ones. I can use thousands in a single dress, if the design calls for it.” She levitated her coffee to her mouth and took a sip, then cringed, and demurely set it aside.

“And do you ever use your gem-finding ability at your boutique?”

“Well, no! Why would I? Sassy separates and organizes all the gems in my workshop for me.”

I looked at Maud. She looked at me. I took a deep breath. We had to be delicate about this. Delicacy wasn’t really my strong suit, but I was better at it than Maud was. “If you should happen to, and you find anything upsetting, please let us know. We can guarantee you won’t get in trouble for anything Sassy’s done, if you come to us right away.”

Rarity nodded. “Is it all right if I leave it for another day? I do not think I can face Sassy in my current state of mind.”

“Yes,” said Maud. “Don’t go poking around while she’s working, and don’t do anything to suggest to her that you’re suspicious of her. Sassy’s probably harmless, but if she’s doing anything shady the ponies she’s working with won’t be. Come find us immediately.”

“Should we tell Jack?” I asked.

Maud shook her head. “Not until we have something solid. Right now it’s just my hunch. And I’m not feeling well-disposed towards Sassy Saddles.” She took a sip of her coffee. “I’m probably biased.”

Rarity nodded. “Maud, could I have a word with Frazzle in private?”

“Of course.”

We were both silent after a while. My stomach twisted. I felt like crying. And like going to the bathroom. And like throwing up. Rarity removed her sunglasses. She put her hooves over mine. “Frazzle. I am so sorry I doubted you.”

I hung my head. Guilt roiled in my gut. I didn’t know if I should tell her about my trying to kiss Maud or not. It would upset her if I did, but if I didn’t and she somehow found out, it would be so much worse. “It’th okay. I mean, you’ve worked with Sassy for a while, haven’t you?”

Rarity rolled her eyes. “Less than a year. And I have had a number of problems with her in that time. I’m tempted to dismiss her summarily.”

“Pleathe don’t.” I didn’t say why — I mean, partly it was because even though Sassy had been awful to me, I understood that everypony makes mistakes, and maybe she deserved another chance. But partly because if it Maud’s hunch was right and she was involved in something illegal, I wanted to help catch her. Not only her, but whatever ponies she was working with! I wanted the glory, and the win on my record.

I’m not a good pony sometimes.

Rarity tossed her head. “Tempers need to cool, certainly. I shall take the rest of the day as a spa day. And tonight! Frazzle, my old friend Toola Roola is having an art opening. I had told her I could not attend, but since I happen to be in town I’m considering dropping by. Would you like to accompany me?”

I blinked. “Toola Roola? You know her? Yeth, I love her work!” Whoa. Rein it in Frazzle. No need to sound desperate.

We agreed to meet at the gallery at seven. Outside the café, we kissed before we parted ways. It was a hot, wet, lingering kiss. Whatever else was going wrong, the physical aspect of our relationship was still in full flower. Or possibly only beginning to heat up. I walked back to work weak in the back knees, but my stomach was still in knots.

———

Rarity was late. I was left standing outside the gallery like a fool. But I had come prepared. I had stopped at Breka and Light Bright’s place on the way over and sweet-talked them out a couple of joints of Ahuizotl Black on the way over. I had smoked one on the walk down, and the other was waiting for me in the saddlebag if I needed it. It had rained a little in the late afternoon, and I was transfixed by the reflections of the street lights on the asphalt. Everything had that flat, paper-cutout quality again. Passersby seemed to have only a handful of body types amongst them, as though they’d been cut from the same pattern in different colored paper.

Rarity’s fashion-consciousness had rubbed off on me a little — rather than my usual sweater vest and button-down, I’d chosen a jacket with elbow pads and a bow tie. I had no idea if I looked better or worse than usual, but iI thought it would be amusing to play butch bottom to Rarity’s ultra-femmy top.

“Do you have a light?” The tall brown unicorn stallion’s voice was deep, silky, and effeminate. He had sweet eyes, and a little fluff of beard on his chin. I instantly liked him, even though he was balancing a tobacco cigarette on the edge of his hoof.

“Yeth. Yeth, I do. But you thouldn’t thmoke those. They’ll kill you.”

He rolled his eyes. “They’ll have to get in line. Do you have a light or not?”

I passed him my lighter. “Are you here for the thow?”

