Lie Back And Think Of Equestria

In the last minutes before her life was shattered, almost up until the exact second when everything she'd worked for was destroyed and she was kicked out into the world in a cloud of fragmented dreams to try and find any way of going on as she had before... Fleur considered herself to have won.

Her tail was lofted high as she trotted through the Solar Wing of the palace on that warm fall morning. She smiled at the Guards who were accompanying her, and did so of her own free will, with only a little thought towards what flowed back. (Although there was still a little thought going on there: after all, one never knew just what, or who, was going to be useful later.) They were having a hard time remaining stoic in her presence. Little twitches of snout and ears indicated partially-suppressed responses to the expert swishes of her perfect tail, the little bits of body language she put into just about every movement, and she internally laughed at every reaction.

She was truly enjoying the gentle breeze carefully being channeled through open windows, the hint in the air of leaves starting to turn and the sort of eventual chill approaching for which fur was just right for countering, leaving her free to have her perfect form exposed for another moon without any need to cover up. Admittedly, clothing had its benefits, at least for certain ponies: to a few, there was something about hinting as to what lay underneath rather than just openly displaying it at all times, and Fleur knew how to work with that mystery -- but she liked to show off. When you were the single most beautiful mare in Canterlot, there was a certain obligation to provide each and every square hoofwidth of your form with its very own art gallery, and Fleur also knew just how much to charge for both admission and refreshments.

She was happy, at a few minutes past dawn on that beautiful autumn day. (She would remember that later, that she had been happy, and laugh about it. Bitterly.) Happiness was a rare state for Fleur, and typically a rather fragile one, as so many things existed which could make one unhappy. And even when everything seemed to be going well, there was always more to do, work which had to be put in if that emotion was ever going to be anything more than fleeting. Time was passing, always passing no matter what anypony could do about it, and that meant seconds used for basking in happiness were generally better off invested in getting back to work.

But on that day, she was happy, and she allowed herself to feel the radiance of it, the warmth spreading through her body which had been growing since the moment the summons had been delivered directly to her door. Because Fleur was in the palace. On her way to the Solar throne room. Seconds away from entrance.

And that meant it had all been worth it. Every last tenth-bit of it had just been justified.

She had won.

They opened the Sunrise Gate for her, and Fleur majestically trotted forward into her future.

The Princess was on the Solar throne, so high above her (if only in altitude), watching Fleur enter, face in what just had to be a forced stance of neutrality. Sun shone into the room, glanced and bounced and reflected off the marble. The Guards followed Fleur in, took their positions near the walls in a way which told her so much about what their favored positions were, joining the others. Eight Guards in total. She briefly wondered if that was a standard complement, then reminded herself that there would be plenty of time for finding out. After the puzzle was solved.

Fleur stopped at what she felt was the proper distance on her cool white stone virtual victory podium, bent her forelegs into the curtsy of her life. And waited.

"Ms. Dis Lee," the Princess formally greeted her. (Well, that formality would fade soon enough.) "Welcome. This is your first time in the palace, correct?"

The first of many to come. Fleur straightened, looked up, pleasantly nodded, expertly smiled, and focused her attention on the shifting of every strand of royal fur. Oh, the mane and tail might give her some trouble because of how unusual they were, but everything else was normal (if distinctly oversized and in a rather rare conjunction, she was actually more concerned with having to later work with that size), and that meant every other piece of the puzzle was present. It was just a matter of seeing how everything fit together, and then working out the best means by which she could take it apart.

The third most terrifying mare in Canterlot looked up at the occupant of the throne.

The countdown had started. The Princess was hers.

"Yes, Princess," Fleur smiled. "And it's every tenth-bit as beautiful as I'd always hoped it would be. The pictures don't come close to capturing the true experience. Only presence reveals the real beauty." That with the most subtle of head inclinations towards the Princess herself, giving the words that hint of extra target. "It's an honor to be here. To have been summoned. But..."

She batted her eyelashes. Just enough, and certainly much better than that bitch had ever done it.

"...I have to wonder..." The giggle, appropriate for any other number of meetings, was probably best off held in reserve here. "...whatever could you possibly need me for?"

She held her perfect tail a little higher. Inclined her head to let the light dance on polished horn. Smiled. Waited. And listened.

Nothing yet.

Well, the Princess was rather old. There probably were a lot of pieces to go through.

"Straight to business, then," the Princess nodded. "As I'd expect, from all the things I've heard about you. Very well..." Her horn ignited, and a large frame was levitated out from behind the throne. There was a picture within it. A portrait, really. "Do you know this entity?"

The frame hovered in front of pale violet eyes, which could not repress the blink. For two seconds and degrees of lift, the elegant pink-white tail drooped.

Well... that's going to be a challenge... But she was up to it. All that mattered was that it had gotten her into the throne room, and the puzzle was being assembled, if a little more slowly than she would have liked. But... still... all right, she could do something with the antler, there would have to be a certain amount of care taken with the talon, surely there was a purpose to that tail, and as for the face... she'd seen worse. Somewhere. And it would ultimately mean that she'd managed to acquire --

"Discord," Fleur said, and managed not to swallow. She smiled instead. "Well, Princess, despite the rather frequent jokes, it's not all that often when somepony truly calls me in on behalf of another. No matter how many times somepony says it's --" would this be the right term? She decided to risk it: the words could always be claimed as failed humor. "-- for a friend..."

And the Princess nodded. Just once, very slowly.

"Yes, Ms. Dis Lee," she quietly said, and the power in that soft voice vibrated all the fabric hangings. "This is, in fact, about friends. And Discord. But he is not my friend. Nor is he yours. And now -- I would appreciate it if you would just sit back and listen for a while."

Fleur politely sat.

Hopefully it would be a long while. There seemed to be rather more pieces than she'd been anticipating. She hadn't even located a corner yet.

"As many ponies are aware," the Princess said, "including some of those who occupy the social circles you are so often invited within, Discord was deliberately freed some time ago, in the hopes of inducing reform through providing him with an emotional connection to this land, something deeper than plaything. And as very few are willing to believe, the attempt was successful. Discord now has a friend. One friend. Which gives you a summary of the problem."

Fleur, who made what her targets initially (and mistakenly) considered to be some form of friend rather easily, listened. And given that the chaos entity had recognizable-if-scrambled anatomy... "If you want me to provide companionship, Princess, I'm certainly willing." More than willing. Getting the Princess was the ultimate win, but having Discord was the closest-available third place. (Second, of course, would have been getting into the Lunar throne room, and the only thing keeping it from being a tie was seniority.) "After all, that is the duty of my profession..."

The large eyes narrowed.

They'd had no reason to narrow. None at all.

Fleur managed to keep her tail from twitching. It had just been a little narrowing. Sun glare, perhaps. It didn't matter. She'd won.

"Provide companionship," the Princess carefully said. "Yes. In a way. But not the one you're undoubtedly and understandably contemplating, Ms. Dis Lee. Once again: will you do me the favor of simply listening for a time?"

Fleur nodded. It was starting to feel like she needed a lot of time. More than she'd ever required before.

"Discord," the Princess repeated, "has one friend. Just one. A single tie to this world, a lone strand of tail hair keeping him in some sort of line, out of a vague, barely-understood sense that he might not want to disappoint her. Conquering Equestria would let her down. Taking over the world again might make her feel bad. And so he isn't doing any of that, for as long as he has his friend. His one friend. A friend whose lifestyle, through necessity and destiny alike, has more than a hint of danger about it. A very special friend in many ways -- but in others, perfectly ordinary. Including her lifespan, Ms. Dis Lee. She is young -- but that will change." Those large eyes briefly closed. "It always does. Even if she manages to avoid the risks of both necessity and destiny, she will age. She will die. His one friend will be gone. And when there is once again nothing binding him to this realm, keeping him confined within what he still cannot fully comprehend as morality -- then perhaps he will have spent enough time with her to go forward on his own."

A long pause. A deep breath.

"Or he just might revert."

Fleur decided it was an appropriate time to swallow.

"But the Bearers could just put him back --"

"-- she is a Bearer."

Fleur blinked.

"...oh."

The Princess nodded.

"So you're asking me to make friends with him?" Fleur was already beginning to see the possibilities opening up before her. "I could --"

A very large left forehoof came up. Fleur stopped talking.

"Glimmerglow?" the Princess said, and one of the prettier pegasus guards slowly stepped forward. "Ms. Dis Lee is inquiring about the chance of her, or in fact anypony else, becoming friends with Discord, apparently under the impression that nopony had thought of that yet. Would you please update us all on the status of Project Sparkle?"

The pegasus took a deep gulp of air. "Well... of the twenty-nine ponies we've sent out to try and become his friend..."

They all waited.

"...we've located eight of them through their paper trails. A few made the mistake of officially filing their name changes. Others had to cross borders. Another six forgot that they couldn't alter their marks, and they had to get rid of the clothing sometime. There's nine still in psychiatric care, and I was told that two of those are doing much better now. I caught three while they were still packing. And then there were the two who locked themselves in their homes. They're still there. I think... they're going to be there for a while."

Fleur counted.

"And the twenty-ninth?" the Princess asked on her behalf.

"Still living in the cave," Glimmerglow replied. "He says the bears are easier."

The Princess nodded, then returned her attention to Fleur.

"Making friends with Discord," she said, "is not a simple process. I'm not entirely certain it's a repeatable one. Nopony else has been able to reach out to him in a way that he can recognize or accept, and he reaches out towards nopony in return. The lone pony who managed to become his friend is rather -- special. And when she dies, Ms. Dis Lee, and she will pass into the shadowlands, in time... he may have no others. But..."

Those large eyes closed again, opened. It took some time for the pain to visibly depart.

(The pain didn't seem to be part of the puzzle. It was almost as if there was no puzzle. Could the picture have fractured into so many pieces over more than a thousand years of life as to make each so tiny, impossible to truly touch? She had to try harder...)

"...have you ever heard of 'transfer of affection'?"

Fleur shook her head, concentrated harder.

"The short form," the Princess told her, "is that if you truly loved somepony -- then you are very likely to truly love their children. That you will be the one who reaches out to the next generation, out of desire to maintain a version of the original bond. To honor that first love, and honor your friend by cherishing what remains of her. I.... have some experience there. If Discord's lone tie to the world should have children, then there is an excellent chance he will find it within himself to reach out towards them, simply in memory of her. The binding will transfer. The realm will be safe. And, given long enough, perhaps he will learn enough to go forward on his own -- but without that guarantee, Ms. Dis Lee, the existence of a next generation is required. And his pony friend has friends of her own -- but no romantic partners. She has, in fact, never been on a single date in her life. She might have never sought out such a connection of her own accord before he came into her life, and even now, she has... certain problems. A rather large number of them, all of which conspire to keep her from finding companionship. She doesn't know how to put herself forward into a social situation. She has no concept of being deliberately attractive or flirtatious. Her typical response to having somepony declare their own attraction is instant denial followed by hasty retreat. Bring her to a party which has no ready means of escape, and she will insert herself in the most defensible corner available, then spend the evening pretending nopony else exists. Provide a path to safety and she may bowl over a dozen ponies in trying to reach it. She needs help. And this is where you, as a professional escort, come in."

And Fleur, who had already won, smiled.

"You want me to teach her how to get a stallion."

"Or a mare," the Princess casually said. "As the ultimate goal is children, the existence of The Most Special Spell makes the gender of her partner a rather moot point. But I also want her to be happy. To be in love. It's not a question of simply having her become pregnant, Ms. Dis Lee. She already has a... let us say, a rather large number of dependents. The life of a single parent would be additional pressure upon her. But to be in love, to truly find somepony who would stay with her... it would boost her emotionally. It might extend her lifespan. It would make her happy."

Fleur, being a realist with a strong sense of self-control, had managed not to laugh at any of that. "Do you have a picture?" Other than the one she still couldn't assemble, and she was starting to wonder if she was getting sick. Some weird variant of Rhynorn's, perhaps: this had never happened to her, and so there had to be some excuse. "I'm curious about what I'll be working with." Hoping unto Sun there was something at the base, something which wouldn't require two bale-weights of cosmetics just to avoid a panic riot in every moment of public exposure...

The Princess nodded. A second frame was floated up from behind the throne, placed in front of the first.

Fleur looked.

The whistle was instinctive, and more than a little loud.

"You're kidding."

"No," the Princess said.

"That can't get a stallion or mare? That?"

"Her appearance is not the issue."

Fleur was still stuck on that appearance. "That tail is natural? No extensions or fillers?"

"Unless her friends are assisting, she never wears makeup of any kind. I don't think she knows how."

"The whole tail?"

The Princess nodded.

Fleur whistled again, no more consciously aware of the second than the first. "What's her name?"

"Fluttershy."

Uh-oh.

"And from what you were saying, it's not one of those ironic names."

"Hardly."

Fluttershy. Fleur internally groaned. Well, this would take some work. Perhaps as much as this damnable picture was requiring, and she was heading directly for a doctor when she got out of the palace. But for now... for now, she had to keep trying. It might take a long time before she found herself with a second chance, and the clock just kept ticking along...

"All right," Fleur smiled. "I can give her some pointers. A few hours should be enough. But before I get started, what else can you tell me about her? Profession -- other than just being a Bearer, unless that's her only job..." How did that work? And come to think of it, her friends had to be the other Bearers, right? Fleur was being given the opportunity to acquire a Princess, possibly Discord, and a full sextet of Bearers. This was the greatest day of her life, or it would be if she could just --

-- and there it was.

The first piece. She had it. And it was a corner.

Fleur pinned it under virtual hoof, reached out for more --

"-- hours?"

And the Princess smiled.

The Solar throne room was warm. Pleasantly so. Or had been right up until the moment of that smile.

"No," the Princess smiled on. "It's going to take a little longer than that."

"A couple of days, then," Fleur tried to smile back, trying not to think about how shaky the expression seemed upon her own perfect features. "She can't be that bad --"

"-- this is your assignment," the Princess cut her off. "You will go to Ponyville. You will live there for the duration, and the duration ends when the first foal is born."

Fleur's coat was a natural and lovely shade of gentle white, with just a hint of lightest gray. It made going pale rather difficult to pick out on her at a casual glance, and she'd made sure nopony really knew her well enough to recognize the signs. And yet the Princess was looking at her in a certain way, as if she'd just picked up on it. Still smiling.

"I live in Canterlot," was the first protest she came up with.

"Not anymore," the Princess smiled.

"I work in Canterlot," was the next. All her connections were in Canterlot. Everything she'd worked so hard for was in Canterlot. Take her out of the city and everything would start to fall apart, she needed to assemble the puzzle faster -- good, there was another piece, but there were so many to go...

"You don't work anywhere," the Princess stated, "except on this. You are an advisor, teacher, and perhaps even matchmaker. But you are no longer an escort."

Fleur stared up at the Princess, and the words escaped.

"I'm licensed," she said.

And with the largest smile of all, "Not anymore."

A piece of paper was levitated up from behind the throne. The government's master copy of her license.

A burst of sunlight tore it in half. Fourths. Eighths. When it got down to sixty-fourths, the fragments were set on fire.

"You can't --" She was floundering, she could hear it in her own voice, even the Guards could hear it, Fleur never lost control like this and she could get it back, she could get everything back just as soon as the puzzle came together, but she had to hurry... "-- you can't just take --" An edge, she'd just gotten the first full edge, she was going to be okay, she'd won --

-- and the next words shattered her life.

"It took some time to work out what your special talent was."

Fleur stopped breathing. And it felt as if she would never start again.

"It's a rather unique one, isn't it?" the Princess smiled. "Any number of ponies have a gift for empathy. Psychiatrists, salesponies, natural ambassadors. But you... reach into a very specific subsection of that connection, and nopony knows you're doing it. I can barely feel you doing it, and I've been straining to pick up on it ever since you came in. The subtlety of mark magic works in your favor. You learn things -- and nopony knows how. They only know what you've learned, after you tell them. After you suggest that under the right circumtances, you might have to use it."

The smile vanished. The Princess slowly shook her head.

"You're a very skilled escort," she told Fleur. "Your talent helps there. But you're not a very good blackmailer. You've been confining most of your efforts to the nobility, along with the Day and Night Courts, perhaps feeling that's where the power was. And it's been easy for you to get there, at least once your reputation was established. Which was truly easy, wasn't it? A pony of your beauty, Ms. Dis Lee, and you are so very beautiful indeed, at least on the outside, finds doors opening wherever she goes. Being available as a professional paid companion? Ponies kick bits out those doors to summon you and consider it a worthwhile expense. Simply to be seen with you, to have Canterlot know they can afford you. To keep you at their side -- for just long enough. And then your talent does its job, you try to follow up on what it's taught you, and you think they'll be scared into silence."

Another one of those head shakes, and every movement seemed to add ten bale-weights to each of Fleur's sculpted hooves. The Guards were watching her, waiting for movement, any attempt to flee. And she couldn't move. Not a hoofwidth, not a tail strand. Nothing at all.

"You're very scared," the Princess said. "Not just at this moment, I mean: that's rather visible to everypony. But something about you... about what you've done... speaks of fear to me. And I would almost wonder what had happened, to make you so afraid..."

A horribly slow breath, which almost equalled all the ones Fleur couldn't seem to take.

"...except that you targeted Fancypants. You went after my friend, Ms. Dis Lee. A friend who is so close to me that we can tell each other anything, anything at all, even things that personal. He told me about your blackmail -- eventually. Too long, really. But in time, he told me everything. And after that, I started sending out feelers, poking a hoof here and there. Oh, I couldn't get that many ponies to talk, even when I gave them a chance to compare notes. But enough did. And this is what I know of your actions."

A very large scroll came up from behind the throne. The Princess' field receded somewhat, held it by the top edge. The paper unrolled, scooting forward and draping the floor until it stopped just short of Fleur's frozen forehooves, with the frames helpfully shifting out of the way.

"And this? Is what I suspect."

This scroll was the diameter of Fleur's barrel. Two Guards opened the Sunrise Gate, and the paper trail rushed out towards the Solar Courtyard.

"I have more than enough to go to court with," the Princess told her. "To put you on trial. Some will testify. Not many -- but enough. However, I'd like to spare Fancypants from that: he can tell me and know he's safe, but to put it on the public record... well, ultimately, one could argue that it's worth it to get rid of you. And yet, he's my friend... and as it happens, there is a need for your talents. All of them, Ms. Dis Lee. Fluttershy needs to find somepony to be with for the rest of her life. And not only might you be able to teach her something about putting a hoof forward, but you seem rather interestingly qualified to screen those who approach her for their motives. As such, I am giving you a choice. Exile to Ponyville, until the day Fluttershy brings a next generation into the world -- or you can take a chance on prison. Choose one and only one. In the next ten seconds."

And Fleur, lost among the fragments of what had once been her life, had no choice at all. No choice but to get away, get out of the palace and get away from Canterlot, perhaps a desperate gallop to Prance, she had more than enough makeup to make somepony else appear to be the pony getting on that train...

"I'll... I'll go." And then she would plot revenge --

-- the cold metal snapped closed around her right foreleg.

Fleur yelped at the chill contact. Looked down, just in time to see the last vestige of the Princess' field winking out.

"Fashionable, isn't it?" the Princess smiled. "We have so few practical uses for titanium that it was pleasant to learn about this new working, and how it operated best with this particular metal. That circlet will look lovely as jewelry, or go with just about any dress you might don. And as an incidental extra, it also tells the palace where you are, at all times. Did I mention it doesn't come off?"

The words made Fleur stop desperately scraping her left forehoof against her leg, possibly just in time to keep from ruining her coat.

"I'm a reasonable pony," the Princess said. "I'm not going to freeze all of your assets. You'll still be able to access what you would have fairly earned as an escort, although I think I'm justified in locking you out of the tips. And you'll need a continuing source of money while in Ponyville, so you will collect what would have been your standard salary while on your new assignment. I'll also understand if you need to come back to Canterlot briefly or travel a bit, perhaps to scout out a suitor or find something nice for Fluttershy to wear on a date, although you'd be best off doing that one in your new home. But at each and every moment, Ms. Dis Lee, the palace will know where you are. If you approach any Canterlot nobles to try and blackmail them into getting you out of this, which won't work in the first place. And if you tried that in Ponyville... well, there are nine nobles in the entire settled zone. One runs the library, four are nobles by right of first settlement and frankly don't even acknowledge or care about it, trying to tamper with your circlet is the best way to get the sixth very angry with you, and I think I'll leave the last three as a potentially rather nasty surprise. Succeed in your new assignment, Ms. Dis Lee, make me truly believe you've learned your lesson, perhaps go on an extended apology tour -- and I might consider dropping all charges and restoring your license on a probationary, frequently inspected basis. But that's going to take some time." She learned forward on the throne, just a little. "Are you aware that your snout twitched a little just then? When I said time?"

Fleur didn't answer.

"Love is seldom instant," the Princess concluded. "Pregnancy never so. Get started, Ms. Dis Lee. Fluttershy knows you're coming. She's waiting for you at the cottage on the very edge of the fringe. And the clock is ticking."

The former escort sat in the Solar throne room, tail splayed across the debris of her shattered existence, staring down at the rather fashionable circlet, and finally found the remnants of her voice.

"...what did I do to deserve this...?"

The Princess blinked.

"Congratulations, Ms. Dis Lee. You've just changed my mind."

For a single horrible moment, hope reared its hideous head, and Fleur's eyes came up to greet it. "Really?"

A very large forehoof came up, tilted left and right.

"Yes," the single most terrifying mare in Canterlot smiled as the signaled Guards began to close in. "Up until the moment you said that, I was going to let you pack first."

Ponyville: ↓

The Solar air carriage dropped Fleur off in Ponyville. It took her about twenty seconds to get her bearings back from the abrupt swoop, plus twelve more for picking herself up out of the short-trimmed grass.

"You could have at least landed first!" she shouted after the fast-departing transport. But if the pegasi who had tilted her out some distance above the actual ground heard her, they showed no signs of it beyond flying a little faster. And after a few more seconds, they were gone.

Everything is gone.

Everything...

...no. Take a breath. Canterlot is gone. For now. This is -- Ponyville. Whatever that is. She didn't know much about it, other than that it was the home of the Bearers and was considered by most of the nobility to be more than a little rural, far too strange for anypony of refinement's taste, and mostly suitable for slumming -- and all that maintained even with the Bearers in residence. It had been enough to make her avoid even the most casual of contact with Canterlot's closest neighboring settled zone, especially when leaving the city would have meant missing out on so many chances to work.

It may not look like much...

She looked around.

What it mostly looked like was somepony's backyard.

There was a little vegetable garden off in one corner, no longer producing with autumn advancing across the calendar: browning vines told her that tomatoes had been the dominant crop. A long, low sling made out of tightly-meshed rope, hanging between metal triangles, suspended by springs -- well, the pillows gave her some idea of what that was supposed to be for, although it was a little more public than she both generally liked and could collect sufficient payment for. A light green picket fence (desperately in need of fresh paint) surrounded three sides of the square, broken up on the left by a currently-closed swinging gate. And behind her, the house (which could stand a few brushstrokes of its own): small, quiet, and with a rather odd sort of door leading to the interior, one which looked as if it slid to the side instead of --

-- the field which slid the door left was a rather odd, dark greyish-green. The unicorn mare who came through the opening was a strangely deep shade of blue, with some aspects of that same green speckled into her coat to go with singularly dark eyes. In the sunlight offered at about two hours past dawn, the colors stood out. Under Moon, when standing within exactly the right shadows, the young adult might just vanish.

Those dark eyes looked at her, and did not echo the smile that appeared on a jaw which was just a little more squarish than most mares ever displayed. And Fleur knew what the mare was, and that knowledge didn't come from her talent. Anypony with Fleur's background and continuing outlook on the world would have known the nature of this pony on sight, long before their gaze reached the mark.

"That's odd," the mare falsely smiled. "They were originally supposed to drop you off in front. I guess they thought this would give us a little more privacy. And I was expecting something more in the way of luggage..." She took another step forward. "Fleur Dis Lee, correct? I made sure I had the name right -- all of them, as it's rather unusual to encounter a pony using three. I'm Miranda Rights."

Fleur silently waited. She knew what the next words were going to be, at least for general information conveyed.

"I'm Ponyville's chief of police," the mare predictably went on, and that smile got wider. "We were told you'd be coming. We were all told you'd be coming. The entire department. We were all told about you in great detail, because the Princess isn't the sort of pony to leave anything out of a personally-delivered briefing concerning a new arrival. So -- welcome to Ponyville. Please let me know if there's anything I can do to make your stay more comfortable. Because I will be making sure you're settling in. Personally."

Fleur carefully measured the strength and duration of her inhalation, then gave equal monitoring and care to the reverse.

"So you're supposed to be my jailer," she evenly said. Give up no ground. Hold position. Never be the first to flinch. Meet them on equal terms, even when it's a lie, and maybe they'll decide you don't know what a bluff is supposed to be...

It had hardly ever worked, at the beginning. Her success rate had gone up considerably after she'd found her talent. But with this mare, who had been told about her -- nothing.

Chief Rights shrugged. "The settled zone is yours to roam, Fleur." (Who instantly loathed the officer all the more.) "Along with the fringe, because you'll have to get close to it if you want to reach Fluttershy's residence. In fact, as far as I'm concerned, you can trot into the Everfree any time you like, and maybe the next pony who goes in for any other reason will be able to bring your body out. Personally, I have more important things to do, especially with this settled zone. I'm just -- welcoming you. And letting you know that I'll make sure you're settling in."

The chief's breath was abrupt, sharp, and more cutting than the horn.

"Because I was told all about you," she continued. "And I'm going to trust the Princess' judgment on this: that you're the best pony for the job. For coaching Fluttershy in -- whatever it is you'll be coaching her in: she didn't really go into specifics on that. But I don't exactly like having you here, not when I know what you are."

Fleur didn't take a step back. Only the Princess could have made her do that, and an officer, even an angry one, didn't even come close.

"However," Chief Rights went on. "We both have our orders. Yours are to help Fluttershy, with whatever the issue happens to be. Mine are to make sure you settle in, with the benefit of everything I've been told about you -- and haven't told the rest of Ponyville about. Because the Princess gave us an order, one I hope I'll understand eventually, to let you settle in. That we should know what you are -- and the remainder of the settled zone would only be told every last detail if you started to demonstrate it. She wants you treated as just another new arrival in Ponyville, and we've had a lot of those since the Elements were found again. You'll stand out a bit more than most, with your looks. But having officers follow you around at all times would make you a little more distinctive within the herd than she wants. So you will be watched -- from a distance. When you don't know you're being watched at all. And if I find any signs that you're playing your little games, or even have a particularly strong suspicion... I can find you." A little nod towards the circlet. "Very easily. So do your job, Fleur. Because just being this close to you, knowing what you are, makes me really want to do mine."

Fleur did the only thing she could do. She took a step forward.

The other mare blinked. The smile vanished, and the shadow-lost tail twitched. And Fleur smiled, just about as prettily as she knew how.

"Thank you, officer," she smiled. "If I ever need somepony to make an empty threat for me, I'll know just who to ask."

The immediate response was an instinctive attempt to start a staring contest. To prove some form of dominance. But it was a pointless attempt, because Fleur instantly won simply through openly not considering her opponent worthy of a match.

As long as I'm not afraid of you, I win.

"And now if you'll excuse me," Fleur continued as she merrily turned away from the frustrated officer, then began to trot towards the fence's gate, "I have to go meet my client. I don't suppose you'd be willing to fulfill the only major requirement of your job and provide a new arrival with directions?"

And what emerged certainly could have been considered as telling her where to go. "Go buck yourself."

"Expertly," Fleur replied, not bothering to glance back. "And occasionally for a paying audience. I never have any problems performing my duties, unlike a certain pony I've very recently met. Now, I presume this lock is enchanted -- so would the mistress of the home mind letting me out? Or do I have to call the authorities and report an unlawful detainment?"

Hearing the sharp breath behind her was the first good thing to happen since her arrival -- and so naturally, it was temporary. "The other thing I was supposed to do was offer you my spare bedroom. I'm guessing you won't be taking me up on that."

There was a certain temptation to it, if only for the opportunities offered by the chance to directly disrupt what little existed of any officer's downtime. But it also meant spending her own off-hours right under that unfashionable snout, which automatically created a situation where the versa so easily became vice -- and fraud, bunko, major crimes unit... "The gate, officer. If you would? Or rather, as you must?"

Greenish-gray surrounded the lock. It clicked, and the gate slowly swung upon. Fleur began to trot through.

"I'm watching you," the officer impotently said.

"Most ponies do," Fleur smugly noted. "Enjoy the free view, officer. You can't afford anything else." And kicked the gate shut behind her, making sure to leave a little gouge in the wood.

Fleur had been given a considerable amount of advice early in life, and most of it had... well, in all honesty, the majority had turned out to be either truly bad or in desperate need of adjustment. For the most part, she'd had to work out the true rules on her own, and one of them had just been applied. Because she could have gone into that encounter trite and repentant and oh-so-willing to try on a brand-new set of sparkling ethical horseshoes -- and none of it ever would have been believed. The officer had already decided to hate Fleur, there was nothing which could have been done to change that closed mind, and so Fleur had gone to one of the least-used parts of her personal code. That it just happened to be one of the most satisfying didn't do anything to salvage what little was left of her life -- but at least it had allowed her to vent on a target which deserved it even more than the rest of the world generally did.

Never be afraid to make an enemy you already had.

[/hr]

The gate led out to a long, narrow path which cut between the backyards of multiple boring rural houses, forming a miniature street which was just about wide enough for two ponies to pass each other in comfort. Fleur maintained her trot just long enough to get near the western exit, which looked as if it led onto a more standard thoroughfare -- then stopped. And for the first time since having been lifted by multiple loops of field and levitated into the air carriage, with no wind rushing into her face from the sheer speed of her exile, without her words being openly ignored... she spared a moment to simply breathe. Breathe and think.

But just a moment. That was all which was available to her, because the Princess had cost her so many. All the moons in Canterlot which had ultimately led to her palace summons, everything she'd done during that time, all the work... gone. That much of her time under Sun had been wasted, by royal order.

Her eyes slowly closed, and in that moment, she heard the ticking of the clock.

Moons gone. Nearly two years evaporated -- no, burned, turned into ash in front of her snout so that she might choke on the black soot of destroyed dreams. And as for what time might remain before her? How long would it take for this pony, this Fluttershy, to decide she was happy with a suitor? How much longer before a pregnancy might result? A pony that skittish might decide to postpone sex until after marriage, and that skittishness might also suggest a decidedly long engagement. A decade or two before the pegasus felt the prospective guest list for the reception would not lead to open revolt, perhaps a full lifetime to settle on the cake...

No. Stop it, Fleur. You're going straight for the worst case. The worst case already happened. This morning. And...

She had to force the breath. It was all she could force. Her eyes didn't want to open, for there was simply too much to look at inside, including all the things she did so much not to see.

...it wasn't as bad as it could have been... was it?

She wasn't in prison. She wasn't awaiting her trial. She was... in Ponyville. Under Sun, a Sun she wasn't particularly fond of at the moment due to the party responsible for moving it, but under Sun, and the light illuminated fence slats, when it so easily could have been reflecting from iron bars. She had some freedom of movement -- perhaps enough to find a pony who could get the circlet off, or make its enchantment send back false locations. Somepony proficient enough in magic --

-- or Magic.

That's one of the Elements, isn't it? Magic?

She concentrated, and came up with very little. Fleur paid some attention to the news -- more than many ponies, in fact, because a skilled escort needed to make a contribution to high society conversations and on rare occasion, the topics within those circles would momentarily turn away from gossip. Fleur knew a lot of gossip, although her talent made using the best of it into a rather pointless and, at best, redundant exercise. But as for news of the Bearers...

...there were six. They all lived in Ponyville. She was fairly certain they were all mares, and as for the Elements themselves, yes, she was sure Magic was one of them, and then there was Honesty, she remembered that one because the concept of honesty being that vital to anything had been so idiotic as to provide her with a portion of rare true laughter, and...

...and...

...and one of them was a startlingly attractive pegasus with the sort of outrageous tail spread which minor cosmetic magic and the most professional of stylists could spend hours in desperate attempts to replicate and never quite make it. If you liked that sort of tail spread, and Fleur was aware that more than a few ponies did. It was a specialist taste, really, and... well, it was something she never really did anything with, because having one's interests go for that kind of tail spread was a minority opinion which cycled in and out of what she generally ignored as fashion, but it was an accepted interest. At most, it would draw a few snickers and (rarely) insults from those who preferred short cuts or wraps, along with the few who still gave perverted thought towards the sickness known as docking. But if an outrageous tail spread was the sort of thing you looked for in a mare, then...

...she was getting off track. Fleur refocused, concentrated harder, and came up with absolutely nothing else outside the realm of gossip, none of which she was currently willing to trust.

Well... she might remember more later, after sleep had restored her somewhat, for it had been a bad day. Just about the worst one of her life, and the fact that it hadn't automatically taken first place said something about both Fleur's experiences and the mistake. The one which the Princess had just made.

Yes, the police had been told about her. But the entire settled zone hadn't. And Fleur now knew what her own error had been. She'd just targeted the wrong pony.

It had seemed like a sensible move at the time. Fancypants didn't really have most of the usual uses for escorts: if he desired mare companionship, it was always there to be had, generally crowding around the stallion while showing off outfits, jewelry, manestyles, and an embarrassing amount of open desperation for his attention. As for other aspects of it -- well, he'd mostly hired Fleur because so many of the other nobles had been asking for her, and if she had become so very popular, then of course Fancypants needed to find out why. And her paid time with him had generally been interesting, right up until that bitch...

...she risked another moment, slowed her breathing...

...well, fortunately, that hadn't lasted long. But she'd had more than enough time with him for her talent to do its job, she'd followed up, and -- well, there had been rumors, hadn't there? That he and the Princess were unusually close? But moving in her invited circles, she had heard that rumor claimed for just about anypony who wanted to make themselves look important. It was just that... looking back, he'd never been the one to claim it. Perhaps that should have been a sign.

She'd made an error. And then the Princess had made a mistake.

The police knew about her. The settled zone didn't. Fleur had been sent to assist a Bearer. And her thought from the Solar throne room still held true: meeting one Bearer would almost inevitably have to lead into contact with the other five.

Six Bearers had to outrank one police chief. Perhaps, given the tales of what they had done to the Nightmare and what she knew had happened to Discord, they might even be able to overcome the influence of a Princess. All she had to do was... be careful. More careful than she'd ever been before, constantly heedful of the lesson which the Princess had made the additional error of teaching her. The Princess was in Canterlot, having just kicked Fleur out of the center of that carefully-built web -- but there was a new place to start her spinning, and she already knew of a half-dozen extremely enticing targets to ensnare.

I lost everything I put together. All of the Canterlot work is gone. Accept that. And she did. Somehow, if only in that moment, she accepted it. But Ponyville isn't exactly without resources. I have the Bearers to work with. There might even be other ponies, ones with influence which I don't know about yet. But just starting from the Bearers...

She breathed and looked at inner visions, ignoring the worst ones which tried to arise with the skill from years of hard practice. And she continued to do so until she was satisfied with her plan.

For now, Fleur would do what the Princess had presented as her sentence, leaving her under Sun and open sky. It would open the door she needed. The door to the Elements, to Magic and possible freedom --

-- or control.

Six Elements can awaken from Nightmare. Six Elements can paralyze Discord.

Six Elements versus a Princess is... an interesting question, isn't it?

And then, standing under Sun, with a chance before her once again, a path which might bring her to where she so badly needed to be... she sighed, and was glad that nopony could hear.

I was so close.

A few more. Just a few more ponies and a little more time. Just a little more time. Even if I can make this work, all that time is gone, and nothing anypony can do will bring it back.

The Princess had time. Endless time, weeks and moons and years and centuries, which she had used to steal Fleur's time...

I hate her.

Of course she hated the Princess. It was a natural, reasonable reaction to the morning's events. But more than that --

-- I hate you, Celestia. And you're going to know it. Somehow, some way, I'm going to make you feel my hate.

You took my time.

Let's see what I can do to ruin yours.

Twice now in her life, standing under Sun among the debris of what had once been her existence, having just figured out what to do next. Twice more than anypony should have ever had to do that. But it had worked once again. She had her path anew, and all she had to do was see where it led her.

Fleur opened her eyes, briefly ignited her field and used it to smooth out mane and tail, got rid of all the dirt from her landing, groomed herself as expertly as she could without proper implements, and stepped out of the miniature street into Ponyville proper. The first thing to do was finding Fluttershy.

The first thing which happened was the fillies nearly trampling her.

It Would Have Been Worse With A Piece Of Toast In Her Mouth

She had about two seconds of warning, and for somepony with Fleur's background and hard-won reflexes, that could be all which was needed. The youthful shouts reached her ears (which had already been carefully rotating in a preemptive attempt to further understand her new environment), and the volume of those desperate cries had not been enough to completely drown out the sounds of heavy hooves landing against cobblestones, the little scratches of keratin on rock as a being not used to moving across this kind of terrain scrambled for purchase, and then there was another shout, one of alarm, trying to make her move --

-- but Fleur's reflexes had already made their choice. Whatever was going on, it worked out to trouble, and they wanted no part of it. And so she pushed with all four hooves, flinging herself forward, getting out of the surprisingly large body's way, giving her just enough distance to clear the lowered head and tremendous spread of antlers. Her reflexes brought her to safety, and even if that safety ended with her just about spread-eagled on the ground in a rather embarrassing fashion (and pose), it still left her unharmed.

The mistake had been in assuming that the fillies giving chase would have been following pretty much directly behind the thing.

As it turned out, they were a little more to the left.

The earth pony didn't quite manage a hard veer, dumping herself onto the cobblestones in a frantic skid of what started as hooves and then wound up as a tumbling body, friction quickly slowing her final slide until she came to a rough-bump stop against Fleur's flank. The pegasus simply buzzed her wings a little faster, angled the scooter's front wheel, and turned her headlong rush into a jump which cleared Fleur's back with room to spare. But the unicorn, physically weakest and moving at the slowest speed, tried to follow suit using only the power of her legs, and by the time she reached the point where she would have to trigger the leap, she needed to vault two ponies -- and went for it anyway.

There was a sound of impact. And for anypony willing to ignore the squeaking of wheels and bell-like bleats continuing to race down the road, it was followed by a moment of perfect silence.

Fleur took a slow breath. The weight moved accordingly, but not much.

"Are you okay?" Fleur carefully checked.

"I'm sorry!" the unicorn filly desperately cried out. "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry we're sorry, we're sorry we're --"

"Are. You. Okay?"

"...I think so."

Fleur exhaled. "How about you?" This to the earth pony.

"Ah... yeah, Ah'm fine."

"Good. So..." Another breath, which wasn't being made any easier by the weight. "...would you please get off me now?"

She could hear the blink. A heartbeat later, the earth pony started forcing herself to her hooves, and the unicorn filly got off Fleur's back as quickly as the humiliation would allow, doing some scuff damage to the coat which Fleur would have to straighten out later. Nothing major, though, and that wasn't exactly the important thing right now.

Fleur carefully got up, noted the sudden aches and twinges in her back, then looked down. The yellow and white fillies nervously stared up at her -- but only for a second.

"We're sorry," the unicorn tried again, sounding as if she was on the verge of tears. "We didn't know anypony was -- we never thought it was going to go this way, we thought it would try to head down... but it went here, we thought everypony had gone to work or shopping or everything else already, like even staying home today, so there wouldn't be anypony in the street, and then..."

Which was when the squeaking of wheels began to get louder again.

"I lost it!" declared a frustrated, somewhat brash pegasus voice. "It went over a fence and -- if I'd just had a little more momentum, just a little more straightway before the jump, I could have cleared that, but..." (It took a lot for Fleur to pick up on the mostly-repressed sigh, and absolutely nothing to realize this filly would instinctively deny it had ever emerged at all.) With more than a hint of self-directed sarcasm, "Cutie Mark Crusaders Deer Wranglers... um... oh."

There were certain things Fleur had a lot of experience with, and being stared at was extremely high on the list. A pony with her looks got noticed, and some of that notice could go on for a surprisingly long time without blinking. So she felt the approaching filly staring at her, even as the sounds of the wheels stopped entirely.

But it wasn't from the pegasus filly realizing she'd jumped somepony and recognizing a need to add her own apologies. There was no awestruck state at the sight of Fleur's beauty, something which occasionally left ponies trotting into buildings, traffic, and each other. The filly was very visibly staring at --

"-- your mark!" the little pegasus exclaimed, and Fleur heard the longing.

The other fillies focused. Two looking at her right flank, one staring at the left.

"What is that?" the earth pony immediately asked. "Ah ain't never seen one like that! What's it mean?"

"What's it for? And -- how do you get one? How could we get one?" the unicorn openly wished.

She heard it. All of it, the need and desperation and hope, standing between three fillies whose puzzle pieces were just beginning to acquire their first washes of color, with their owners barely starting to become aware that there was anything to be solved at all. Stood in the midst of something very close to innocence.

"You don't want it," Fleur quietly said.

They stared all the harder.

"But it's your mark!" the pegasus declared. "How could anypony not want a mark? We -- anypony -- anypony should accept any mark at all, any mark as long as it's cool and awesome and makes you cool and awesome, as long as it's your mark...!"

Fleur turned her head.

"It's not a mark for fillies," she told the orange filly, looking directly into purple eyes, or as directly as she could with so much of the filly's attention still on her mark. "And it wouldn't be something you did to get it. This mark comes when something happens. It's something which won't --"

shouldn't

"-- shouldn't happen to any of you." Gently, "I don't want to see this mark on anypony else. Ever. And if I ever heard that you were trying to get it, I'd stop you. The deer --" she blinked "-- Sun and Moon, that was a deer! You three found a deer in Equestria? How far did you go into the wild zone to spot one? And then you managed to drive it out, it had antlers, it's still too early in the season for the antlers to have fallen off and you got it in front of you... what were you doing chasing a deer?"

Three sets of hooves scraped against cobblestones.

"Um," the unicorn said, and seemed to feel that summed everything up.

"We're kinda... tryin' t' find our marks," the earth pony elaborated. "We've -- gone through a lot of things without doin' it. A lot. We're startin' t' feel like we're gettin' a little low on options."

"And somepony in our class said," the pegasus relayed, expression resplendent in both frustration and ignorance, "that since we'd failed at pretty much everything else under Sun, we'd probably stink at bucking too."

"So... we... um..." the unicorn awkwardly offered, "...found a buck?"

Fleur blinked.

They stared at her as she helplessly laughed, all three of them, and she neither knew how to tell them nor wanted to, for understanding the joke required knowledge she didn't want them to have just yet and a childhood they'd been lucky enough not to experience -- although in truth, the part which had led into the joke hadn't been bad.

"Do you know why they call the males 'bucks'? Because if it's mating season and you get in front of one, you are screwed."

Eventually, she got it down to a few last giggles.

"Okay," she gasped out. "So... bucking. Obviously no mark in that. Any ideas on what to try next?"

"Not today," the pegasus half-pouted. "We didn't think we were gonna need anything else today. I think what we've gotta do is --"

The distant scream cut her off, and the initial attempt to resume was interrupted by the equally-distant sound of antlers crashing into (and through) a greenhouse.