He nodded “I’m writing it up for Big Dada.” He held out a hoof. “I’m Trenderhoof. You might’ve heard of me.”

We touched hooves briefly. “I’m Frazzle. Good to finally put a fathe to the byline.” And to all of Rarity’s stories.

His cigarette almost fell out of his mouth. “Frazzle? Rarity’s friend Frazzle?”

I nodded, and giggled. “My name theems to be getting around.” I so did not give a buck about any of it right now.

Trenderhoof sighed. “You’ve certainly ruffled some feathers.”

I laughed. “Am I really that horrifically uncool?” I didn’t care. I was higher than Cloudsdale.

Trenderhoof laughed. A friendly laugh, not a mocking one. “Well, Rarity’s crowd don’t call things ‘cool’ or ‘uncool’, so yeah.”

I snorted. The whole situation seemed hilarious. “How am I tho important?”

Trenderhoof took a long drag from his cigarette. “You’re not. Rarity is.”

I squinted at Trenderhoof. That made absolutely no sense. I started laughing, and couldn’t stop. Fashion ponies were silly.

“Rarity!” said Trenderhoof. “So good to see you!”

I gulped, trying to hold in my laughter. I stood at what I hoped was perfect attention. I was sure it was the city that was swaying slightly, and not me. Trenderhoof and Rarity hugged briefly. I ducked in under him. I wanted a good look at what she was wearing. Oh. My. Faust. Rings of ruffles. Silver shoes. Elaborate silver eye makeup, even for her. She looked like a princess from another planet.

“Sorry I’m late. I simply could not get a cab.”

She let out a strangled gasp as I wrapped my forelegs around her. “I love you,” I said, “I love you tho much!”

“I… love you too, dear,” said Rarity, rearing back a little. She whispered in my ear, “Darling, are you feeling quite all right?”

I smirked at her. “I am unbelievably high right now. You want some?”

Rarity delicately disengaged herself from me. “We will see how the evening progresses. I like the look, by the way.”

I grinned and pronked in place. “Yay!”

“So. We may as well get it out of the way,” said Trenderhoof.

Rarity reached up and patted his cheek. “She hasn’t changed her mind. I’m so sorry.”

Trenderhoof shrugged. “That’s what I was expecting.”

“She wants somepony who’ll stay down on the farm, not somepony who’s always racing off around the world in search of adventure and new restaurants to review,” said Rarity. “So, what’s the mood like inside?”

Trenderhoof shrugged. “They don’t know you’re coming.”

Rarity took my hoof and smiled at me. “Shall we?” She didn’t show it, but I could smell the anxiety on her. We stepped into the gallery, and it was like an icy wave spread out around us. Conversations stopped. Heads turned, and then looked away. There were loud whispers, generally along the lines of “Is that her? Oh, she’s worse than I imagined.” I felt Rarity tremble. She squeezed my hoof and let go. The crowds in the gallery opened up around us as we walked forward.

“Royal Pin,” said Rarity, inclining her head. “I do say, I enjoyed…” She trailed off as he slipped by her without making eye contact. She bit her lower lip, and turned to a pair of unicorns in pastel clothes. “Jet Set. Upper Crust. It’s been….” They turned away from her in perfect unison. Her lower eyelid twitched.

Meanwhile, I was having some problems of my own. I hadn’t eaten in over an hour, and I was developing a chronic case of the munchies. There were ponies in tuxedo coats and cocktail dresses circulating with trays of hors d’oeuvres. I selected one whose tray smelled of pungent cheese and flaky crust, but he took one look at me and darted into the crowd like a rabbit who’d seen a fox. I swore internally and turned back to Rarity. She was talking to Fancy Pants. Oh, good. Not everypony was ostracizing her.

“…nothing I can do about it. Certainly not after the way she treated Sassy Saddles,” said Fancy Pants icily. The bottom dropped out of my stomach. It might’ve just been the pot, but Rarity, outwardly poised and calm, seemed to be vibrating on a subatomic level.

“There is considerable reason to doubt Sassy’s version of events,” said Rarity, her voice seething with restrained rage.

“So you say,” said Fancy Pants. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I don’t think it politic to be seen talking to you any longer.”

“Naturally.” said Rarity.

I glared at Fancy’s plot as he walked away. “What crawled up his ath and died?” I whispered.