"-- leave," the pegasus decided, and finally shifted her gaze off Fleur's mark. "Did you see my jump? I went right over you! There must have been, like, two full hoof-heights of clearance over your back! Maybe four! Did it look cool from underneath? Or --"

"Scootaloo," the earth pony urgently broke in. "We've gotta leave. Like, y'know, now?"

"Oh... yeah." Back to Fleur. "You can tell me later, okay? Let's get to the barn. They won't look for us at the barn, not after we got caught there the last time. Why would they look somewhere we already got caught?"

The earth pony looked worried. "Because... y'jus' said where we were goin', in front of..."

"Go," Fleur smiled.

All three stared at her.

"But y'know --" the earth pony began.

"Me? I'm new in town. I don't know anypony or anything," Fleur innocently declared. "I've never seen or heard of you three before this morning, and I probably won't find out about you until this afternoon at the very least. I'm not even sure I'm here right now." She paused, waited for the sounds of crashing planter pots to finish having their rather pointed say. "Go."

The wild hope surged in their eyes, and nothing could have made her shatter it.

"Okay," Scootaloo grinned. "You heard her, Apple Bloom. Let's see if we can think of anything at the Acres!" A quick glance at the only adult in the area. "You're new? Watch out for Pinkie! Come on, Sweetie! Bye!"

And before Fleur could ask who or what a Pinkie was, wings buzzed, making wheels squeak. The strongest set of hooves broke into a full gallop. But the little unicorn filly was still there. Still staring at Fleur.

"Go," Fleur gently insisted.

"Um..."

The filly, whom process of elimination had named as Sweetie, deeply blushed.

"...you're -- really pretty..."

Fleur smiled again, ignored the fresh piece which had just acquired some very familiar patterns.

"Go."

Timidly, with her head down, "I'm sorry."

"Nopony's hurt. No squawk, no blood, no foul." She probably doesn't know the expression. "It was just a -- bump in the road. The barn, Sweetie: somepony's going to be tracking the direction that deer came from any minute, and the police chief lives on the street behind us. Go."

Sweetie blushed still more deeply, then raced away as best she could. And Fleur watched her go, still smiling -- but she didn't hold the position for long, because it was her first day in the settled zone and the police chief was looking for any excuse, with "standing in the general vicinity of a deer's charge path" easily qualifying for "any." Instead, she trotted away, legs automatically moving at the casual noplace-special-to-be pace which never got any attention over and above that paid towards the shapeliness of the limbs going through it. And there was no anger in the movement, because there was no reason for anger to be there, certainly not regarding what had just happened, for it had simply been three fillies questing for their marks. Fillies with time aplenty stretching in front of them, time to find...

where will I go?

who will I be?

what might my mark

whisper to me?

And when the last echoes of the old song finally faded from her inner ear, she began to trot again.

Things To Do In Ponyville When You're Wishing You Were Dead

It was a simple fact: life required money.

Oh, it was theoretically possible for somepony to take up full-time residence in the wild zones, scavenging what food they could from the native plant life while wondering if any of what they were about to consume would try to return the favor. Bathe in the rivers, find entertainment in birdsong, and take shelter in a monster's digestive system, although that last part was rather temporary. But to exist in comfort and with some rough degree of safety, a pony required money. And money came from work -- while work took time.

There was only so much time in which to work. So many hours during which Fleur could have hoped to create enough funds to ensure security when her working years (it would probably would have been a few more years, but she'd been hoping to do it faster, had been so close) inevitably ran out. And so she'd worked hard, doing everything she could to become secure, she'd been getting close to her goal -- and then Celestia had summoned her, frozen most of her assets, made those years into lost time...

However, the Solar Princess had been... practical, in a way, and the briefest of moments could be spared for a temporary abeyance of pure hatred, for Fleur acknowledged that a certain degree of fiscal wisdom had come with that great age. The funds which Fleur had worked hardest for were currently gone: not necessarily lost beyond all hopes of recovery, but any immediate attempt to get them back would be impractical at best. But even Celestia realized that ponies needed money to live, and so Fleur had been left with what she would have normally earned on her escort's salary. It wasn't a particularly small accumulation of funds, at least when viewed from the perspective of those who had to work for their living. By the standards of those she'd been invited to move among, it was just about nothing. It wasn't anything close to what was required for security. But it was likely enough to get her through whatever amount of time she would be forced to spend in Ponyville, especially since she would continue to collect her standard salary for the duration, and Fleur intended to invoice the palace for every last second of it.

Celestia likely expected her to begin the durance by heading directly for the cottage at the very edge of the fringe (and why would anypony live on the border?), but Fleur was practical. A glance at Sun showed her that the day was starting to move into what would normally be viewed as business hours, even for a slightly rural, rather strange settled zone. It gave her a mandatory initial stop, and she began to trot through the residential streets.

For those who didn't have any, money always came first.

It had taken Fleur a long time to appreciate banks, for there was little worse than being forced to venture into a place of wealth when you didn't have any, and being forced to revisit that experience put a fresh, hidden spike on her anger. But as it turned out, Celestia had set up a little more than the police surveillance, and the alicorn's attention to detail briefly worked in Fleur's favor.

The bank's total lack of caring about comfort, however, was currently doing its best to work against her.

"We'll just need some time to finalize the documents," the bank manager smiled at her. It wasn't a particularly flirtatious smile, and the look he'd shot at the other employees of the Ponyville Public Trust at the moment she'd trotted in told her no such thing was going to happen on company time. Instead, it was the simple smile of a pony greeting a newfound foal, or rather, one who loved money more than anything and had just seen some of it enter his custody. "You're rather fortunate that the Princess contacted us on your behalf, Ms. Dis Lee. Normally, without your carrying a letter of credit from your primary institution, we'd need at least a day to contact them and verify any information you gave us. But with all that already accounted for, we were truly just waiting for you to arrive so we could begin the true processing of your new forms. And of course, with anypony whom the Princess sees fit to speak directly for..."

Another smile, one which was just a little too polished.

Fleur politely smiled back, tried not to shift any more on her bench than she absolutely had to, then looked around at the bank. It wasn't a particularly ugly specimen (at least for the moment), especially for something this rural. It was just extremely uncomfortable. The typical Canterlot version of this building would have interior columns, touches of gold and jewels everywhere (with plenty of guards nearby, just in case a unicorn with a horn suited for prying got any ideas), and bale-tons of marble to set them in. Ponyville's bank had decided to go with... stone. Fleur wasn't sure what kind: rocks weren't exactly her interest. All she knew was that it was mostly beige, with some reddish streaks running across it in long veins. But the walls were made of stone, the desks were stone, and the benches -- Fleur truly didn't understand the bench. There was going with a theme, and there was making a deliberate attempt to wear all the fur away from your patron's legs. Perhaps that was the factor which made her the only customer in the building, even at the very start of banking hours.

However, it was possible that they had realized their error, for there seemed to be a certain amount of redecorating in progress. Unfortunately, they'd decided to go with the same general theme: rock. Huge grey planes of the stuff were leaning against every wall, and every so often, the employees could be found taking long, regretful looks at them -- at least during those moments when the manager couldn't see them, which told Fleur just whose chosen style was soon to be enforced. She really couldn't blame them for the regrets: the color was ugly.

"So let's get your account officially opened, shall we?" he continued to smile at her.

Fleur nodded.

"Very good," the bank manager said. "STONEBENDER!"

An earth pony stallion, one with a long, straggly black mane which begged the question of how he'd ever found any degree of career in banking, slowly got up from his bench, stretched out for as long as he dared, and then arced his head under the desk. Two metal objects were regretfully pulled out and donned.

Fleur watched him approach. Not the bank manager's desk. Not her. Just a slow approach, hooves dragging every step of the way.

"Begin," the manager said. "Name: Fleur Dis Lee."

The stallion blinked, but only as a substitute for the repressed groan.

"Three names?"

"Yes," the manager sharply replied. "And be glad they're short ones."

"Spell that?"

The manager did, and the earth pony's steel-sheathed hooves kicked against the grey stone.

A chip came out. Then another. And another. And, after a pause for a few deep breaths and a double check on the arrangement of her vowels, another.

Fleur watched until she couldn't stand it any longer, which turned out to be approximately four minutes. (It normally would have been a much shorter period of time, but she was still in some form of bank.)

"Mr. Croesus?"

"Yes?"

Carefully, "What, exactly, is he doing?"

"Opening your account," the manager calmly said, the words emerging with the ease of frequent practice.

She couldn't help it, and suspected dozens had succumbed before her. "By kicking at stone."

"We keep records," the manager politely failed to explain. "Like all financial institutions."

Fleur looked at the closest grey plane. The in-progress record was roughly as tall as she was, and about twice as long. Stonebender had gotten about half a hoofwidth in from the left edge.

"What about your ledgers?"

The edges of the golden right eye twitched.

"We don't use ledgers," the manager said, and those words were a little more -- strained. "Not for permanent records."

"But --"

Another twitch, on the left this time.

"Parasprites," the manager whispered, "eat ledgers."

Fleur did her best not to stare at him and failed.

"Parasprites eat food," said the mare who'd initially mastered an instrument in order to do her part in keeping the pantry safe. "A lot of it. They don't eat --"

"-- they ate our ledgers," Mr. Croesus whispered. "They ate most of the bank. Nearly three years ago. We lost... we had to reconstruct... but they didn't eat the stone." Both eyes, in near-and-disconcerting concert. "Well... they didn't eat most of it. They couldn't get their mouths open wide enough. And we need records. Money is nothing without records. So we use stone, Ms. Dis Lee. I thought about using diamond, but we couldn't find anypony who could engrave that finely, or tools to work with, and the one sentient we would have asked to try and gnaw our permanent files is with... her."

"Her," Fleur carefully repeated, mostly because it was something to do, or at least something other than making a very rapid rush for the exit.

He leaned forward. "The one responsible," he hissed. "The one who made them eat our ledgers. Our poor ledgers. All those records, all those accounts... I had my staff follow the parasprites into the wild zone in the hopes of anything being excreted again, we spent moons trying to fully reconstruct..."

Chip. Chip. Chip. The kicking of the special shoes was now in exact time with the twitching of his eyes.

"But it won't happen again," he said at a somewhat more normal volume. "There will be no more digging through mounds of -- well, mounds, let's just put it that way. Because we have stone. And stone is forever. Unless we keep it outside and let the wind and rain pound it on for centuries, which we don't. Because the record must be maintained. Besides, it's possible that one day, an alicorn might want to open an account. And, after a thousand years, wish to review the master document. Unless that alicorn happens to be --" Twitch. "-- well, never mind that. She's not even allowed in here. Ever."

Given the current overall circumstances, Fleur would have normally felt more than up to a round of mutual alicorn loathing. But no matter what she tried, all she could come up with was "Stone."

"Stone," the manager smiled. "We are a practical bank, Ms. Dis Lee."

"Dis..." Stonebender muttered, moving a little more this time. "Dis -- oh, for --!"

He frantically kicked again, trying to wipe out the homophone before the manager saw it. He failed.

"Very well," Mr. Croesus sighed. "Start over. And while you're doing that... Ms. Uluru?"

An extremely sturdy earth pony mare sighed with the usual resignation expressed by those forced by circumstance to work for the hopelessly insane, got off her bench, donned her own chipping shoes, and reluctantly trotted to another plane of stone, one roughly the size of Fleur's body and weighing no more than twenty times as much.

"Don't worry," the manager smiled. "We always provide a personal copy."

It had taken some time to get out of the bank, and she'd finally had to promise them she'd come back to pick up her personal copy later, even if actually picking it up would require every active field in the settled zone added to an optional and extremely helpful localized eruption of lava. But Fleur had money again, along with a free pair of saddlebags given out by the bank to those who opened new accounts. However, the saddlebags were truly basic, and while Fleur's actual degree of caring about the looks of such things generally came down to "Does it work? Then it's good enough," there was still a certain regrettable and frequently expensive (especially since nopony was currently buying her gifts) need to maintain a public image. Admittedly, that was now an image which was being established in a place where most of those who already knew her already despised her presence -- but while nobles generally came to Ponyville for their slumming, they still came, and Fleur had already decided she was going to need an upgrade in place for the moment she was inevitably spotted. So she was exploring the town. There was no rush to get to the cottage, and certainly none for approaching the fringe. She had to learn some portion of what Ponyville had to offer, or at least to exploit.

She had been noticed, of course, and several times. There wasn't that much hoof traffic on the street at this hour, not even in the business and shopping districts: the majority of those heading to work had already arrived there, and it wasn't quite the proper hour for much of anything else. But what did trot by frequently paused to look at her. Some just kept on trotting while they looked and thanks to long experience, Fleur could always work out what they inevitably trotted into just by the sound of the crash. And naturally, a few ponies had already approached her, for at just about any time when she was out in public without company, somepony would desperately hope that they were the ones capable of providing it.

Fleur had been polite in her rejections, enough to give a few of the more confident some hope of a second chance later: there was no point in completely putting off anypony at the moment, not when she was still trying to figure out who fit where: those who were dominant, those who were submissive, and the ones who just shouted at the top of their lungs while praying nopony ever called their rather loud bluff. But for now, she was new, she was just exploring, and that was very sweet of you to offer, really, but no, there was no need for a direct tour guide at the moment -- however, if there was any chance that you just happened to know of a place where she could purchase something in the way of a more refined set of saddlebags...

Several had happily offered up suggestions regarding that last, and after a number of those helpful hints matched, Fleur trotted towards what she was now fairly sure was the single best place in the settled zone to encounter a modicum of taste and style and --

-- that bitch.

Fleur didn't freeze at the sight. Freezing wasn't practical to survival. Instead, she instantly bolted behind a tree, thankful for the empty street which prevented anypony else from witnessing the movement, and carefully peered out from behind the sheltering trunk.

That bitch hadn't seen her. The unicorn was still facing away from Fleur, soft blue field carefully interacting with the locks of the dress (and, according to the town residents, occasionally saddlebag) shop, softly humming to herself as she prepared to open her completely stupid and hopefully soon-to-be-bankrupt business for the day.

Several dark thoughts took their time about crossing Fleur's mind, collecting reinforcements along the way. More than a few of them were planning a march against her luck. Most of the rest ransacked her memory.

"A pony of expensive tastes, I see!"

Which was how she'd learned that Fancypants was, under the right circumstances, just about immune to sarcasm. Expensive tastes? Hardly. Fleur had figured out the bitch with a single casual glance at her shopping: middle class on her best day, likely in some degree of debt, scavenging the secondhand stores for the best of the remaindered items and supplementing that with a touch of raw materials to be used for restoration, along with a few pieces which might have simply fallen off a train and more pure haggling than the mare would ever want to admit. One glance was all which had been required to spot a poseur trying to work her way up a personal social ramp built of glitter and weak glue and nothing which would actually hold up under anypony's weight. (Solving the puzzle hadn't taken much longer, and provided nothing Fleur was particularly interested in or impressed with -- although she did notice that some of the larger pieces had recently been scrubbed clean.) But Fancypants... he had ignored it all, and Fleur had spent days in having to fight for what had been hard-won time with the noble, a battle she never should have had to wage a second time, while that bitch smiled and laughed with that obviously fake accent, name-dropping ponies she'd never met, pretending that she deserved so much as a single moment with ponies she'd never worked to meet...

She hadn't attacked directly: it hadn't taken much to figure out that any visible assault on the subject of the stallion's temporary insanity wouldn't end well for her. Instead, she'd dropped careful words into the rotating ears of those around her, instantly-constructed rumors which, whatever the bitch's business happened to be, would keep her from practicing it among the elite at the instant Fancypants' attention turned away from her. Because it had cost Fleur days, time she couldn't get back, he'd seen no need for the company of an escort with that bitch trotting along at his flank, the naive rural specimen just as unable to believe her luck as anypony who had the misfortune of talking to her for a few minutes...

The bitch lived in Ponyville. Running a dress (and saddlebag) shop. The supposed best place to get something locally, and Fleur was likely going to wind up in a position where she would need a dress, especially if the mentoring of her forced charge led to any degree of coming-out party...

I can go to Canterlot. I find something nice for this Fluttershy to wear, which I am going to invoice the palace for, and I'll pick out something for myself at the same time. That bitch is not getting any of my bits. And since she would be the one teaching her charge about having taste, there was no way any of that money would be spent locally either.

Does she have money?

It was a legitimate, and briefly distracting, question. What did being a Bearer pay? Surely the thrones had to offer some level of compensation for the role and, given that said role had involved battling Nightmare and Discord alike, it had to be a high-salary occupation. Heroes might work for free, but heroes were generally idiots -- just working for free proved that -- and having the Bearers under the direct control of the thrones proved it was a government job. Not that such always (honestly) paid much, but given that it was the Bearers...

She considered, and decided that at the very least, her new charge was probably comfortably well-off. She'd learn more when she reached the cottage, which just might be a secondary summer residence that hadn't quite been abandoned on time. But until then...

Fleur watched the other unicorn for a few more seconds, until the overdone, filler-maintained purple tail vanished into the shop. One more pony she had to watch out for. One more bit of vengeance to potentially seek.

Well, at least that one should be easy.

It wasn't as if the dressmaker was anypony important.

The restaurant district. It didn't seem to be as tightly clustered as it should have been, as if the buildings were pulling back from a central source of distress. Fleur's first guess was a single truly refined eatery which everypony else was afraid to compete with: basically, the gastronomic equivalent to herself.

She needed to learn this part of town, and fairly quickly. Dates would be coming for her charge, along with Fleur needing a few places to work her own art while rebuilding the web. So discovering the best places to eat, those with the most ambience, the strongest chance of inspiring romance (or, in her own case, creating the illusion of same), along with just learning who served the tastiest food... it was an early priority. And with money in her saddlebags, her kitchen a full gallop away, and much of the morning gone, Fleur was in desperate need of fuel.

Carefully, she surveyed the area. (She was vaguely aware of two ponies surveying her, could feel aspects of their puzzles moving about as pieces came into prominence, and ultimately heard the collision -- of the actual ponies, who had walked right into each other.) It seemed to be a fairly standard mix. Outdoor tables here (soon to be put away for the season), shaded benches there. Something claiming to have Prance cuisine, plus another place which just might have a vague idea what the stuff truly was. Basic dishes to her left, solid farming food on the right. And further in that direction...

She read the sign a second time. And then a third, just to let the sudden surge of joy very briefly settle in.

When it came to the name of the place, the sign came in three languages. The middle one had the largest font: صاحب الدلو. Underneath that came the phonetic spelling for Equestrians unused to the Saddle Arabian language: Sahib Aldlw. But what truly had her attention were the words the hovering pegasus had just finished adding to the dangling blackboard portion, and the dark green stallion (who hadn't seen her yet) smiled at his work.

Most ponies would have stopped at Griffon Cuisine, slowly backing away until the terrifying words were no longer visible and the panicked bolt for safer grazing pastures could truly begin. For griffons were omnivores, and that status was granted only by a dietary requirement which they forever tried to deny, desperately trying to keep as close to a pure meat diet as possible while hiding the vegetables they needed to power their flight under several layers of gravy or, more ideally, placing them within the thickest of blood puddings. But Fleur had seen the (Modified), and fully understood what it meant. Modified was for ponies. It was taking vegetables and making them look like meat, preventing embarrassment for those who had to consume in public. It was cooking vegetables with meat, soaking the greenery with some of those unique flavors: in a mixed dining party, the contents of the plate would be carefully split. It was... hard to find. Canterlot had one griffon-owned restaurant, and it mostly serviced the residents of the Aviary, with the occupants of the capital's little neighborhood seldom bringing much in the way of pony guests. There were a few dishes, yes, but just a few, and when you compared that to the full range of what was out there, which so many restaurants just outright ignored...

The middle-aged stallion -- close to senior, actually -- had felt the attention. He glanced down at her, eyes curious. Not seeing her beauty, not yet, for he was a professional, hovering in the full-body apron with trailing ends blown by a light breeze, flapping (or fluttering) over the currently-hidden mark. He was wondering if he was seeing a customer.

Fleur took a deep breath, trying to pick up on those first drifting aromas from the kitchen, and pulled in -- nothing.

That's weird. It's... Well, she didn't have pegasus senses, but she could see the drift of steam and smoke, along with the flapping of that apron. It was almost as if the wind around the restaurant had been woven to move straight up --

-- no, not weird at all. Not locally. Because there was meat in that kitchen, and the resident ponies weren't used to it. So the owner had made sure to keep the initial scents away from them, letting curiosity lure in the boldest of the locals. But for Fleur...

It had been one of the worst days of her life, it didn't seem to have bottomed out yet -- and the world had just offered her comfort food.

Fleur smiled up at the chef, held her head high, and with multiple residents staring at her in tongue-freezing shock and unseen fear, majestically trotted into Mister Flankington's.

The problem with racing away from a supposed restaurant at full gallop was the additional jolt and bounce it put on the temporary contents of her stomach, which were steadily becoming more temporary with every punishing step she took.

Somewhere behind her, the elder pegasus stopped, probably in the doorway, and the crossed test tubes on his flank were damp with the sweat of worry as he called out after her.

"I'm sorry the spicing isn't quite right yet!" the gentle (and desperate) words chased her. "I think I might have them properly balanced in time for a compensatory dinner...!"

Vomiting, Fleur decided, was a lot like her time in Ponyville. In both cases, it felt so good when it stopped.

She needed mints. Desperately. And asking for directions was temporarily out of the question, for she was unwilling to subject anypony who wasn't a proven enemy to her breath. (The local proven enemy she already had was more or less designed for giving directions and, when it came to effective actions, nothing else -- but Fleur also didn't want the police chief seeing her in a post-Flankington's state.) So she wandered some more, or at least staggered, and eventually found the candy shop.

Or rather, she found one of them.

There was an earth pony standing outside the open establishment, her expression contorted into frustration and rage and a demand that the world explain why it was doing this to her, which was a combination of emotions Fleur could completely empathize with. The mare was staring across the street, at the not-yet-open building. The one which appeared to have been under rather active construction for some time, and had presumably just picked up the sign which announced exactly what would be opening.

The cream-hued candy seller was staring at that sign, openly fuming. On her left, a mint-green unicorn had reared up on her hind legs, carefully balanced in a way which let her use her forehooves to openly rub at the tense places on the earth pony's body -- a rather futile exercise, given the number of fresh knots appearing every second.

Fleur looked at the couple (for that was what they so clearly were), and considered the candy seller, with somepony present to care about her pains, to be a lucky pony. Then she took a longer look at the unicorn, blinked, considered the exact degree of full-body double-jointing which was allowing her to hold that massaging pose, thought about the implications for the bedroom, and considered the candy seller to be a ridiculously lucky pony who just happened to be having a bad day, one which was guaranteed to lead into some truly unique 'Do you feel better now?' sex. And of course the earth pony wouldn't. An unexpected rival had just sprung up, and the candy seller was trying to figure out how to deal with it. Sex wouldn't make the problem go away -- well, not sex with her mate. For in a town this size, there was a chance that the open shop had been the only one, and while the population seemed large enough to at least consider supporting a second establishment, opening something this close to the first claimant was an open declaration of war. There was a battle for dominance coming, and it would not be a quiet one.

Sex with the one declaring battle could potentially make that go away, but the circumstances which allowed it were seldom encountered, and Fleur suspected the earth pony (who was strictly monogamous) wasn't up to it. The unicorn, however... and also monogamous, which gave Fleur a brief twinge of regret: she'd been curious...

Well, at least for now, to the open went the bits. Fleur carefully sniffed the air, was relieved to get the scents she'd been hoping for, and trotted past the worried couple. It took another minute before they could make themselves go inside and serve her.

She'd eaten -- well, she'd had some sugar, and managed to get some fruit from a cart, most of which had stayed down. She'd arranged for her income, and that meant she could pay for her rent, assuming she didn't just wind up staying at the cottage for the duration. (It was something to think about, as true full-time instruction might help her cause in so many ways, plus it was one less expense to pay.) It was also now possible to write Canterlot and have somepony mail her things to Ponyville -- although that was something for which Fleur might utilize a day trip so she could do it herself, because she didn't particularly trust anypony with her possessions. And she'd scouted some small part of the area, allowing her to get the first concepts of how portions of the settled zone might operate --

-- she'd stalled. Successfully. Fleur was willing to admit to her own stalling, because such generally just wasted time unless it was being used to buy seconds for thinking of something. But time had passed, and it had brought her to the point where she needed to reach the cottage. And as for directions... she'd passed a library, and the position of Sun told her the posted autumn hours would just have it opening. A library would have maps. Nothing simpler.

It was easy enough to backtrack and within minutes, Fleur trotted into the library.

Seconds later, she trotted back out, head still reeling.

There is an alicorn running the library.

The newest alicorn. Fleur had been to the coronation as flank decoration for an invited party, hadn't been able to get close enough for introductions. She hadn't even managed to reach that portion of the party which was inside the palace itself: like just about all of the nobles, she'd been stuck outside the walls, straining for a glimpse right up until the moment the singing flew over her head. And she'd just found the most recent addition to the royal family, without anypony in her way, possibly the fourth best party she could ever acquire -- in the middle of some extremely intense reshelving.

A pony she just might need. A pony she could potentially use. She had found royalty...

...and royalty had been sorting books.

What is this place?

(It was the first time she'd actively thought the words. It would not be the last. And she also briefly considered that she should have been even more shocked by the sight, and wondered if she was getting perilously close to overwhelm.)

She needed to plan for this one. She needed to work out how to approach a Princess -- especially when, thinking in practical terms, one alicorn might have warned the other, and Fleur would need some extremely careful approach angles in order to get past that defense. She needed to think... and for now, she needed to stay out of the library. She wouldn't go back until she had her plan, no matter what.

So... that meant she still needed directions, only from a pony instead of a map. Which further meant she needed the right pony. And when it came to getting directions... well, that was easy enough. All Fleur needed to find was a pony with visible confidence. An obvious native, or at least somepony who'd been in the settled zone long enough to be familiar with every last portion of it. In short, she needed somepony who was moving around like she owned the place, and there just happened to be a suitable ego-radiating candidate slightly overhead...

"...and after you pass the cloud-breaking record site, just keep going forward through that perpetual west flow, the one with the slightly higher humidity, I can't ever get permission to do anything about it and the Bureau reverted it back the last five times I -- anyway, go forward through that, never mind what it does to your coat, and when you get the first hint of that one stupid thermal that's always coming off Flankington's, I swear I don't know what he's doing in there to make that happen and I don't want to, orient on the cold surge from that part of the troposphere, you can't miss the thing, and head right for it --"

"-- excuse me."

"Huh?"

"I'm a unicorn." One who now regretfully knew exactly what Mr. Flankington was doing to create that thermal.

The sleek cyan pegasus paused, and Fleur spared a moment to pity the pony who eventually (somehow) wound up with her as a partner, for the first time anypony had sex with this one was almost guaranteed to end in 'So you're saying I was supposed to do something for you too?'

"Oh," the pegasus said. "Yeah. Okay. So in that case... go west until you spot the bridge, then go over and follow the road no matter how much it curves around. When you reach this huge oak tree, the one with the lightning scar down the moss side which is totally not my fault no matter what anypony says, you'll see a little branch path on your left. Follow that until you hit the abandoned mill, then slant right. After that, just follow your nose." She smirked, and it was the expression of a pony who was in on a joke which she was in no way going to share with the future victim of it. Fleur considered hating her.

"Sorry?" It was still far too early for open hate.

"You'll smell it before you see it," the pegasus smirked. "So you've got all that?"

Gardens, probably -- I hope. It wasn't so deep into fall for the more scented blossoms to be found around a good summer cottage to have all been waiting for a new spring. As long as her new charge wasn't into corpse flower... "I understand." And with one of her prettier smiles, "Thank you." Because there was still a tiny chance that this was actually somepony important, instead of somepony who just thought she was -- and so Fleur added the little head tilt which let the pegasus know she was curious about her name.

It didn't surprise Fleur when the mare actually picked up on it: this one would automatically register anything which wanted to know more about her. "Rainbow." There was a brief pause while the mare's face twisted out of the disbelief that came from the idea of somepony not knowing her. "You're new in town, right?"

If I was a native, Fleur internally fumed, then why would I be asking for directions? "I just came in this morning," she pleasantly smiled. "So thank you for the directions, Rainbow."

"Yeah, yeah..." the pegasus disgruntledly grumbled. "Just don't ask me to lead you there or anything. I've got places I should have been half an hour ago. New, huh? Then I'll see you sometime after Pinkie does!"

"Who's --"

And there was a prismatic streak flying away to the north.

Pinkie... That was twice now. A third would justify major concern. Fleur resolved to find out just who this 'Pinkie' was, then oriented west and began to head towards her new charge.

And then there was a prismatic tail dangling in front of her face.

"I just remembered," the hovering pegasus said, unaware (and probably uncaring) of the way her tail was tickling Fleur's snout.

What, your best time for cloud-breaking was under nine seconds? "What?"

"You're new," she continued. "And you're pretty good-looking. I mean, for anypony who doesn't have what it takes to appreciate..." She struck what she obviously, depressingly thought was a sexy pose. She was horribly wrong. "And you're not what he'd usually go after because you don't have the wings, but you're really good-looking and he's between... anyway, watch out for Caramel, okay? Bye!"

"Who's --"

-- and gone.

Fleur stared after her for a while. No second return occurred. She was temporarily alone on the street, and it gave her freedom to openly express the thought which had been building since shortly after her arrival.

"Everypony in this town," she steadily announced to an uncaring world, "is crazy."

(It wouldn't be the last time for that thought either.)

A Bit Of A Fixer-Upper

The mill had been abandoned for some time. The scant panes of glass which occasionally broke up the Sun-faded paint just below the gutters had been heavily coated in dust, just about entirely from the inside. What appeared to be the main entrance had seen the frame warp around the door, bringing it to the point where a serious shove would be required to get inside -- and afterwards, it might never close again. But the water wheel -- it was old enough to have a water wheel -- still turned, creaking softly under the eternal pressure of the driving stream, and she could just barely hear a faint chorus of slow clicks coming from somewhere inside the building, gears skipping over each other instead of meshing.

She saw an overflow of leaves in the gutters, when there were just about none on the ground. The local version of the Running -- a custom which still surprised her, although there was something to be said for watching a crowd of athletic bodies pushing themselves along, and Fleur had entertained thoughts of going to the Games one post-retirement day just to drink in the sights -- well, that had yet to take place. There were always a few leaves around, of course: it hardly took the pounding of pony hooves to drop a single leaf and the usual tree denizens severed a few connections with normal movements. But to have so many leaves... that was years' worth of drops, matted into each other by the pressure of rain, rendered into a solid which no normally-scheduled amount of wind could truly shift.

There was a total lack of No Trespassing signs posted about the area. Not a single notice claimed ownership or an increasing desperation to transfer same. A careful attempt to feel for security spells completely failed to pick up even the most passive of standing defenses. The building belonged to nopony at all, and might have been remembered by a slightly higher number.

Some ponies said that autumn was a time for renewal. The world let go of the last of its yearly burdens, used the cold of winter as a time for slumber and recovery, began again in the spring. Those ponies were stupid. The colors of the changed leaves were the shades of fallen bodies. The scents came from decay. And the chill, that which Fleur had been completely and foolishly prepared to enjoy for a moon or so... that was the grave reaching out from the soil, trying to see what it could drag down.

The mill wasn't just abandoned. It was old and ugly and dead, a single huge corpse with smaller ones littering its skin. Nopony needed it any more. Nopony would ever try to use it. Nopony cared.

Fleur looked at it for a time which exactly worked out to too long, and finally managed to resume her trot.

[/hr]

She smelled it before she saw it.

This part of the road was more of a well-worn trail, one which showed signs of having been pounded down by hooves in all seasons and possibly at all hours -- along with a few less-than-subtle signs of animal traffic, which was a reasonable expectation this close to the fringe: if there were no predators (or larger predators) around, a few would risk temporarily losing cover in order to make greater speed. And on this trail -- more than a few. In fact, it came across as a number which had long ago passed too many, and Fleur was starting to wonder if the cottage was truly on the edge of the fringe, as opposed to resting firmly within it. It was a suspicion which had put her senses on high alert, which didn't exactly help with the increasing problem.

Where animals traveled, they left markers: establishment of territory, silent challenges against any who might encroach on it. Sometimes that meant little gnaw marks in the wood, or claw scrapes against stone. But more frequently, it was urine. Feces. Spray here, drop there. And as Fleur trotted on, those smells were getting stronger. More frequent. Extremely... mixed. It seemed as if just about everything came down this road, and it smelled as if just about none of it ever bothered to step into the border grass before squatting. Fleur kept stopping to check the path ahead, occasionally checked on her hooves, and made sure her tail never got too close to a tree -- but there was nothing visible. Just the smell, increasing in intensity with every hoofstep, she swore it had to be soaking into her coat, started to wonder if there was a Ponyville supply of the only soap in the world which was guaranteed to free her from it and, in concentrating on that, nearly trotted into the ostrich.

Black eyes stared down at her, from too far above her own natural view line. The warped, hairlike feathers around the tiny head seemed to bristle, and the beak opened just enough to scream at her --

-- but Fleur had already moved.

"They can only kick forward. As soon as you see one, get to the side, or behind it. Don't let it face you. If it's angry, keep it spinning around, and when you get an opening, that's when your horn should ignite. Or it'll give me a chance to swoop in and do something. Just keep moving."

"What if you're not there?"

A smile, or what passed for one. "Why wouldn't I be there?"

The ostrich, startled by the sudden dart to the left, tried to swirl. Fleur moved faster and the bird spun, trying to keep up. Fleur accelerated, a half-canter, half-hop to the side, springing from place to place, the ostrich attempted to match the pace, and a mere two legs found their knees going into each other.

The resulting glare was much easier to meet, even with Fleur a full body length back, well out of reach from any attempt the long neck might have made at stabbing. It was also considerably lower.

The grey throat swelled, and a low booming sound echoed across the landscape. Again and again, with Fleur watching from that safe distance, corona at a full primary, waiting to see if the bird would make a move. But it stayed where it was, vocalizing in those deep half-vibrating tones -- and somehow, there didn't seem to be any anger in it. Just... confusion.

It got up, which took two tries before all the joints were untangled. Fleur watched, ready to strike --

-- it stared down at her again. Blinked twice, with eyelashes which would have been the envy of anything which could somehow ignore the rest of the face meshing and unmeshing. Turned, walked away.

Fleur slowly let her horn's corona ebb back to the partial level, not quite ready to let it go dark just yet. The bird could always come back, and when it came to magic being used on offense, Fleur could --

-- which was when she heard the long, low, rumbling growl.

Ostriches were prey. Powerful prey, hard to catch and incredibly dangerous for anything that might want to try -- but still prey. The growl had come from a predator.

Her corona surged again, just in time for the extra illumination to add its own touches to the play of Sun on the bobcat's fur.

It stared up at her, from where it had paused after stalking around the sharp little bend in the trail. Blinked, then yawned, showing off every oddly-clean fang. Sat down in the dirt and kept on staring.

Just a bobcat. A fierce little predator, surprisingly deadly for its size -- but a little predator. Fleur's field strength wasn't sufficient for levitating a full-grown male ostrich. A bobcat could be enveloped with ease. There was no threat to her, as long as she kept an eye on where it was.

It was still staring. She stared right back.

After a while, it yawned again, got up, and almost casually stalked back the way it had came. In the direction of the cottage. A direction which had just produced an ostrich --

-- ostriches aren't native to this part of Equestria, they're barely in Equestria at all --

-- and a bobcat in rapid succession. A direction which smelled like urine and feces from those animals and many more, so much more than Fleur couldn't pick out any actual species in the light miasma, just that there were so many of them and... that was where she was supposed to be going. To a place which was supposedly within the borders of the settled zone, with that many animals around, freely moving down the trail...

...as long as I stay alert.

As long as I stay focused.

As long as I'm not afraid, I win.

Fleur took a deep breath, instantly regretted it, and trotted forward, with the casual nature of that travel sold by every shift of shapely legs. Around the bend: no sign of the bobcat, nothing from the ostrich, but with an increasing number of claw marks in the bordering tree bark. Forward, and the smells kept getting stronger. Another twist in the path, she was starting to hear birdsong, too much birdsong in too many octaves, there was a tiny hint of fresh water trying to reach her nostrils along with the susurrus of a slow-moving stream, and then --

-- several words went through her inner ear, in more than one language, and not even the conjunctions were polite.

The cottage was alive, and showed that life in a way the mill could not. Greenery grew across the roof, or at least tried to: autumn had rendered some of it into browns and greys -- but as far as Fleur could tell, the entire upper surface of the building had been deliberately coated in insulating sod, followed by carefully seeding it. There was a virtual, partially-vertical pasture growing on the cottage, and small animals scampered through it, chasing each other, hunting for those last crucial blooms to take back to their holes. There were a lot of holes to choose from, in the trees on the cottage grounds, in the birdhouses which seemed to be hanging from every possible branch, and the assault of birdsong got that louder as their occupants registered the presence of a fresh intruder.

The stream was clear, and could be easily viewed from the careful arch of the little bridge: there were no railings, side walls, or safety measures of any kind. Not that it was much of a drop: two and a half times Fleur's height at the peak, and the water looked deep enough to ensure a safe landing -- assuming she didn't find her sudden arrival drastically insulting one of the swimming beavers. Insulted beavers tended to express their anger with teeth.

More birds flitted about the area. Some of them landed on the roof, hunted for worms. Others simply did what birds apparently existed for and shed their loads. There were loads everywhere, and not all that many of them were avian. There was spoor. There was scat. There was at least a tiny chance of fewmets, and Fleur started to wonder if she should be keeping an eye out for that -- but there weren't that many reptiles about, sentient or otherwise, not in autumn: the increasing cold took its toll, and so if there had been a scaled presence at the cottage, it was probably resting now. Most of what she saw was mammals, generally those which were well under a bale-weight in mass, and identifying them all took her well into a taxonomy book before threatening to revise the index.

Predators. Prey. Carnivores, herbivores, omnivores. For the most part, they didn't mix, keeping themselves separated behind invisible borders on the property -- although she did spot an oddly-calm shrew making the rounds, along with an overweight waddler of a flamingo with a perpetually concussed look, who didn't seem to be intelligent enough to realize when it should have been in trouble. Nothing seemed to feel it was worth bothering about, with the exception of the shrew -- who eventually scrambled up to its back and let the passive ride begin.

The cottage was organic, in more ways than just the mostly-wooden construction and plant-bearing roof. It had managed the impressive feat of finding a way to sprawl on the vertical. The textures which shifted with each increase in height didn't so much suggest that rooms had been added at need as directly state it, along with pushing forward a rather depressing financial ledger which laid out all the underfunding which had just barely gone into each successive project. The results didn't tilt or sway: there was a solidity in the never-quite-final results. But nothing above the ground floor entirely matched the base, and the entire structure appeared to have been designed by an argumentative committee on a restrictive budget which had seen eighty percent of the available bits locked into greenery.

The cottage was alive, alive in a way Fleur had never seen before. It was also wounded. The claw marks which had been in the bark were also on the door. The windows showed signs of frequent replacement: too many scrapings around the frames. There was fresh paint everywhere, few of the shades matched, and all of it was marred, for that which lived around (and probably in) the cottage wouldn't bother waiting for a surface to dry before climbing over it. One portion of a side wall showed a fresh gouge. An edge had been gnawed, another slashed, and a section close to the foundation stone seemed to have been bitten. More lack of color matching showed where repairs had already been made, followed by repairs on top of the repairs, repairs around the repairs, and defenses to areas which were probably going to be in need of repair without them, all of which had not only failed, but were themselves in need of repair.

Fleur recognized the patching methods: it was easy, with so many examples on display. Spackle here. Extra sod there. Wood which was never meant to fit forced into places it shouldn't have been, with most of that showing heavy gnaw marks around the edges -- the kind which might have been left by, say, a beaver. The paint was whatever had been on sale, which meant it would inevitably peel away about two weeks before the next sale. The sheer quantity of nails started to get expensive after a while, so dowels were used right up until the moment they failed, at which point, there would be more dowels -- because the nails which would last required bits which never did. The efforts to maintain an intact structure were nearly constant: some had been worked in wood, virtually none in metal, and just about all in desperation.

The animals were staring at her. Not all -- but enough. Beads here, lambent there, a hint of reflection under Sun. But none of them moved towards her. None of them offered threat, and it was a threat Fleur never would have been able to fully counter: there was no way to outrace them all, and the problem with staredowns was that they could only be done in a single direction at a time. They simply regarded the intruder, and waited to see what she would do.

What Fleur did was keep looking at the cottage. Part of that was from deliberately ignoring the animals, making them think she didn't consider the gathering to be anything worthy of concern, and that was a lie she was used to selling. She wasn't listening to them either, or was at least giving off that impression, that no little chirps or growls or booms had reached her ears, along with the semi-sensory impression which no other pony could access. But it meant she had to look at something, and as for listening... the cottage had so much to tell her.

There were several reasonable explanations for the presence of those animals. Fluttershy could be a veterinarian or biologist. She might run some kind of open-air boarding operation for pets whose owners were traveling, although it begged the question of just who would consider an ostrich to be their ideal avian companion. It was possible that Fleur's charge was completely insane, and that possibility didn't feel like a small one. But the animals had multiple potential explanations -- while the cottage had only one.

How much did being a Bearer pay, as a government job? Even when Fleur factored out what had to be a daily nightmare of feed bills (and there were carnivores, so the high local cost of meat was in there somewhere), property tax on what appeared to be a rather significant amount of property (which admittedly assumed the occupant wasn't renting), and then tossed the repair costs into that...

She looked at the building, and in silent words, it once again spoke its truth.

'The pony who lives here is poor.'

She wanted to close her eyes. She didn't. The animals needed to know she was constantly on the alert, even in those times when she had too much information coming in, enough that it was constantly trying to distract her from the increasingly horrifying reality before her.

Just... just go up to the door. Knock. She's expecting me. The sooner we start...

When it came to her talent, animals generally didn't register: an individual didn't have enough presence to be picked up, and she suspected intelligence played a part as well. But in this kind of bulk... she was getting something. She was getting too much, and virtually none of it arrived as pieces, for animals generally didn't have what was required for them. Intact images were pressing against her, demanding attention which she didn't want to give.

Fleur forced a breath, reached down inside herself, down past workings and her personal trick, to the heart of her talent -- and shut it down. Given enough time (and how much time would she have to spend here?), she could filter her perceptions, learn to ignore the presence of puzzles which she'd already solved. But that was a task best done in solitude, when she could truly concentrate -- and with this kind of population, everything she could directly see added to those which only registered on her personal sense, it would take hours. And right now, those were hours she didn't have to give.

She could live without her talent for a little while, especially since her first meeting with her new charge would require using it but once. Use her deepest magic on Fluttershy, then shut herself down again until she was safely away from the cottage grounds. But in the event that nopony answered the door, she didn't want to leave herself open until she found the pegasus.