“Rarity, have you been a naughty filly?” I jumped, and spun around in place. At about 125° I saw a pale pink earth pony with a paintbrush cutie mark and a pastel rainbow mane in a shaggy ragdoll cut. She wore a flowing pink shawl over her withers.

“Toola,” said Rarity. “If you’re going to ignore me too, you’re off to a terrible start.”

Toola laughed. “Don’t let them scare you, Rarity. They love scandal. Your hooves are gonna ache making the dresses they’ll buy from you after this.”

Rarity clucked disapprovingly. “Not all of us are as mercenary as you are, Toola darling. There are more important things than money.” She smiled when she said it, though. This was a more friendly sort of antagonism, I guessed.

“Yeah,” said Toola, “and most of them can be bought with money. You know what they say — when bankers get together, they talk about art. When artists get together they talk about money.”

“Speaking of which, how are your taxes coming? My accountant is being simply dreary about receipts.” Rarity rolled her eyes.

“Oh, Faust, aren’t they always?” said Toola, snagging Rarity a glass of champagne from one of the servers. “If I say I was entertaining clients, I was entertaining clients. I mean, who isn’t a potential client? After all, everypony loves my paintings.”

Okay, this was getting boring. I made my excuses. I had more important matters to attend to. I stalked a server to the gallery’s small kitchen. I pretended to be absorbed in a painting while I observed the posture and attitude with which servers took new trays from the table by the kitchen door. When a tray came out and no server immediately appeared to collect it, I scooped it up like I was supposed to be there. It was tiny quiches. I love tiny quiches.

The crowd’s hostility meant little to me, except that I got to look at whatever painting I wanted to without having to crane my neck. They fled from me and my professor sweater and my insatiable hunger for quiche like I had a loathsome and highly communicable skin disease.

I did like Toola’s paintings. I didn’t know much about art, but I appreciated her meticulous realism. She was considered a surrealist. The reasons for this were not immediately apparent — on the surface, her paintings seemed like simple scenes of ordinary life. A garden wedding. A mother cooking while her foals played on the floor nearby. A group of wealthy ponies — including a ringer for Fancy Pants — sharing a bottle of red wine. And yet closer inspection revealed darker details. Ponies of uncertain intent lurked in the topiary. A knife balanced precariously on the edge of the counter. The wine appeared too opaque, too viscous — not an error it seemed like such a skillful painter would make. I munched quiche and searched each painting for all its grim details.

When I came back to Rarity and Toola, the conversation had moved into more interesting territory.

“You give them too much power, Rarity,” said Toola, blowing a strand of hair out of her face.

“I’m sure I have no idea what you mean, Toola darling.”

“You’re trying to please them. As long as you are trying to please these ponies, they will think they can control you.” She shook her head sadly. “They can’t even help it, it’s what they do. It’s all they have. How many of the ponies in this room actually make anything?”

Rarity raised an eyebrow. “Well, some of them, certainly. But not many, I’ll allow.”

“You have no idea how much they need you. They think they have power, but the weakest of your friends has more real power than they’ll ever see.”

I assume Toola was talking about the Element Bearers, here, not me.

“You have vision. All they have are opinions. They need you. Without ponies like you, what’ll they even have opinions about?”

“What’s this about ponies who have opinions?” said Trenderhoof, materializing out of the crowd as if summoned.

Rarity laid a hoof on his shoulder and smiled at him. “At least you go to some effort to get yours, darling.”

“So what were we talking about? The vicissitudes of the critics, or the elephant in the room?”

I made a trunk out of my foreleg, and wiggled it in front of my face. In doing so, I dropped the tray, making a racket and dumping the last three or four quiches on the floor. I tried to rescue them, but Rarity gently pushed her foreleg against my chest, stopping me.

Toola batted her eyelashes. “It’s all about the wildlife, Trender. Rarity dared to take a lover from outside their incestuous little pack. The hearts she has broken! The reputations she has failed to enchant! The schemes to gain the ear of Princess Twilight that she has foiled!” She raised a hoof to her forehead melodramatically. “But you know what? They’re gonna get over it.”

Nearby, I heard a mare gasp. I turned to see Upper Crust staring in horror at her hoof. She had trodden on a tiny quiche! I started to laugh. Rarity bopped me in the fetlock with her hoof and gave me a quelling glare.