More breaths, trying to get herself centered, or at least to where she was presenting the outward appearance of it. And then she trotted up to the door, with far too many eyes watching her. A perfectly hooficured left foreleg came up, and she knocked on the gouged wood.

Fleur gave it two minutes, for the cottage had that sprawl to it and not every pegasus was comfortable with flying through enclosed spaces. Then she knocked again, a little more insistently, and counted off two more minutes. The process was then repeated until the imprint of her hoof began to mar the perfect gouge marks, at which point she considered it failed.

She turned to look at the animals. Nearly all of them were still watching her. The central exception was the concussed flamingo, who had just discovered the stream and was trying to work out what it was for.

Knowing the words were pointless well before they emerged, "I don't suppose any of you know where she is?" Some of the stares seemed to narrow their focus, and Fleur instantly rejected the idea of just trying to wait inside: the group was unlikely to react well when an intruder tried to reach the heart of their territory. "Fine." She shrugged. "Follow me if you feel like it."

More than a few trailed her as she began to search the grounds. Most of what she found was scat.

[/hr]

Well into the afternoon now, in the shorter autumn days: it hadn't been a short trot, and recovery from her attempted first meal had taken more time than she ever would have believed. The sky would be changing shade all too soon, blue gone to rose and pink and occasional streaks of what some teased as airborne blood to those too young to know any better, and shortly after that, it would leave Fleur trying to head back in the dark. Under Moon, far too close to the fringe, which seemed to start at the exact border of what was proving to be some fairly extensive property.

(Celestia had told her that the pegasus was waiting for her at the cottage. As jokes went, it was a rather minor one, which didn't do much to diminish the complete lack of humor.)

She was just on the verge of giving up for the day when she heard the little lapine squeal. The one where the volume wasn't quite right, with harmonics which somehow seemed far too complicated. The squeal which had come from a pony throat.

Fleur turned left, crested a small rise, and saw the little gathering.

There was a rabbit: a small white one with exceptionally dark eyes and a frustrated aspect to his low-slung stance. There was also a small brown vole, which had a fresh set of tiny, bleeding claw marks swiped into the sensitive snout. And there was a pegasus.

Fleur looked at her, under dipping Sun, and somehow, it took a temporary second place to the listening, for no words came from that mane-hidden throat. She couldn't see any part of the pegasus' face, for the manefall obscured everything on Fleur's side. So for a moment, there were only the sounds: something close to lapine when the head turned that way, something very much like a vole when the pegasus faced the other party. They were complex sounds, and yet seemed oddly simple, especially in their content. Fleur couldn't understand any of it, not for words or the noises which animals used for such-- but the tone was pure pony, and so she was able to pick up on the nature of the discussion. There had been a fight, when there should not have been. And now chiding was in progress. The lapine was acting as if he was the wounded party, and she was asking him to be sorry, when his posture said the only thing he was sorry about was having been caught -- which told Fleur just who had started it.

She watched and listened, as a pony talked to animals, and it took a long minute before she realized she was staring.

Celestia hadn't told her anything real about the pegasus. Not occupation, not income -- and not talent. Was this the magic symbolized by the trio of butterflies which made up the mark? (A triad mark, somewhat like her own, and Fleur pushed memories away.) Or had the Elements granted extra powers to their Bearers -- no, that wasn't it: the Elements had only reemerged a little over three years ago, and the pegasus switched between her strange near-languages with the facility of a long-time speaker. This was a talent. Magic for conversation, comprehension...

Fleur used a moment for considering the information-gathering opportunities available through casual interviews of a pony's pets, and was sincerely impressed.

The talk seemed to have wrapped up: the vole, whose cuts were now somewhat cleaner -- Fleur was presuming a hidden preening pony tongue -- scrambled off towards its hole. The still-offended rabbit stomped its right hind leg three times, then turned away from the pegasus. This allowed it to spot Fleur, and the little face seemed to work into something very close to a sneer.

It stomped again. Five times, in rapid succession. And the pegasus looked up.

A little more than half of her face was visible, and it was a percentage which made the viewer internally beg for a full reveal.

The single visible eye blinked. The beautiful head tilted away, looking down her own flank, leaving Fleur regarding little more than mane again.

"Hello," she tried.

There was a sound. It was fully a pony sound in every way, and still came across as if Fleur had just skidded her hoof down the edges of a hoofball.

They were about nine body lengths apart, at least until the pegasus instinctively backed up enough to make it nine and a half.

"You were expecting me?" Fleur tried. "I'm --" well, it was a form of truth "-- from the palace. They let you know I'd be coming?"

There were probably squeak-producing toys scattered about the grounds for those animals who found them entertaining and judging by this newest sound, somepony had just stepped on three of them.

With most of the increasing desperation kept out of it, "I'm Fleur. Fleur Dis Lee. And you must be...?"

The best Fleur's forward-rotated ears could do with the next noise was "...eep!"

Sun was now visibly lower in the sky, as if pressed down by the sheer weight of embarrassment.

Fleur had been through the official training courses before receiving her now-destroyed license, and had managed to keep from laughing during all of them. But they had offered her words to say, if not ones to always believe in.

"I can't help you," she quietly offered, "unless you let me."

The pegasus took a slow breath.

In the time to come, Fleur would often look back on that first bit of speech: not so much the word itself as what had happened in order to produce it. Something which would happen over and over again with her new charge: the hesitation, that almost visible summoning of what little could pass for strength, stitching together the faint strands of willpower just long enough to produce speech at all. Sentences faded in, sometimes faded out. And far too often, every word carried the fearful undertones which suggested being made to talk to a pony was the worst thing to ever happen to the pegasus, at least until the next sentence.

It told Fleur so much about what she had to work with, and none of it was good.

"...okay."

[/hr]

She followed the pegasus back to the cottage. The rabbit mostly scampered alongside its mistress, sometimes getting ahead just long enough to turn and glare back at Fleur. The other animals cleared the path, and she saw bodies fading into the gradually increasing shadows.

Fleur had to focus in order to truly notice that. Walking closely behind her charge created certain... distractions. For starters, she had already verified that every last strand of that incredible tail spread was natural.

When it came to the typical pegasi standards of bodily beauty for mares... her charge was somewhat out of date. The majority of pegasi, at least for those who looked towards their own race, found their attractions centering around the sleek: the more aerodynamic, the better. The ideal was streamlined: air would flow over fur and feathers, and even standing next to a completely still mare might produce the phantom sensation of a breeze. (The cyan egotist who had provided directions actually wasn't bad in that regard: a nicely trimmed form, with a definitive impression of movement about her at all times -- but the manestyle was a low-maintenance expression of boredom, and the self-involvement writ all over that mare's face made judging her features a pointless exercise, because their owner had already done it, found herself perfect, and didn't understand why other opinions should be allowed to exist.) For that, this pegasus was lacking. But other types cycled in and out of fashion, and as little as three years ago, the body type in front of her would have been in: slender, with muscles shifting more on suggestions than orders: not physically weak, just seeming that way. The wings were a little oversized, enough that they would produce more air resistance than the ideal. The tail was... the tail. All of it. And as for the hindquarters... well, as long as you were in a position to watch the tail, your experience wouldn't exactly be hindered by expanding the view.

Not the ideal standard of beauty for a pegasus mare. But it was a type which always had fans, would forever have ponies seeking it out, and some of those ponies were prepared to go a long way to find exactly what they desired. Fluttershy would never be perfect in the majority of pegasi eyes -- but she would always draw some degree of attention. When her type cycled back in, she would get nearly all of it, at least until the trends shifted again. Fleur knew this one was capable of producing a few crashes of her own simply by trotting through town -- if she would just trot. What momentum the pegasus possessed seemed to be from having been pushed along by the negligible force of Fleur's expert scrutiny. She didn't seem to know what to do with her shoulders and hips beyond the simple creation of movement. The tail, which could have so easily been wrecking traffic all over the continent, just... hung there, arced just enough to keep it out of the scat which she seemed to have a truly magical talent for dodging. The magnificent eyelashes did nothing more than blink, or at least the one visible pair did, while her mane tried to hide the rest from the world.

Fluttershy was beautiful. To the right eyes, she would replace that status with spectacular. And she clearly had absolutely no idea how to deal with it. Might not even recognize --

-- no, that can't be right. Nopony could look like this and not figure out what they have. She's just -- the name. She's her name all over...

Fleur internally sighed and made an initial diagnosis of early puberty. There were those who used their first arrival status to dominate -- and more than a few who spent those first crucial moons running away from themselves.

They went into the cottage. Fleur silently noted the stained, damaged nature of the furniture, and the distraction let her get a little closer to the tail than she should have, enough for her snout to pick up on the faintest remnants...

"Doctor Groomer's Supermild Eighteen-In-One Foal-Castille Soap?"

Fluttershy glanced back over her shoulder. "...yes."

Fleur nodded approvingly. In her opinion, the soap in question was one of the greatest products available in the world -- along with being one of the least appreciated, because it had a negative feature to go with its positive. The beneficial aspect was that anypony who worked around foul odors could remove them from their coat with a simple two-minute soak, and that bath would generally prevent them from acquiring outside scents for about a day. It did render regular users incapable of putting on perfume -- but for anypony in Fluttershy's position, it would let her move through the settled zone without starting a different kind of unintentional riot.

The negative was found on the label.

For who else but Moon gave pony this sensuous passion, Love that can spark mere dust to life! Revealing beauty in our Eternal Orb's fashion, poetry, uniting All-One, all brave, all life! Who else but Moon! Who else! Each day, like a bird, perfect thyself first! Have courage and smile my pony friend! Think & act ten years ahead! And the pony without fault? He's dead! Do one thing at a time! Work hard. Get done! Then teach the Harmonic Ecstasy that unites all ponykind free! Love is like a willful bird! Do you want it? It flies away! Yet when you least expect its bliss, it turns around & it's here to stay! For centuries, ponies struggles, half asleep, half living, small, jealous, bickering over mountains made of dragon scales! To be awakened the night Moon chose giving its great reward for hard work: poetry-unity-love, evolving pony above, above the monsters! Passions that quicken your senses, fulfill, quench the thirst of lonesome years! Yet Moon has shadows, learn to control your will, to enjoy life-long happiness, not tears! For Moon alone knows pony's far distant future! Towards which love's unfailing light shows clear the upward path to ponyhood-peace! Great tasks to nurture, with strength and knowledge happiness can last! Love when conquered after years of toil-sweat-blood, love can strike like greased lightning sent by Moon to spark mere dust to intense blazing fire and create new Love, faith-hope-guts-strength as only Moon Inspire! Unite the Pony races in our Eternal Orb's great All-One-Faith, as all ponykind desire!

All three thousand small-printed words of it, when new prospective buyers were generally terrified into fleeing within the first forty.

(The Foal Soap had taught Fleur several lessons, not the least of which was that a pony didn't have to be sane in order to make a good living, along with providing hours of passable entertainment as everyone tried to work out exactly what some of the ranting was supposed to mean. No one had ever come up with a solution for 'arctic owls-penguin-pilot-cat-swallow-beaver, bee.')

There were birds on multiple perches inside the damaged sitting room. Small mammals sticking their snouts out of holes in the wall. Fluttershy took a long one-eyed look at them all.

"...privacy?" The group began to scatter, and Fluttershy glanced at Fleur again. "...I was going to get a drink. Do you... want anything?"

A very long list of desires scrolled across Fleur's inner vision, most of which required either a truly expert piece of blackmail or six-Element blast to fully execute. "Just water. Thank you."

Fluttershy forced a nod, then went into what was probably the kitchen as the last of the animals cleared out --

-- no, almost the last. The white rabbit was still there. And it had just kicked her right forehoof.

She looked down at it. The black eyes glared up at her. It was angry. It was offended by her presence. It was...

...completely familiar.

I know you.

You're the dominant one. Or at least you want everyone and everypony to believe that. But you know you're not. You're small and weak and can be beaten by just about anything that makes even a casual effort. You know that. And you think that if you're angry and stomp around and do what little damage you can while counting on someone else to protect you when things get bad, you'll get away with it. If you're furious all the time, maybe it'll look like strength, enough to keep from being pushed away. Except that you're the weakest thing here, and that's why you have to pretend so hard.

I've seen so many like you.

I hated them too.

Fleur carefully lowered her body to the floor until her chin was against the wood, casually looked down her snout at the rabbit, maintaining eye contact the whole time. And the words were meaningless, would never carry understanding to long ears -- but the tone would get through.

"I care about your life," Fleur softly told the rabbit, "exactly as much as you care about mine."

The black eyes went wide.

Fleur smiled. It wasn't a particularly attractive smile. The one which showed teeth wasn't meant to be.

Fluttershy glanced down at the white streak which rushed past her before bolting into the nearest low-set hole. The pegasus waited until she'd lowered the lift loop of the mini-trough from her outstretched wing before speaking. "...what happened?"

"Oh, we were just talking," Fleur casually said, pushing herself upright enough to take a drink. The water was pure, at least. "Thank you." She assumed a more standard sitting posture, hindquarters against the floor: there might be furniture, but she didn't trust any of it. "So... let's get started."

Fluttershy slowly nodded, went to a fainting couch, settled in as best she could, which still seemed to mean a fairly large number of twitches. She was reacting to every sound -- and even with the animals out of the immediate vicinity, there were a lot of sounds.

Fleur decided to get the worst part out of the way first. "What do you know about me?" Because this wasn't just the pony Celestia wanted her to (somehow) help: this was her point of first contact with the Bearers. Learning how Fluttershy had been briefed would let her know just how much resistance she was in for.

"...you're... um..."

Fleur waited.

"...an escort. But... not the teleport kind?"

"No," Fleur calmly said, and provided a smile. "That confusion happens with unicorns."

"...I know. One of my friends... I missed that one, but... I know. There's the ones who -- take ponies with them, when they teleport. And there's the ones who... um..." Half of the beautiful face twisted from awkwardness: the hidden portion could have been up to anything. "Um..."

Fleur took a small amount of pity, and got it over with. "Serve as professional companions, for pay. Sometimes that means going to parties or attending dinners." Gently, "And sometimes it means having sex. That's the job. I help ponies who need company." And for the most part, she had helped them to become somewhat poorer.

"...the Princess said that," Fluttershy eventually told her. "And... she also said that... you aren't... you're not..."

The battered clock hands visibly advanced.

"...nice," Fluttershy finished, and somehow made it into the worst word in the world.

Fleur blinked.

"That's what she told you?"

"...yes."

"That I'm not... nice?"

"...yes," the pegasus eventually admitted. "But she said... I didn't need a nice pony for this. I needed somepony who... wasn't nice. And that when it came to not being nice, maybe even at the right times, when nice would be... wrong... you were the best pony anypony could have asked for. So... she would send you. And she did."

Fleur needed a few seconds to reconcile that.

"And that's all she told you."

"...yes."

She was trying to read tells, spot little signs that the pegasus was lying. The obscuring manefall was getting in her way. "That I'm not nice."

"...yes." Hesitantly, "...what did she -- tell you about me?"

Nowhere near enough. Fleur took a breath. "Just that you're one of the Bearers, plus your name, and she showed me a picture. She didn't tell me what you did for a living, or anything about the cottage, or... anything else."

"...I'm -- sort of an animal caretaker," Fluttershy offered, and when Fleur's eyebrows requested more, turned that into "...I take care of animals."

"So you're a vet?"

The one visible eye briefly closed, and Fleur could tell it had been from pain. "...not officially. Just in all the practical ways. The -- hard ones."

It was as good a time as any. "And you add your Bearer's salary to that."

Fluttershy blinked in innocent confusion, and Fleur's heart froze with horror. "...salary?"

The next thought was fully sincere. Celestia, you bitch. "You -- don't get paid?" She wished it had been a statement of disbelief -- but as it was, the question mark had been purely rhetorical.

"...we... get our expenses back. And compensation for what we don't earn normally because we're on missions." A pause. "...well, we get that now."

Fleur doubled down on the bitch status and began applying the careful, permanent internal label of monster.

"Okay," she forced herself to say. "Maybe we'll come back to that." Sun and Moon, what kind of monster kicks somepony into a fight with Nightmare and doesn't even pay...

She took a very necessary moment for driving the fury down to a background level before risking "But right now, the only other thing she told me is what she needs me to do. To help you find a mate. Somepony you can have foals with."

"...yes."

And, because the anger hadn't been pushed deep enough, Fleur said it.

"Why are you letting her do this to you?"

Another blink of innocent confusion. It was a very pretty one, and it was also very close to becoming Fluttershy's signature move. "...do?"

"She's forcing you to find somepony! She's making you have children!" Fleur didn't hear the increase in her own volume, didn't even wonder why some of the smaller bits of brick-a-brac in the room were starting to dance. "She's basically selling you off for the good of the nation, she's sending you out there to have kids which you don't even want, she's acting like she owns you and when the kids come, the kids you don't even -- !"

And somehow, the near-whisper cut through the near-scream.

"...I asked her."

The shock coated Fleur's throat in ice, bound her tail to the floor and paralyzed all four legs.

"...for help. Because --"

The words burned her tongue on the way out, burned her with cold. "You. Asked. Her."

"-- it's -- just me..."

That one eye blinked, and with that motion, the first tear fell.

"...he's... never had a friend before. He... doesn't know -- about loss. He'll outlive me. That's the cycle. He's part of it... but a different part, a part which turns so slowly... and when I die... it'll hurt him. He doesn't understand death. Not -- that way. I think... he killed, back when things were bad, when he was in charge of the whole world. Sometimes ponies died just from what he'd made the world into. Maybe sometimes... directly. He doesn't talk about it, and... I don't ask. But those deaths were just... broken toys, and there were always more toys, and toys didn't care or feel and... now he's starting to understand a little, I think. Maybe it'll all kick him at once, and... I'll be there for him when it does, if I'm still alive..."

She was talking about the Discordian Era.

She was talking about Discord. As if he was an entity which could potentially become something very close to a pony.

She was talking about the inevitability of her own death.

The words were soft. Pained. Agonizing just to hear. And yet they kept coming.

"...but when he loses me, if he doesn't have anypony else... it'll hurt him, he won't know what to do, he might lash out, and... I'm scared, I'm scared for him, and... one of my friends is dating now. Well -- two of them, really. Each other. It's sort of -- tentative? -- I guess that's the word. They're both trying to -- work things out. But it made me start thinking. That eventually, maybe everypony will find somepony, and... I can't even look. If I think about looking... knowing nopony would look back... I can't, I can't and... I'll be the last one, I always knew I would be the last one left alone, but now they're dating and he's going to lose me and I don't... I don't want to be..."

There was a very large salt water stain on the couch cushions. That was what happened when a pony cried into the fabric. Over and over.

"...I don't want to be alone any more," Fluttershy whispered. "I have my friends, plus my animal friends, but I see the two of them together and I know it's not the same thing. I don't want to be the last one. But I don't know how to stop. And... if I have foals... I know how to love them, I swear I do. I swear they'll be loved. I want... to love. Not just for him, even if he started me thinking about it. For... me. Because... I'm afraid of so much, and now I'm afraid I'll be alone... and I don't know how to start... "

It would have been so easy to go to her. Let the pegasus cry into Fleur's coat as the faint scent of that familiar soap brought the former escort back to places she didn't want to remember. And so she didn't. She simply watched, and waited until the tears temporarily stopped. Perhaps it would always be temporary.

"All right," she heard herself say. "We'll get started tomorrow."

"...but..."

"You need rest," Fleur stated. And so do I. "We'll start when you're fresh. What's a good time to come by?"

The thought process was rather visible. "...there's never a good time... but if nothing happens, then... two hours after sunrise?"

She nodded. "I'll see you then." She started to stand up.

The words stopped the movement. "...the Princess said... I have a lot of rooms, but most of them are -- occupied. But I could -- clear one out, if you haven't found anything yet. It's just a matter of... shifting the least nests. And cubbyholes. There's... some makeshift burrows --"

Which would leave all of those displaced residents both furious with the new occupant and, in all likelihood, trying to reclaim their territory -- a process which would start by marking it all over again, possibly on top of the most recent arrival. "I've got something already," Fleur smoothly lied.

"...oh. Okay. Um... how are we going to... start?"

Teaching you how to trot would be a good idea. Fleur just wasn't sure it was the first step. "By starting," she told her charge, deliberately leaving it vague until she could think of something.

"...oh," Fluttershy repeated. "Um... did you want anything to eat before you left, or...?"

Fleur mentally reviewed her estimate of the battered cottage's weekly feed bill. "I'm fine." Because when somepony had virtually no money, you didn't ask them to spend it on you. "Good night, Fluttershy."

Eventually, "...good night -- Fleur. I'll -- walk you over the bridge. And I'll tell everyone about you, so it'll be easier to visit after."

Fleur nodded, putting a note of thanks on the end of it. Fluttershy got up and led the way to the door, which normally would have been providing fresh access to that view, but --

-- all right. I just got some idea of what I'm working with. If 'idea' could be applied to 'nightmare'. Let's see what the rest of it looks like...

She delved down within herself, and told her talent to act.

Half a second later, her frozen hindquarters were on the floor again.

It took the pegasus a few hoofsteps to notice that her guest had become incapable of movement. "...Fleur?"

"...nothing," Fleur slowly said. "Nothing..."

Openly worried now, which was obviously something Fluttershy had a lot of practice with. "...are you okay?"

"It's -- nothing," Fleur lied. "I've just been trotting around all day. My left hind hoof slipped."

"...are you going to be okay for the road? It's a long way back to Ponyville --"

"-- it's just one little slip." Nothing... "I just have to be more careful about where I trot."

"...but..."

"I'm fine."

The pegasus listened to those words, for they had not been nice. And so she led her teacher out of the cottage and over the bridge, then went back to her home, awkwardly glancing back over her right shoulder all the way.

Fleur waited until the door was completely shut, then forced herself to trot beneath a sky of rose and blood until she was out of window view. And only then, after a careful check above her for yellow feathers, did she allow her tail to splay over the ground again.

It was long minutes before she was able to move, more than long enough for Sun to be completely lowered, with all of that time spent staring at what her deepest magic had delivered.

Fleur's talent was, in many ways, a simple one. As Celestia had said, many ponies had a gift for empathy: the ability to read the emotional states of those they interacted with, something which gave them an edge in choosing how to respond. Fleur couldn't quite do that. Her talent was focused in a single path, and so found extra power flowing down the narrow channel.

Fleur knew what ponies liked. Sexually. Even when those ponies didn't.

It could almost be funny, the things which influenced desire. A pony in her filly years would have a gentle wing drape across her back in a time of high emotion and when that pony grew up, she might just find herself looking for pegasi above all else, ones who would open their overtures through tickling her with their feathers. Under the right circumstances, just about any moment could crystallize, become an internal image which the bearer might not even be aware of at all. Long before the moment of first open desire, every sapient would be forming a picture of what they wished for in a mate. Additional events would add their own aspects to that ideal. And as new wants arrived, the image became increasingly complicated. Inevitably, it would fracture.

Somepony who'll cook for me: one piece of the puzzle.

Somepony who spoons after sex: another.

Somepony who'll kick my ribs just hard enough to sting and tell me I've been bad: a third, and one which tended to make the spooning a little painful -- which might be a fourth piece.

It was almost impossible to find every piece present in the same potential partner. And so as ponies moved through the world, consciously (and otherwise) evaluating those around them, pieces would shift about, trying to match as much as possible, attempting to come close to an ideal which could only exist in their heads...

Fleur knew what everypony liked, and everyone. It was something which had helped her as an escort: this one wants the base of his ears rubbed, that one wants her wings to be very slowly preened, and having somepony doing exactly what they wanted without needing to be told had made some of her clients very happy ponies indeed. It was also something which gave her access to secrets, for not everypony wanted others to learn what they truly wanted, not even those they had hired as companions -- but Fleur would find out anyway. Every time.

She had reached out to solve Fluttershy's puzzle. And it had taken the second shortest amount of time required for a solution since the day her talent and mark had appeared. The first had been the True Surge, the arrival of power at the exact moment of manifest. This time...

Fleur was supposed to be finding a mate for her charge. The first natural step was to find out what Fluttershy dreamed of in her ideal partner. And so her magic had done its job, and delivered --

-- a blank. white. slate.

Fluttershy had no puzzle.

No picture.

Nothing at all.

[/hr]

Her head was still spinning as she forced herself to move under Moon.

How is that possible? Even those few who could be truly thought of as asexual had puzzles -- but in those cases, there were very few pieces, which mostly bore faint washes of grey. The only way anypony could reach her age with nothing is if they spent their entire lives responding to every thought of desire with 'I can't.' If she decided it was impossible and so the least hurtful thing she could do was to never want anypony at all! Scrubbing every piece clean as soon as it broke off, fusing it back to the main mass, until all she had was...

...white.

She doesn't know what she wants because she's never let herself want anything.

Fleur had -- potentially, at least -- a very large number of options for making Celestia feel her hate. Making Fluttershy miserable through creating a deliberately bad match had never been one of them. It was punishing the pegasus for something her non-paying employer had done, and striking at the boss through the underlings generally just resulted in a lot of wounded underlings and a boss with a Help Wanted sign. And besides, setting somepony up with a mate who didn't love them was... wrong. Fleur would manipulate. She would get into the Bearers' heads and use whatever she could to rebuild her web. But that was just work. It was what was necessary in order to create security. Deliberately manufacturing a lifetime of pain had never been part of any plan, should never be -- and so while she hated what Celestia had done in sending her to Ponyville, she had always intended to spend whatever portion of her durance she was unable to escape in actually performing the task.

But Fluttershy didn't want anything. The pegasus knew she wanted to be in love and have foals with the pony she was in love with. As for what that pony was supposed to be other than 'in love with me'... nothing. Nothing at all. How was Fleur supposed to match a blank?

-- and that was when she heard the howl.

Timber wolf. Not close. Only one. Searching for the rest of the pack.

It had been just about the worst day of her life. Tomorrow wasn't promising to be any kind of improvement. She had no bed waiting for her in Ponyville, and while arranging one in an emergency was generally a matter of a casual smile added to a subtle glance directed at just the right pony, she found she had no desire for companionship on this night. She didn't want anything except her life back.

Ponyville was still a good distance away. And the timber wolf wasn't anywhere near close -- but it was a timber wolf, and she'd heard those howl before, from a much shorter distance. She didn't need to hear it again.

...no. There's something else I want. I want this day to be over.

She was hungry. Tired. Emotionally exhausted.

None of that kept her from breaking into the abandoned mill in less than ten seconds.

[/hr]

The glow of her horn turned darkness into degrees of shadow, and it was enough to let her make her way through useless machinery and long-discharged devices. She could have created more light, but... there were windows, even if they were dusty ones, and there was always the chance of somepony passing by at just the wrong moment.

Less than ten seconds to break in: it was good to know her skills hadn't eroded from lack of use. Something over three minutes to secure the place so that nothing else could come in after her without creating a racket, and then just a little longer to find a corner she could risk curling up in. Something defensible, if dirtier than she would have liked.

She would have to wake up very close to sunrise, and told her body that as she settled into the corner. Early enough to gallop to Ponyville, find some degree of breakfast, and then get back to the cottage in time for that first lesson. Whatever that was going to be, whatever it could be for a pony who wanted nothing.

Her eyes began to close. Somewhere, the timber wolf howled again, but it didn't concern her. There were walls. And when she woke up... would there be enough time to check the mill, to see if there was anything she could scavenge, something to be sold and --

-- she was so tired...

But she had to be up early, because there was extra time needed on top of what she'd already listed. She was sleeping in dirt and dust. She would need to be clean again.

She would need to be pretty.

Fleur's breathing began to slow, gradually matching the rhythm of the misaligned gear clicks.

They said my mother was pretty...

Really, It's A Wonder She Made It This Far

When it came to both rest and preset waking times, her body normally cooperated with her desires. Fleur could curl up for a fifteen-minute nap and open her eyes just about at the exact end of those fifteen minutes, as refreshed as -- well, realistically, fifteen minutes didn't do much and it took an hour or so for any real benefits to set in. But there were times when fifteen minutes was all which was available, and so she'd mastered the skill of sleeping for just about as long as the clock allowed. To that extent, with the exception of those times when she was truly exhausted, Fleur's body was under her control.

Her nightscape was not.

She'd had dreams throughout most of the night. Fleur suspected she dreamed more than other ponies: she'd had ample opportunity to lie next to sleepers in their beds and watch their closed eyelids for the telltale movement which said the transport into the nightscape had truly begun, and it never seemed to be enough to fully match the amount of time she personally spent there. Sometimes it almost felt as if for just about any moment she was asleep at all, she would be within Princess Luna's lands -- and that particular durance, while it always came to an end, had times when it was something much less than kind.

Fleur had dreamed throughout the night and with her life shattered, those dreams had rendered the nightscape into reflections of the memories she'd pushed away during the day.

She typically remembered her dreams, in vivid detail. (She wasn't sure that was entirely normal, but didn't really have anypony she could talk to about it, and the few she'd discussed it with before were poor subjects for such comparisons.) And so she remembered everything she'd been through again upon emerging -- then spent her first few waking breaths in once again pushing it all away.

It was only when she felt truly centered in the now that she risked a look up towards the dusty windows of the mill.

Still dark outside. There was too much dust to make out stars, but she could get an approximation of the sky's true shade: Moon would be nearing the end of its descent, with Sun not all that far away. She should have enough time to clean herself and find breakfast before making her way back to the cottage, and the first part of that began as soon as the thought reached her, horn igniting at that low, attention-fearful level, her field beginning to groom the dirt out of her barrel's coat. (It was normally difficult for unicorns to use their fields on any part of their body they couldn't directly see, but Fleur had certain skills in addition to talent, normal workings, and her personal trick: styling her own tail without twisting, turning, and some rather awkward mirrors was just about automatic.)

She couldn't make out all that much more of the mill than she'd been able to see before settling down within its fresh defenses to sleep -- but there were a few details which could be registered by a less tired mind, and the first to fully gain her attention was the ramp: a steady climb from the dirty ground floor up to a door. It embarrassed her somewhat, having overlooked that on the previous night, especially since it would have been an extra door between her and the rest of the world. Having been tired was an excuse, yes, but not one she could truly sell to herself, let alone any others who might have questioned it.

A few minutes were risked, and she made her way up the still-solid ramp, peered through the door's filthy inset pane as best she could. Her first, best guess was office. Probably where any supervisor had set up shop, occasionally yelling down orders from the top of the ramp to the underlings below. She could make out the rather surprising shadows of what seemed to be abandoned furniture: a desk and bench at the very least, possibly a file cabinet nearby. Breaking in would confirm everything and allow further searching, but she only had a few minutes to risk. Maybe if she was able to come back before sunset --

-- she stopped, examined the thought more closely.

No. This was an emergency stop. A timber wolf in the area, along with a few others which it was trying to find. I took shelter until morning. That's it.

The abandoned mill, looked at from a certain, very familiar point of view, had much to recommend it. The structure was still solid, and it had proven easy to set up initial defenses within. There was now an extra layer of security available: at least one extra door, plus a ramp which could potentially be collapsed at need after a little setup work. It had been abandoned for long enough that nopony would expect it to be used. One occupant had more than enough space available for just about anything, and others could be added to the shelter for a very long time before any degree of true crowding would set in, although the struggles to see who was entitled to the best spots would start long before that. But...

...that's not me any more.

The majority of her assets had been frozen. Even with her standard salary still (eventually) coming in, she had to watch her spending as she always did, especially with nopony currently buying her anything in an attempt to win her favor and not even a single strand of the web rebuilt. She had no current way of creating security. But she could pay for rent.

...probably less than ten seconds to get into the office, plus thirty more to make sure anypony who followed her might need at least five minutes...

She turned away from the door. She had been kicked out of Canterlot. Her life had been deliberately, carefully, and cruelly broken. But she was not at the point where she was going to begin living inside a corpse.

So when she eventually came back to see what was on the other side of that door, she would make certain to arrive during the day.

(Not too close to noon, of course. An animal caretaker probably had some traffic heading out to the cottage around noon.)

[/hr]

Getting food before Sun-raising in an unfamiliar settled zone, at least for the variety Fleur intended to pay for because that also wasn't her any more, was a matter of logical thought and careful sniffing.

The invention of trains had turned Ponyville into something fairly new. The settled zone predated the rails, and a portion of Canterlot had always been available for distant view -- but the fact remained that town and city were just about exactly one gallop apart. Travel between the two by hoof was practical, but not fast: hours were required to make the journey. (Wings cut strongly into that, but most of what population she'd seen during her initial survey had been earth ponies.) But with the train -- as she understood it from some of those whose flanks she'd been paid to trot alongside, Ponyville was becoming a commuter town. For those willing to give up a portion of their day to travel, it was possible to work in the capital while living outside it, where the costs might be somewhat cheaper. Of course, that still required mandatory time spent on the train for every workday, time which wasn't being used for much of anything else -- but it did extend the employment options of the locals, although some Canterlot residents had begun to mutter about rural outsiders taking their jobs, especially the ones they'd never even thought to apply for and never could have been bothered with doing at all.

Commuting, especially to reach those Canterlot jobs which began their shifts just about at the moment Sun appeared, required an early departure from Ponyville. Early-departing ponies needed to eat, and it wasn't everypony who could force themselves to start rummaging through their kitchens while Moon was on the descent. Some couldn't even force their stomachs to uptake at that hour. But for those who only suffered from the former condition, food needed to be had, and so commuting had created a number of natural fallout businesses. Newspapers published a little earlier, giving ponies something to read on the train (at least for those very few leaving Canterlot: she'd never seen a paper originating from Ponyville). Wake-up juice carts rolled out under starlight to dispense their product for ponies who would be barely capable of identifying it until they'd finished consuming the second mug. And there were little restaurants around the train stations in both cities, serving to those both arriving and departing, generally kicking over anything which was quick, cheap, could be consumed on the gallop, and wouldn't have the taste fully register until about halfway through digestion -- at which point, the pony would probably wind up tasting it twice.

Life as an escort had left Fleur well-acquainted with some of the businesses which normally operated within Princess Luna's hours, and she'd been aware of the rest well before that. So she knew that to find food before Sun-raising, all she had to do was follow the majority of whatever pony traffic was up at this hour, because that herd flow would be heading towards the train. And in the event that she was coming in from an angle where nopony else was traveling, a few sniffs of the air might just pick up on a lucky current, which in this case meant just about anything that wasn't coming off Mr. Flankington's.

Her snout began testing the atmosphere as soon as she came over the bridge, back into Ponyville proper, along with rotating her ears, listening for the telltale sounds of wheels and steamstack. For the latter, she didn't come up with anything initially, and with the former... a very few of the border homes had windows lit, and she could see -- rather more than she'd expected, actually. For in Canterlot, for the most part, a lit window would have had that illumination weakened by shielding curtains, and the life within homes and apartments would have been expressed as furtive shifting shadows creating darker patches within the false shield of light. Ponyville residents seemed to favor leaving their curtains gathered in rolls at the sides of their windows, giving her quick glimpses into the pre-morning, bleary-eyed life of the town. Workers getting ready for their shifts. Commuters forcing themselves to wake up enough to at least think about trying for the train. Open windows allowed her to both see and smell meals being prepared and placed into rather small saddlebags --

-- she looked away from that, just in time to see what was probably the first of the local commuters departing, a pony so tired that when his gaze naturally fell upon Fleur at the moment he left his home, his puzzle responded with the sort of piece shift which might be found when viewing a particularly lifelike statue. There was an obstacle, it was an attractive one, and he was almost certain he would be able to avoid it: that was it. Fleur quickly shifted her own position in time to avoid what would have been a truly unintentional jostle, and then quietly followed the stallion at a distance, still rotating her ears and listening for other approaches on more than a single sense. Hopefully he was heading for the train.

She was going to need a full map of the town, and soon. Along with a visit to a rental agency, perhaps even the post office if she could chance trusting anypony to pack her possessions when she was this far away from the center of the web. Celestia had said she would understand if Fleur needed to leave Ponyville briefly for a good reason, and recovery of the items for which packing first had been forbidden felt like one -- but at the same time, it was only her second day. Letting the circlet tell the palace that she was heading out of town on Day Two might seem like something too close to an attempt at either fleeing or testing the device's bounds, no matter how legitimate her excuse was. Which would leave her looking for a furnished apartment, and that was a higher fee --

-- not that she had much in the way of furnishings waiting to be moved. Very little, actually. And so many of them would mean shipping costs --

-- her eyes and nose reported their findings, and the information was somewhat conflicting.

In sight, there was a long line of device-created glow far off on the left, just visible at the end of a long, straight cross-street, and she could see a number of ponies walking, trotting, staggering, and semi-hovering their way towards it. That had to be the train station. But her unknowing lead (a pony whom she was already regarding as a fool, paying so little attention to his immediate environment while under Moon) wasn't heading in that direction. He was shuffling towards the place which a number of others were converging on, a building which had its lights just turning on as Fleur watched --

-- at the same moment the smell hit her.

Of course. The bread rises with Celestia. Just about any bakery was expected to be open at the moment the Sun was brought over the horizon, with that expectation coming from ponies who, if they found it thwarted, would be all too ready to seek out an establishment which knew how to operate properly. A bakery within something regarded as a commuter town would need to begin operations a little earlier than that. And in this case, there were no redirected air currents to tell her the owners had no idea what they were doing, with the freely-wafting scents informing her she'd found an expert in the craft.

Still, she didn't risk feeling even the briefest amount of joy. The last food-based prospective joy had resulted in Mr. Flankington's.

Fleur quietly trotted along behind the stallion. She could feel pieces shifting nearby: she was starting to draw attention from some of the others who were heading towards the bakery. There weren't too many ponies yet, and quick attempts to examine her results found -- not much of anything interesting, really. No matter how many ponies might insist that their tastes were one-of-a-kind and so was the partner who could match them, truly unique results were hard to find. In this case, Fleur found herself being compared to pieces, matching a fair number, being discarded through comparison to others -- and for the most part, those pieces were boring. Hoof fetishes were just about everywhere: anything so common as to be in the possession of that bitch could hardly be seen as a rarity. Two ponies liked the shape of her horn, with one of those being equally fascinated by her hindquarters: that mare moved into position to get a better look. A hovering pegasus had a somewhat less common interest in what that mare regarded as a well-turned stallion fetlock, along with -- and this did get Fleur's attention -- having a hank of grown-out fur hanging over the back of them. Interesting, in a vague sort of way. She'd been sensing more of that lately, and was starting to wonder if it was coming into some sort of trend: even fetishes had their cycles, some of which ended in an upsurge of temporary fashion.

She prepared her excuses as some of those ponies got closer to her: the entire group was beginning to naturally cluster more tightly as they approached the bakery's still-shut doors -- but she knew a few were specifically using the collapsing pattern as a means of approach. There was a chance that some of the ponies were ones she could use, and those chances were escalated slightly through having them work in Canterlot -- but unless a miracle combination of connections, experience, and potential blackmail material trotted right up to her snout, she wasn't quite in the mood to start weaving just yet. Not before eating, after having missed dinner the previous night and bringing her belated breakfast back up. Her thoughts were starting to feel a little foggy, her reaction time beginning to slow: all familiar, all things she didn't want to be feeling again. If there was anything to be gathered at the bakery, she could begin to pull it in after she ate, and possibly after a falsely-shy smile got somepony to buy the food for her. But until then... she just wasn't feeling up to much of anything.

The bakery's front door opened to a chorus of relieved sighs, and she looked at the earth pony standing in the center of the entrance. Fleur kept looking for an extra second beyond the casual, simply because it was rare to find that much jawline on one stallion. And as for his puzzle... he liked his mares heavier than Fleur had ever remotely considered becoming, and had the special glow to the piece which indicated that his desire had found lasting fulfillment. One of the lucky ones.

"Good morning, everypony," he smiled. "Form a line, please. Yes, I know who was here first, Glory: please don't try to overfly the front again. Come in, come in -- we're trying out τσουρέκι --" he stopped, cleared his throat after the rough, half-failed attempt to pronounce an unfamiliar word in Minotaurus "-- tsoureki for the first time today, so everypony who wants some can have a small free sample, as we're honestly not sure how we did and we're not going to ask anypony to pay in order to form an opinion. Come in, come in --" and in a sudden burst of warning, "-- Glory..."

Fleur allowed the line to sort itself out, including her position in it -- which was rather far towards the back. Well, she still had time before reaching Fluttershy's on schedule would become a concern, and lacked the energy to either rush or seduce her way forward.

Slow wait in line. Slow chewing. Slow saturation of slowly-rebuilding energy through her slow-feeling body. That was the best way.

She got twelve hoofsteps, just enough for her body to be illuminated by the bakery's inner light. And then the comet hit her.

[/hr]

Fleur's reflexes were excellent, and that state was a hard-won one. When fully awake and alert, she could avoid any number of potential trouble spots, and dodge most of the rest. But she hadn't eaten, she was still at least a little disoriented from all that had come before and, when looking back at the memory from much further into the future, she was sure that in order to have avoided (or, most realistically, postponed) everything which came next, she would have needed to teleport.

She couldn't teleport. When it came to magical movement, Fleur's capabilities lay in a rather specific direction, and that compass didn't point into the between. Near-instantaneous relocation wasn't among her capabilities. She'd tried to self-teach herself the working, seeing the potential in it -- but nothing had ever come, perhaps because reality was reality and no matter how much anypony might want to abandon it, they couldn't.

So Fleur, who was tired, only picked up on the signs in retrospect. The abrupt backing up from the pony directly behind her, who had been trying to stay as close as possible in the first place: that one really liked hindquarters. The little surge forward from the mare in front, making room. Everypony in the area, in fact, had responded to the gasp that fully registered in Fleur's ears just a little too late by figuring out what she was going to need in the way of a personal blast radius and then clearing the space for it. They'd just barely been fast enough. And Fleur... wasn't.

She only worked all of it out afterwards, and after repeated, short-term reviews of the event. She wasn't capable of looking at that memory for too long. Among other things, it tended to make her motion-sick.

"HI!!"

And the mare was right in front of her. Then on her right. Behind her. On the left. Seemingly all in the same second, bounding from place to place in huge four-legged hops. At one point, she seemed to feel the circular pattern had become boring, and so changed it up through either vaulting Fleur's back or engaging in a very short-range series of flash-free teleports, which was probably thaumaturgically possible when the one doing it wasn't an earth pony.

It was hard to get a look at her, even in the bakery's light: she wouldn't stay still long enough. Fleur got the impression of curls in both mane and tail, a slightly overweight body which really shouldn't have been going that fast, along with brief glimpses of a face which was actually rather cute, made even more so by that extra rounding of the cheeks. But looking took second place to her automatic attempts to retreat from the assault, every last one of which got blocked by the bounding form. No matter where Fleur turned, that was where the earth pony was, at least for that second. There was only one of her and she was coming at Fleur from all sides. Which made the words into something like being bombarded by a circle of gramophones which had been turned up to their maximum volume, with the records spinning at too great a speed.