“I admit,” said Rarity, “I hadn’t thought of it in those terms.”

Upper Crust waved her hoof at her husband, wailing for a napkin. I bit my lip and snorted. I was going cross-eyed trying not to laugh.

“They think they’re so sophisticated. So liberated,” said Toola, “but just try wearing a negligée to a ball, or a ball gown to an orgy, and see how they react.”

Rarity and Trenderhoof laughed politely. I guffawed — actually because Upper Crust had stepped on another quiche while trying to clean off the first one, but I got a fond smile from Toola anyway.

“Oh, speaking of orgies, I’m throwing one next week. Can you two make it?” said Toola.

“I’ll check my calendar,” said Trenderhoof, but I was short enough to see that he’d stiffened noticeably at the prospect. I snickered.

“What do you think, Frazzle darling? I know you had wanted to be monogamous,” asked Rarity.

I blushed furiously, and not just because I’d been caught giggling at Trender’s package. “Oh… I, um, well, I mean, it would hardly be my firtht orgy…” Actually technically it would be. Impromptu group sex had happened to me once or twice, depending on exactly what you counted as ‘sex’, but never premeditated debauchery on that scale.

Rarity nuzzled my cheek. “We can discuss it later, darling.”

———

Much later, we stepped out into the street. The drugs had largely worn off, leaving me giddy, but mostly sane. Rarity deflated the second we were outside.

“That,” she said, scooping her hoof around my fetlock and hurrying me down the street, “was the most humiliating experience of my life!”

“Toola and Trenderhoof were nithe,” I offered cautiously.

“But I want to be adored!” she whined, hanging her head. “How dare they treat me like common street trash just because of who I’m with!”

“Who you’re with.” I felt cold. ‘With’. Not ‘who I love’, but ‘who I’m with’.

Rarity didn’t even realize what she’d said. She was too wrapped up in her own misery. My heart went out to her. Her pain was my pain. But… ‘with’? “I love you. Ithn’t that enough?”

“But that’s not the point!” she stamped petulantly. “Everypony needs to love me!”

“Why?”

Rarity froze. She stared at me. “Well… I mean, because I’m fabulous. Isn’t it obvious?”

“You don’t need to prove you’re fabulouth.” I pointed a quivering hoof back at the gallery. “Thothe ponies are never going to love you. They only care about how you make them look! You need to be around them to do your buthineth, but Rarity, I’m the one whothe feelings should matter to you!”

Rarity narrowed her eyes. “Do you really need to make this about you, darling? You were nothing but an embarrassment in there.”

Tears started rolling down my cheeks. “So you are athamed of me! Back in Ponyville, you were all, ‘love, love, love’, but when fashion ponies start giving you the could shoulder, I’m just ‘with’ you! You are tho… tho thelfish!”

Rarity gasped as though she’d been slapped. “How dare you! Why you frumpy, ungrateful little reefer-swilling guttersnipe, I’ll have you know that…”

That was about as far as she got before I broke. The next thing I knew, my hooves were thudding down the street away from her. Bitter sobs wracked my chest. I imagined the whole block could hear me crying, but I didn’t care. It was true. Everything I’d feared was true. Rarity didn’t really love me.

I cried all the way to Maud’s apartment.

———

The next morning Maud and I found Rarity sitting in the lobby of CGS headquarters, looking like she hadn’t slept. Her mane was ragged, and her eyes were distant and red. I felt sorry for her. I also felt lonely, angry, horny, frustrated, remorseful, brokenhearted, resentful, and confused. I had a lot of feelings. I needed more coffee before I could even begin to sort them out.

“I didn’t know where else to go,” she said.

“What’s the matter?” asked Maud, her eyes drifting to the Maresace saddlebag Rarity was clutching to her belly.

She waved us closer, and glanced around. The guard at the desk was involved in a crossword puzzle. The guards at the magic detectors were busy screening the ponies coming into work. Nopony was paying attention to us. She opened the bag. It glowed blue inside. I leaned over and saw a single crystal nestled beside her compact, wallet, tissues, and last year’s September issue. Beneath the gem’s surface, equations shimmered, solving themselves, then sliding off to be replaced by new ones. I gulped. Maud whistled.

“Crystal math,” Maud whispered.

“We need to get her to Jack,” I said.