"Wow, you're pretty! I know I've never seen you before! I'd remember a pony that pretty, but I remember everypony, so I'd just remember you even more. You must be the prettiest mare in -- well, the prettiest unicorn. Because we've got a pegasus who's probably just about a match for you, if you like her type, and her type is... well, she's still figuring out exactly what she's going to do with it, I think. Carefully. But you can't miss her. Nopony ever does. Have you met her yet? Of course not, because you're new and you'd know who I was talking about, and I can see you don't! You haven't met much of anypony, have you? Except Fluttershy. And you haven't had a bath yet after meeting her -- it's okay, it's okay, I'm used to it, I don't think anypony else can tell you've been to the cottage on smell, and nopony's going to know before you reach a bath except that I just said that out loud so now everypony knows and please don't worry! You only smell a little like rabbit. Angry rabbit. Angry -- scared rabbit? Huh... anyway, HI!! Welcome to Ponyville! Because when you're new in town and don't know anypony here except for maybe Fluttershy -- did your pet get sick already? Oh, I hope your pet gets better. I can schedule a play date with Gummy! You'll like Gummy. Everypony does, except the ones who don't. So you really need a welcome, and that means I'm going to start putting one together right now! Don't worry: you'll meet everypony soon! And everypony will meet you! Which they'll really-really want to, because you're so pretty! Am I saying that you're pretty too much? Because I've only met the one other pony who's that pretty, so I've at least got to match the number of times I said it to her so nopony gets jealous. Let me think -- pretty-pretty-pretty, and there, it's a tie! So I'm going to get things ready now, okay? It'll take a little while. I may not be ready today. Or tonight. Actually, the time might kind of be a surprise. Also the location. And the guests, but that's because you don't hardly know anypony, so the whole world is a surprise, and surprises are the best!"

And then there was a miracle, which came in the form of a pause.

Thoughtfully, "Do you like balloons?"

Fleur's talent lanced forward, mostly in self-defense. It just made things worse.

Her mind had already been reeling. Her senses had gone along with it. And now her deepest magic was trying to reconcile the presence of something very rare indeed, because no matter how bold some ponies claimed to be, no matter how many times they insisted they were up to anything, anything at all right up until the moment it actually started and they begged to be released from the yoke, Fleur had hardly ever found herself in the presence of a true trysexual.

In short, this was a mare whose basic approach to sex came down to 'That sounds like it could be fun! Let's try it!'

(Also, she liked being tickled. A lot.)

"Of course you like balloons," the mare said on what seemed to be only her fourth breath. "Everypony -- well, not everypony. Not when they pop, because they scare a few ponies that way. Or rub against each other and make those squeaks which make your tail go straight! But I'll have balloons for you which won't do that! Except I can't promise that first part because Pokey might come. Have you met Pokey? How about -- oh, it doesn't matter! You'll meet them all eventually, and more than a few of them once I get everything ready! Besides, you've met Fluttershy. That's important. And now you've met me, and you'll come inside and meet the Cakes and the twins, and that pony behind you who's trying to look at your butt a lot? That's Alora Light! -- oh... there she goes. I think I should go apologize for that. So I'm going to. Apologize. Right now. Before she flies too far away. Just remember, it's not her fault for liking butts. And you've got a really pretty -- oh no, now I've got to go make sure it's an even count again -- well, bye! I'll see you later! And do you know when? Neither do I! That's why it'll be a surprise!"

The pink comet streaked off to the west --

-- but only for a second. There was an abrupt rebound, one hundred and eighty precise degrees, rushing back through the bakery door, and then there was a small crashing sound --

-- almonds, mahlepi, and yeast-baked flour were pushed into her shock-opened mouth.

"You're too hungry to wait. Chew slow! It's new! And tell the Cakes what you think! Bye!"

Gone. The unicorn just barely holding ground in the center of the blast radius waited until she was almost sure of that, or as sure as she currently felt capable of being regarding anything after that had happened.

Fleur stood in place, or as much as she could while her body so badly wanted to reel, breathing. It seemed necessary, both for reorientation and to make sure all of the local oxygen hadn't been used up.

"...what just happened?" she asked the world, not fully remembering that the local portion had ponies in it.

They took pity on her. "Pinkie," a senior stallion said. "Didn't anypony warn you?"

"...yes," she managed, coming all too close to the tones of her charge. "...sort of..."

"It's okay," the stallion tried to comfort her. "You're never really ready for it. But you're probably halfway through now. It's usually just this and the party."

"Party." It was a word. She was just barely capable of saying it, and therefore it seemed to be worth repeating.

"Party," the stallion confirmed.

She was still reeling, especially internally. Trysexuals were exhausting, and seldom more so than on the day they first found out about yokes. And when you combined that trait with this pony --

"...what's -- 'probably'?"

"She might like you," the stallion replied. And then, with a grin which would only register as being about ninety percent threat to a recently comet-impacted mind, "And you know, you are pretty..."

It was a testament to the scent allure of the Cakes' skills that Fleur made it into the bakery. She didn't spot any twins. She did see some rather unusual baked specimens (or at least unusual for the locals) and managed to find her voice long enough to order a few of them, although she wasn't sure about her accent. And when she ate the results, something which would match the true if only somepony would give them a sample of the intended results, they stayed down. They gave her energy.

Some of that energy was used in checking the diminishing shadows as she made her way back out under Sun. Every patch of shade. Everything which might offer concealment, and hoping she could see through it before the worst happened.

For she'd met Pinkie. And at an unknown time which had been promised as a surprise, Pinkie would be coming back...

She's From The Ministry Of Sexy Walks

There was never enough time to do everything: Fleur had learned that at an early age and was currently hoping, rather vindictively, that the same thing could be said for Celestia. Time was the ultimate commodity: it was just about impossible to gain more of it, everypony was always trying to take it away from you, and no matter what you did, it was constantly being spent, right up until the moment it ran out.

The trot to the cottage was not a casual one: Fleur would be losing time every day just from going there and back again, especially since there didn't seem to be any residences along that road which she could rent for herself. Staying at the cottage was starting to look like more of a viable option than it had before, at least once the myriad of residents had been made to leave her alone -- but she'd already told her charge that she had somewhere to stay. It might be possible to back out of that lie by claiming lease difficulties or paperwork errors, but...

Well, for now, finding a place to live was another demand on Fleur's time, and it was something which couldn't be settled immediately: there were no rental agencies open so early in the day, any more than she could locate an open spa (there was a closed one, and it smelled as if the owners knew what they were doing) or a bathhouse (rare and she couldn't find one at all in the scant minutes she had for looking, but sufficient ponies still considered bathing to be a social occasion to keep a few public facilities open). She wanted to wash up, and taking a dip in a stream wasn't going to work: careful use of her field made it possible to comb water out of her fur, but anything which soaked in would stay there, and galloping around with a damp coat on a cool fall morning was begging for illness.

However, she had recently been informed that she smelled somewhat like an angry (and thankfully, scared) rabbit -- and so Fleur reluctantly took the only option available. There were a few hotels and inns serving visitors to the settled zone and she booked a room at one, making it clear to the proprietors that she would be paying on a day-to-day basis until she managed to locate a longer-term residence. The stallion behind the desk, whose shifting pieces said he would be reluctant to lose any degree of access to Fleur, still helpfully passed over a list of the town's realtors -- under the watchful gaze of his spouse.

She had just enough time to clean and dry herself, although it meant the trip to the cottage would be done at something approaching a half-gallop. An hour or two used for that first lesson, and then she could excuse her departure with a perfectly legitimate statement: she was still moving in. Get back to the center of the settled zone before any of the agencies could close, find something she could rent, and then...

...I'll still be serving my sentence. I just get to pay for the use of my cell.

At best, it was a bitter joke, and the quality of the graveyard humor wasn't enough to trigger a laugh. But she was clean, and more than pretty enough for most purposes, especially since she still wasn't quite ready to start seducing her way into the center of a new web and her license was -- unavailable. And as for any future cottage-acquired odors -- she would have to ask Fluttershy about where to purchase a supply of Dr. Groomer's. The scent might come with its share of memories and wreck any plans she might have for perfume, but she was going to be spending a lot of time at the cottage and there was nothing else which would do the job.

Time spent. Teaching a pony who didn't know what she wanted. Time just for reaching that pony and going back, possibly every day. Hours upon hours, moon after moon, until... a foal was born. A foal produced from a true union with somepony Fluttershy loved. A love which was seldom instant, and a pregnancy which was never so.

With extraordinary luck in the initial encounter added to a pony who was willing to have sex immediately after the first date and a cycle which had reached exactly the right moment, the minimum sentence Fleur could have expected to serve was something just under a year. But with Fluttershy...

She would have time to learn Ponyville's businesses. Where they were, when they opened, what the owners were like. Every last one of them. Stolen, snatched, unrecoverable time.

Her coat seemed to dry rather quickly. It might have been from the heat of her hate.

[/hr]

The animals didn't seem to watch her quite as closely this time, and the shrew ran up to her right forehoof and sniffed it for a few seconds before tossing off a completely horizontal shrug and scurrying off towards the cottage, where it used a miniature swinging pet door cut into the lowest section of the wood. Fleur's guess was that it was heading off to alert its mistress and when the door opened while she was still coming up the approach path, she was proven right.

"...hi," the pegasus eventually said. "...things aren't... well, there's things I -- have to do later. There usually are. But I've done everything for the morning, so... I guess we can start. If you want to. If you're ready, and... I think I'm ready, I -- I'll try, but..." She took a slow breath, then swallowed most of it. "...so what are we doing?"

Fleur had spent most of the trip to the cottage in trying to answer that question. It felt like the information she needed most would come from seeing what Fluttershy was normally like in a social setting: take her out on the town for a night, watch what happened, and learn a little more about what she had to work with. See if her charge was doing anything right which could be built on, record every error and start working on how to fix it. But choosing a setting would require more knowledge of Ponyville's nightlife than she currently had, and -- she felt as if she might already have the rather dejecting answers to most of those questions. Still, it was something she'd probably wind up doing within the first two weeks because no matter how much depression her imagination could conjure, she was sure reality was up to overmatching it.

They would be going out on the town (for whatever value of 'out' the town might offer) eventually. But it might take a little extra confidence just to get Fluttershy that far out the door.

Using the day for reviewing her charge's previous dating life was -- well, not entirely pointless, even with Celestia having said that life didn't exist. It was possible that Fluttershy had at least tried an approach once, and she was sure somepony had to have asked the pegasus out, especially if her diagnosis of early puberty was correct: you couldn't look at that tail during the pubescent years and not have at least a twinge of curiosity. Finding out what had taken place on both ends could help -- but she was sure her charge didn't trust her enough to open up on that level. Not yet, and reaching that level with Fluttershy could be the work of multiple frustrating moons.

So shortly after passing the abandoned mill, Fleur had decided to start by building her charge's confidence. There were so many occasions in life when all you needed to truly start on a new path was the knowledge that you were capable of doing one basic thing right. It could provide the emotional boost necessary to take on the rest. The first success led to the second and beyond, until you wound up at the point where you could almost teach yourself.

(Never entirely, of course. Some things were only learned through direct experience. And experience didn't care if you survived the lesson.)

"I'm going to teach you how to trot," Fleur told her.

It got her the one-eyed blink again. "...um... I -- kind of... know how to do that already..." There was no offense in the words: just mild surprise, along with a touch of fear that expressing the shock might somehow offend.

And at some point, we're going to talk about a manestyle which lets ponies see your entire face. But that could wait for a few days. "There are ways to move which let ponies know you're available," Fleur told her. Keeping her tones stern, slightly towards the side of dominant, "That you're not only looking for a mate, but you want them to start considering you as one." Or at least as a companion for the blanket-ruffling duration of one evening. "It's about presentation. You need to trot like somepony who wants company. You're not just moving from place to place: you're issuing an invitation to follow you and find out what's waiting for them at the destination."

The pegasus thought about it.

"...I don't like it when ponies follow me."

"It's not inviting stalkers," Fleur quickly (but still sternly) said. "Stalkers happen." Was that the right topic to bring up? Would it scare her too much? No, she had to know all of what she was up against. "And they'll blame you for it. Even if you just stayed completely still and curled up in a corner, they'll just say you wanted them to --"

The birdsong was loud in her ears, and it still wasn't loud enough.

"-- we'll go into self-defense later." Actually... "Can you fight?" The initial supposition was that her charge had to have some skill in combat, given the kind of situations the Bearers carefully weren't paid to deal with. But it was possible that Fluttershy was just support staff for the group, or... well, Fleur was having real trouble trying to figure out exactly what the pegasus' role was, or even had the potential to be. The caretaker wasn't exactly her first choice to send into any level of fight, and Fleur just wasn't seeing that many situations where Fluttershy taking on Nightmare and chaos -- literally chaos -- with a shaky request not to hurt her was going to accomplish much.

Another blink. "...a little."

Which probably meant she knew where her legs were and that the hind ones could kick backwards. Plus she was a pegasus, so Fleur supposed lightning was available as an option, along with wind, driving rain, hail if the conditions were right or could be tweaked in a hurry... "We'll go over that too. But there's a point to this, Fluttershy. In order to attract somepony, you need to learn how to be attractive. You need to let them know you're available and interested. You can't control what comes to you, not initially: you can only learn to deal with it after it shows up. Eventually, I'm going to be teaching you how to reject ponies. But before you can sort out your catch, you need a lure."

It got her stared at. The single blue-green eye (currently the left) was rather good at staring. "...sort out a catch...?"

"You've never been --" A deep breath. No, Fleur, she's probably never been fishing. "How would you catch an animal for the first time?"

Fluttershy rather visibly thought about it, feathers faintly vibrating as she stood within the battered doorway. "I'd find out where that animal normally lived," she said, and the words emerged with a confidence which hadn't existed in any other syllable. "What times it was most active. What it avoided, and when that might be in the area."

Fleur, much to her own surprise, found herself starting to smile. Once you understood how the most basic of animal interactions functioned, you would actually have most of the dating scene --

"-- and then I'd call out to one, we'd talk a bit, maybe about how things were going, and after we'd gotten to know each other and I'd given him a nice little name to use around ponies so everypony would know just who I was talking about, that's usually just my friends but you never know when somepony might be listening, we'd just talk a little more about coming back to the cottage and meeting all my other friends, they're usually a little skittish when I tell them just who's staying with me, but once they understand that everyone keeps the truce --"

The smile had started to vanish about thirty words into the run-on sentence, and the groan finally put a note of punctuation on the whole thing.

Apologetically, "...what? Did I say something -- wrong?"

She was trying to be patient, in the midst of her assumed dominance. She'd never been a teacher before, and the occupation was proving more frustrating than she ever would have expected. But she'd been a student, and one of her instructors had been truly skilled. All she had to do was follow that model --

"Why wouldn't I be there?"

-- but not to the end.

Fleur wasn't shaking, and she was proud of herself for that. She was perfectly still, simply looking at Fluttershy, who was waiting for her to speak.

"Fluttershy," she said with a patience which she still wasn't quite feeling, "how would somepony who can't talk to animals catch one?"

Eventually, "...with bait. I have to be -- bait?"

"A little bit," Fleur admitted. "Alluring might seem closer, but even that's got lure in it. Ultimately, it's bait. And then we sort the catch."

"...that..." The pegasus swallowed air again. "...doesn't sound -- nice."

That word again. Fluttershy had a knack for making the lack of niceness sound like the single worst thing in the world, as if it was the most devastating insult which could ever be delivered --

-- and that lack was the way Celestia had chosen to describe Fleur.

Good. Being nice came with too high a price. "The Princess," Fleur reminded the pegasus, "sent me to be your teacher. The single best teacher for the job. This is your first lesson. How to trot. Walk. Move. And without the first lesson, we can't move on to the second." Every last bit of that patience in her voice, along with the echoes of the one who had taught it to her. "So are we doing this?"

Finally, reluctantly, "...yes."

[/hr]

The day was becoming pleasantly warm (and that reminded Fleur: she really needed to get a personal copy of the local weather schedule: the hotel would become upset about even that degree of theft from the room) and so the initial lesson was conducted outside. She'd only seen one part of the cottage, but there hadn't been a great deal of open space in that area and she wanted Fluttershy to conduct her first practice in a location which didn't have so many eyes on her, even if they were animal ones. So she'd asked Fluttershy to lead them into something exposed to Sun, and the pegasus had carefully taken her in a new direction, past chicken coops and what appeared to be a rather well-insulated (but currently empty) kennel. They'd passed swans and ducks, moving across something more suited to swimming hole than pond. There had been a lemur, and a marmoset. And then there had been the giraffe.

It had been a baby giraffe and so when Fleur had stared at it, she hadn't had to look all that far up.

"...she's just here for a few weeks," Fluttershy told her. "...somepony... was opening up a zoo, somepony mean, and... they didn't ask her if she wanted to come, or bring her parents, or... anything. I found out where she's from, and somepony will be taking her back. Once she's recovered a little more. Most of the others were already brought home."

"The others," Fleur carefully repeated.

"...you just missed Mr. Tabby Fangs."

It was her first attempt at translating 'Fluttershy' into 'Equestrian' and to Fleur's credit, her kick landed dead-center. "A tiger."

Surprised, "...of course."

"You. Hosted. A. Tiger."

"...he was very nice once I got to know him." A thoughtful pause. "...and if I rubbed his fur against the grain. That's a little weird for a cat. I wasn't expecting it."

"A... cat," Fleur carefully tried.

"...he's just a big softy, really..."

Somepony took a tiger out of Pundamilia Makazi. Probably smuggled it out under the zebras' snouts, because they're so careful about what they allow to leave the borders. That would have created a really unhappy tiger. And it lived here. With everything else I saw on the property. So far. Oh, and everything else I've seen here happens to still be alive. Along with Fluttershy.

"Kitten?" Fleur immediately asked.

"...only when he got playful," Fluttershy smiled. With open pride, "Once he was eating properly again, he got up to about three bale-weights. And I just know he'll keep it on now that he's home."

The rest of the walk was conducted in respectful silence, at least from Fleur's end. She still didn't know much about her charge, and there was just so many things she had to learn there, with that role among the Bearers as a significant part of it. But now...

She was born in the wrong place.

Her memories darted back, returned her to that teacher and the lost moments which had become so much more precious for their passing. Her imagination placed the pegasus next to them. And then, as a final self-punishing step, substituted, pegasus and talent for unicorn, all the way to the end.

She would have won.

It was the moment when she truly began to respect Fluttershy, if only for that one thing. It was also the one when she began to hate herself again.

[/hr]

They were in a pasture area, which Fluttershy told her was used on those occasions when she hosted large numbers of grazers. The grass was beginning to brown here and there, blades sagging under the weight of their own approaching death. Fleur was starting to wonder about the true size of the property, along with the true impact of the property tax bill.

"...okay," Fluttershy finally decided. "...this is private."

Fleur looked around a little more. "For now," she immediately decided.

"...sorry? I usually get interrupted a lot and I'm sorry if that happens today because it probably will, but I don't hear anypony coming, and none of my friends are around --"

"-- is any of this stuff yours?" Fleur asked, gesturing a shapely foreleg. Fluttershy glanced in the indicated direction.

There was a rusted cart axle, which still had one battered wheel attached. A rather large inflatable ball, about the size of a pony torso. Two upended troughs. A sketched-out circle for marble play, complete with two abandoned large red marbles, a little bigger than the ideal for hoof-flicking. And that was just the start of the signs for intrusion, along with the other pieces of garbage which said --

"Somepony," Fleur concluded, "is trespassing. And using your property as a dump. How's your security? You have a lot of border to watch, and --"

"-- ignore it."

Fleur blinked.

The words had been quick. Steady. Something very close to insistent.

"So it's your garbage? Nopony's been collecting --"

Immediately, looking away from the random elements polluting her pasture, "-- ignore it." And then, more carefully, "...please?"

So somepony had decided it was just too much trouble to go all the way out to the fringe for trash collection, and Fluttershy just didn't want to bring it up... Fleur managed to keep from grinding her teeth. Enamel damage wasn't attractive. "Fine." She made a minor show of looking away from the debris. "I want you to show me what you think a sexy walk is. Just go ten body lengths down that way, then come back, trot past me, and keep going for another ten. Can you do that?" It got her a bare nod. "Start."

Fluttershy took another one of those deep breaths, and Fleur watched feathers rustle before the pegasus began to trot away.

Trotting. It was starting to register. Fluttershy -- trotted. It was only their second meeting, but -- the pegasus hadn't been in the air once. Simply living on the ground would have been seen as mildly unusual by many, but Fleur recognized the realities of Fluttershy's profession: the land was where the animals were. However, even when looking at so short a period of time, to not have taken off even once...

Maybe it was just hospitality. Her charge wasn't taking off because her guest couldn't. Well, when it --

-- which was when Fluttershy stopped, turned, and brought out her sexy trot for the local part of the world to see.

Only one of the observers was capable of facehoofing and somehow, the sound of her not doing it was worse than any impact could have been.

"Your idea of a sexy walk is to move," Fleur tensely said, "like a model."

"...oh."

"That's not a compliment. Models are supposed to be aloof. Mysterious. Unapproachable." So it was actually worse than having to merely teach her from the ground up: there were now things to unlearn --

-- Fleur blinked.

"Do that again."

The hesitation on the next sentence might have been natural coming from anypony. "...what?"

"That walk."

"...but you said --"

"-- do it."

Fluttershy complied. And Fleur, who knew her charge had been taught that little hip-hitch by the only pony in the world who thought it was good for anything and somehow hadn't been kicked to death because of it or anything else, groaned.

"How did she justify not paying you?"

"...I'm sorry," Fluttershy instinctively apologized in a way which was also threatening to become a signature move, "but I don't understand --"

"Photo Finish," Fleur spat, and Fluttershy pulled back from the anger. "What did she write into the contract that time? You had to pay for your own cosmetics? All hotel rooms were booked using your salary? It turned out that every time a shoot ran overtime, you covered the extra and 'overtime' started after three minutes? What was it?"

A soft fall breeze shifted the grass, carried some of the cottage's odors around them. None of the miasma could put a taste in Fleur's mouth which would have been worse than the name, and even Mr. Flankington would have been hard-pressed to trigger more illness.

"...I left before my term was complete," Fluttershy finally said. "She told me there was a -- forfeiture fee, and... my friend almost went after her, I just got my teeth around her tail in time, and after that, it was hard to... there were consequences, and..." Her head slowly dipped, bowed by the weight of memory. "It... hurt her. For a while. And I... didn't get anything except a copy of the calendar. From the printer. And she still tried to send me a bill for it."

Fleur softly sighed, because there was only one pony available to take the anger out on and it was exactly the wrong one.

"You're not the first," she quietly said. "You won't be the last. Most of what she's been doing in her fine print is barely legal, and the rest... well, there's a lot of escorts who are former models." After an encounter with Photo Finish, a number of stallions and mares would decide that if they were going to spend their lives being screwed, they might as well be getting paid for it.

With soft empathy, "...did she... get you?" And in faint hope, "...some of what she does isn't legal?"

"She didn't get me." Fleur read fine print. All of it, no matter how many hours she had to spent with Equestria's most powerful magnifying glass in front of her face, hoping onto Moon that the paper wouldn't catch fire. "But she tried. Any time somepony gets offended or panicked because you insist on reading what they want you to sign? Don't sign it. But for the legality... she gives a lot of the things her models wear away, after she's made them pay for those outfits. Photo Finish probably has every judge in Canterlot on her Hearth's Warming list. It makes it a little harder to bring a charge against her, and it scares a lot of ponies out of trying. She's only lasted this long because she knows whose hooves to kiss. For starters." She snorted and for what it was worth, the exclamation of disgust was a pretty one. "If you ever see her again and want to piss her off, tell her I said hello. She's never forgiven me for getting away." Something which had done its own share of damage, which Fleur had needed to overcome. She'd been in the process of exacting that portion of vengeance when the palace had summoned her. "And when you do, call her Lens Cap."

"...why?"

"Because she hates her real name," said the mare who'd finally tracked it down in the public records. "More than anything except having to pay her models." She'd so been looking forward to that next party --

-- wait. Given everything she'd seen about Fluttershy's personality --

"-- how did you get into modeling?"

A very long pause. "...well..."

A parrot swooped down from the sky, landed on Fluttershy's right shoulder, and squawked into her rotated ear.

"I have to go," the pegasus said with completely unexpected haste. "I'm sorry. There's something happening at the cottage. Somepony brought their friend in and -- I'm sorry, this is going to happen a lot, there's hardly ever a good time and -- I'm sorry, I hope everything will be all right, please be all right, please, I have to go --"

Those somewhat oversized wings flared out, flapped, and Fluttershy took off, spinning her body to face the cottage at the moment her legs were free of the grass, speeding away to confront whatever was happening in her home --

-- gone.

Fleur waited until the grass was no longer being shifted by a wing-raised breeze, then sighed. Her charge might have said she wasn't officially a vet, but it seemed as if at least one aspect of animal caretaking was the same: when somepony called, you had to answer.

Not 'officially' a vet. So she probably doesn't have the license. Is that legal? Can she work without one, even if she's just treating animals? Is there an actual vet in town, and if so, why do ponies come here -- no, that's a stupid question. And there was a better query lurking behind it. If you had a choice between a conventional vet and somepony who could just ask your pet where it hurt, why would you ever use the vet? What was the business relationship between Fluttershy and the locals, and was there truly any competition at all?

Not something which was likely to play into finding her charge a partner. But if it kept leading to interruptions...

She seemed to have two options: wait in the pasture until Fluttershy returned, which left her wasting time. Or she could trot back to the cottage and find out if there was anything she could personally do to --

"Oh, good," the voice snorted from behind and above her, and there was no beauty in that exclamation at all. "We have privacy. And now that it's just you and I present for what I'm certain will turn out to be a rather illuminating discussion -- who, exactly, are you supposed to be, at least for the short time when you still might be anything at all? And what are you trying to do with my friend?"

And she knew.

She'd never heard his voice before. (It was probably a safe bet that most of the ponies throughout history who'd heard it had never heard anything else again, and the majority of those who'd lived through the encounter hadn't kept their own ears.) To that degree, she was only guessing about the nature of the other entity who was standing in the pasture. But she was facing towards where the garbage had been and the random debris spread around the pasture had vanished, replaced by something a million times more random and almost unimaginably more dangerous.

The words went through her head, before she turned. The mantra of those who survived.

...as long as I stay alert.

As long as I stay focused.

The mantra of those who might survive.

She turned, steadily, at a normal pace. It left her facing an odd curve of brown-furred torso, until grey neck bent down at a completely unnatural angle, one which should have shattered bones, and red eyes shared at her with the already worn-out patience of madness which wasn't used to being postponed.

"You were here yesterday," he accused, and the words came out as being petulant. "I saw you leave, when I was checking on her. You didn't drop off any kind of pet. And here you are again today, you're making her do things, and I already know you're not one of her friends. I know all of her friends, including every last one she really shouldn't have when she has me. Which is, quite frankly," and he struck a pose, preened horn with talon, "all of them. Because when you have me, you really don't need -- well, she probably doesn't need you, now does she? Five -- or six, I suppose, it really depends on how you care to count them --"

An abacus appeared in the air. Black beads clicked back and forth for a few seconds until he waved a paw and made the entire thing explode into a puff of boredom.

"-- pieces of inferior competition for her free time are quite enough, thank you," he pouted. "And now we have you, at least for now, and now? Is already too long. So again -- who are --"

"-- and who," she callously interrupted him, "wants to know?"

The red eyes blinked. She kept looking at them. At his face, which was something which she felt would cost her dearly later. Not from having to continue taking in his warped appearance. It was being so close to insanity and waiting for it to decide the time had come to inflict itself. Facing down madness and -- not being afraid.

Not outwardly.

"...who," he repeated, inadvertently doing a rather good imitation of his only friend, "wants to know?"

"It's not as if you bothered with introducing yourself," Fleur declared, and added an artistic sniff. "If you're going to go around demanding somepony's identity, especially when you're on somepony else's property, when I have no idea if you're an invited guest -- actually, didn't you just tell me that you were sneaking around here last night, close to sunset? Is the owner aware you're been skulking about?"

She could die at any moment. He could do things to her which would make death into the best of all possible options. And it didn't matter. Because if he was going to do it, he would. She couldn't stop that, had no hopes of defending herself against any of it. Fleur would fight if she needed to, already knew she would lose -- and none of that mattered, because she wouldn't let it matter.

As long as I'm not afraid...

He blinked again.

"Who are you?" he demanded.

"Who are you?" she shot back.

The neck curled down. (There was no crack of fracturing vertebrae, and there should have been.) He was staring at her, from less than a hoofwidth away. She didn't move.

"Oh," he said, and pulled back until he was snidely looking down at her from his full height, or at least as close to it as the twisted posture would allow. "How rude of me! Of course, it's been quite some time since my last fully public appearance, at least for something other than a rather limited and, incidentally, decidedly unappreciative audience. Please allow me to introduce myself..."

He brought up a claw. The talons snapped, and the madness went into the world.

Sky twisted. The concept of air became solid, that of ground translated into water. She was pushed down into the sea of earth by the mountain of the sky, insects swam about her flashing fins of steel as her legs flailed, rocks became gel and coated her fur, she was trying to ignite her horn, find the working which would save her, but there was nothing she could do, nothing at all, she was going to --

-- there was a flash of light. She was dry and clean and standing in the pasture under a blue sky. And he was in front of her.

"I have," he said with a bemused false patience, "been working on my calling card. What do you think?"

Nearly every part of her wanted to scream. To flee. To leave Ponyville, forget she'd ever heard of Fluttershy, gallop back to Canterlot and beg for prison. Spend every moment of her scant time to come waiting for stone walls to melt.

But she had been taught, and that which had learned was still in charge.

"I think," she said, "it would be more practical to hand out something with your name on it." She made a minor show of inspecting paw and talon. "Was that the right verb? Handing something out? It's not as if you're going to kick or nose anything over, but with those... actually, I'm still waiting on a name. And as the first party to speak in this conversation? You're supposed to be the one providing it."

He took a breath. She suddenly realized it was the only one he'd taken.

"Seriously?" he declared. "I know some ponies don't exactly keep up with current events, but I would think --" He stopped. "-- you are staring at me."

She nodded.

"Why?"

"Because I'm still waiting to hear who you are. And I think you're stalling. Should I just go find the police?" If only for the image of what Miranda Rights would be like after going through that.

He rolled his eyes. The left one went all the way down his paw, leaving a trail of blood in the fur.

"Discord," he said, and casually tossed the orb back into its socket. "And you are?"

"Fleur," she replied. "Now please explain what you're doing on the property. Because I don't think you're here to drop off a pet."

(Her imagination briefly took over and tried to come up with something which he would have considered as a pet. She really wished it hadn't.)

"I am," and the petulance was back, "Fluttershy's friend. I understand this comes with certain obligations. To drop by. To check on her. To occasionally provide gifts, although --" and his tones temporarily dropped into those of the confidant "-- I am encountering certain difficulties in picking out something she won't tell me to take back. Or unmake. Undo. The entire category of rejection, really. It would be rather off-putting for most, I suppose, but she is supposed to be my friend and so in the name of that friendship? I endure. But really, Fleur, today and last night, I just happened to be checking on her. As her friend. To make sure she's all right. That no little thing, or no little pony, happens to be upsetting her. Because I also understand that when somepony is your friend and they have become upset, you are supposed to do something about it. To make the upset -- go away. So tell me, Fleur..."

He leaned in again. She didn't pull back.

"...do you upset her?"

She considered her answer.

"If I told her what you did just now? I probably would."

It made him take his second breath, pulling air past the protruding fang, and it played a melody. Eight notes, all beautiful, each completely pure, and none of which ever should have led into the others. Another partial straightening, returning to that curved, hunched posture.

"Why are you here, Fleur?"

She'd had that one ready. "I was sent by the palace --"

He snorted. Every blade of grass in the pasture died.

"Oh," he said. "Well! I know exactly what to do, then!" The talon was outstretched, that twisted arm reaching towards her just before the jovial "Hello!", followed by the worst smile in the world. "It's so nice to meet you, Fleur The Thirtieth! I'm sure we're going to be good friends! Just like One through Twenty-Nine! Such good friends, that I know they think of me often. All the time. Until they can't think of anything else. Because the palace believes they -- she? They? Oh, it could be a mutual effort, but I personally feel this one is pure Grimcess. To believe that she, and she alone, can choose my friends. I? Think some would find that offensive, I really do. But I'm working with it. And everypony she sends. Working on -- did I say on? With. I work with them until they discover the true meaning of friendship, possibly even writing a scroll about it, once they remember how to write again. Do you think any of them put down the first lesson? The one which says it can't be forced. But still, I'm sure you'll be different. You may even find a new appreciation for the little things in life. Like bear caves." He stretched paw and talon: knuckles theatrically cracked, which lost nothing for their having appeared outside his body. "Now, when last I left off with Twenty-Nine --"

"-- I'm not here," Fleur pointedly cut him off, "to be your friend."

The knuckles fell into the dead grass.

"...you're not?"

"I have," she continued, "no interest in being your friend."

She'd insulted him. She could see it in the warped features. The little sneer of distorted upper lip, the way those tattered eyebrows were moving. "Oh, really."

"I'm not here for you in any way."

She thought about what she'd said in the palace, that she could provide companionship. About having entertained the brief fantasy of having sex with this, acquiring it -- and then politely told her past self just what an idiot she'd been. She could easily spend the rest of her life kicking herself over such stupidity if such wasn't clearly a complete waste of time. And Fleur had shut down her talent before stepping onto the cottage grounds, unwilling to spend her hours there dealing with the crowding of intact animal pictures added to Fluttershy's sad blank slate. She was starting to realize that action might have been the greatest stroke of luck in her life.

"But you're from the palace," he said. "All the ones from the palace come for me. Unless --" and his tone shifted again, into something she refused to believe "-- is this a mission? Were you making her do -- whatever that was -- for a mission? Where is she going? When should she be --"

The reaction was just about instant and, as it turned out, not quite the right one. But to be fair, there were worse things Fleur could have said. To a degree, her instincts were good, because they kept the worst of the words away. She couldn't tell him everything: that felt as if it would have been the greatest of all possible mistakes, to let him know that the palace thought his friend's newborn foals would keep him controlled. But he was going to drop by. He would see things. He would wonder. And if he saw enough things, any total lie would fall apart. So she gave him a partial truth and in the end, many things would come from that.

There were worse things Fleur could have said. It could have been argued that there were no good words, and that something would have happened no matter what she chose to tell him. The right response might not have existed at all. And yet she would spend so much of her future time staring out at a stream and wondering if there were something else she could have told him. Done. Anything at all, right up until the moment he would appear behind her again.

"The palace sent me," Fleur told him, "because Fluttershy wants to start dating, and she asked for help with that. I'm here to teach her how. And that's all."

He frowned. The expression would have been comical on his face if it hadn't been so horrifying.

"Dating," he repeated.

Fleur nodded.

"Well," he shrugged, "I can take care of that! Really, she should have just said something! There's finally something she wants? Well, a friend will provide!"

And before she could chose a reaction through the fog of terror, he spit out his fang. It landed in the center of his paw, and he casually slung the browning tooth into the dead grass.

The soil exploded. Dirt rained down into Fleur's coat. Little pebbles beat against defensively-closed eyelids, and by the time she could see again --

"Yes," he decided with open satisfaction. "That should be enough."

Fleur stared across the eight body lengths, looked at the nodules of rough bark which coated the new tree. The spiny stalks, slow-waving fronds, and heavy bundles of fruits which bowed the branches down close to ground level.

Her nostrils flared, and in spite of what was going on, in spite of everything, the scent carried her home.

She slowly trotted forward. Staring at what had been made. At what almost couldn't be real. But the heavy clusters were hanging so low, she could just stretch out her neck and bite one if she just got close enough to --

"Excuse me," said the palm tree.

Fleur stopped.

"These," the tree impolitely insisted, "are Fluttershy's dates. Not yours. Where were you raised, to be so rude with somepony else's fruit?"

She glanced down, towards where the sound was coming from, and saw the mouth sticking out of the bark. A look back found half a missing skull, with vacuum covering the gap.

"Stop throwing your voice," she told him.

The mouth flashed back into existence in its proper location, along with a new fang. "It's a party trick!" he insisted, and began to walk closer. "So what do you think? Now, I know some ponies might say it's a little late in the season for dates, but really, seasons themselves? In some ways, they're a lot more recent than you might think. Making something of a comeback, you might say. But at any rate? Dates. Here they are. And so there is no longer any need for you. Seriously, why would the palace send a unicorn to grow something? Unless that mark is supposed to be the most stylized trees ever seen..."

She was still watching his approach, the shifting of the mismatched legs. (One was a little shorter than the other, giving him a hitching gait which Lens Cap would have probably charged him a trademark violation fee for.) And she sighed, making sure the sound was long, slow, and exasperated.

"Not that kind of date."

He stopped.

"So it's the time travel spell," he said. "You're taking her back, for the whole half-minute of it not doing any good or making a single difference. When?" And then, a little faster, "What did she want to see? Who --"

"-- I can't cast it." She'd never even heard of it, and every thought she could spare wanted to learn more. Time travel as a working? There were so many moments when just thirty seconds, half a scant minute given back to her would have --

'not doing any good'

-- she focused, and hated herself for having dreamed.

He was staring at her again. It was surprisingly easy to read his expressions, even when they came on a configuration of face she'd never seen before, perhaps because they were so exaggerated. Every feeling he had was writ larger than life across every grey feature. Or perhaps everything he was pretending to feel.

"I don't understand." And those words, as with so many things he'd said, were openly, childishly petulant. But they were also confused.

"Dating," Fleur said. "I'm teaching her how to date. You seriously don't know what that is?"

He blinked, and the red eyes flashed with light.

Discord vanished.

She waited several seconds and did not consider them wasted, for it was the time she needed to check the landscape. To make sure that ground was earth, sky was air, and there was nothing random in the area which would make them any other way. Of verifying that he was gone.

And then she sank into the restored grass, went down to her barrel and belly in the dirt without caring about her coat, and shivered. Trembled and shook and fought back the screams until a personal reality had been fully restored and the victory began to soak in.

...as long as I stay alert.

As long as I stay focused.

As long as I'm not afraid, I win.

I'm alive. That's how I know I won.

You would have been so proud of me...

Just Wait Until He Has To Look Up "Escort."

It took time for Fluttershy to return. Fleur wasn't sure just how much. Normally, she could track time rather precisely, at least when Sun and Moon were visible: she'd never found any spells for simply knowing what time it was (although she suspected she would be able to learn one rather easily), but she'd quickly figured out how to translate the movements of both celestial bodies into temporal passage. But in this case, she wasn't looking at the sky, and it took a while before she could really look at much of anything. She needed just about every minute she could get to recover.

She'd won. That was undeniable. Any kind of encounter on that level which ended with her still having any time at all meant the victory had been hers. But the battle had cost her, with every tenth-bit of that price postponed until a future which had quickly turned into the present. So she rested within the grass, steadied her breathing, and eventually got back to her hooves, with her field automatically igniting to clean her coat.

He would be coming back at some point, to see his friend. It meant she was probably going to wind up dealing with him again, and there might be many more meetings than a mere two.

Her shattered life now included a true dose of discord. And, as an incidental side acquisition of what could be argued as a much lesser level of chaos, her personal threat level still had to account for a Pinkie.

She distractedly wondered what would happen if the two ever met. Explosions, probably.

The restoration of the pasture appeared to be complete. The grass was alive again or at least, as alive as it had been before he had come: there were still browning blades here and there, as that supposedly-recent season of autumn continued to inflict a much slower death. A reluctant glance behind her found the date palm gone, with no signs of disruption to the soil, and that was the only negative aspect to his departure. A little fruit would have made her feel so much better, even if the nature of that fruit made her think (and possibly dream) of so many things.

Of course, that was assuming the dates would have tasted right. Given their creator, there was every chance they would have hit her tongue as dirt and decay and things which made her stomach churn just from the thoughts and --

-- she took a breath, talked her breakfast into staying where it was, and went back to grooming her coat.

He seems to think she's his friend. She called him her friend.

How was that possible? How could anypony think to make friends with -- that -- and succeed, much less have any semblance of sentiment returned? What had taken place between those two in order to create any level of bond, and -- what if he was lying? Just playing a game, the only one available which would allow him to remain free as long as he just pretended and didn't get caught --

-- no.

We're nothing alike. I'm me and he's -- I don't know what he is. She wasn't sure she wanted to know. I'll try to get out of this. But while I'm stuck in Ponyville, I'm going to do whatever I can to match Fluttershy. Match a blank. He's -- faking it. He has to be. Nothing like him could ever understand what being a friend is...

...could he?

Fleur... didn't have friends. Not now, anyway. Over the course of her life, her closest bond had been of a somewhat different nature and looking back, for the others she'd known, there had been those she'd used, the ones who'd tried to use her, and...

...I didn't need friends. I had something better than a friend. And...

...well, at least she knew what friendship was. She certainly knew how to make somepony believe she was forming a bond closer than that as the first stage to pushing deeper into that pony's saddlebags and bank accounts. She understood friendship as connection, duty, and bargaining chip. It made her better than Discord. It made her completely different.

But the questions still nagged her. What had happened between those two, in order to create even the illusion of a bond? And if it was somehow real... Fluttershy had taken in a tiger, and that now appeared to be just the start. There was a lot to learn about her charge, and she would need to figure some of it out rather quickly. The bond might be made from shadow and deceit -- but even then, the other entity might honor it for as long as he felt it would give him advantage. She could not acquire Discord or rather, after that encounter, would not. It might still be possible to exert her talent against him, read his deepest desires -- and she didn't know if anything of her would survive the acquisition of knowledge. But as long as she had to spend time with Fluttershy...

He wants to at least make it look as if he cares about whether she's happy. That gives her leverage over him, even if she won't use it. She moves him -- and I move her...

It was a thought, and refining it kept her distracted right up until Fluttershy returned.

Fleur paid careful attention to the pegasus' lone visible eye as the yellow wings slowed in their movement, and immediately noticed the second place Fluttershy looked: towards where the debris had been. At the moment of first visibility, the worried gaze had been trained towards Fleur, as if making sure she was still there at all. And once she'd ascertained the trash was gone, that blue-green iris shifted towards the unicorn again.

"...I'm sorry," the pegasus expertly, possibly automatically apologized. "...I didn't -- I never know how long it's going to take, and... it was an emergency, it really was, I wouldn't have left like that if I didn't absolutely have to and -- are you okay?" With surprising haste, "I mean, were you okay waiting for me? Nothing -- happened?"

You knew. There were no comfort in the thought. You knew he was there, in the form of the trash, and you were afraid to leave me alone with him.

"I'm sorry, I hope everything will be all right, please be all right, please"

You were talking to him, weren't you? Telling him to leave me alone. To make sure I was all right. And he --

-- he hadn't killed her. He could have, so very easily. But instead, he'd settled for trying to terrify her, and she hadn't let it work...

There were any number of things Fleur could have said. Letting Fluttershy know exactly what had taken place in the pasture might have given her the chance to see just much leverage the pegasus could truly exert over chaos. But letting Discord know Fleur had been scared would give him power over her, and that was something she wasn't willing to allow. If she needed to get him off her tail, if there was no other resort, then she would go to Fluttershy and see what could be done. But for now... well, like griffon cuisine, some blackmail material needed to rest for a while in order to set properly.

She searched for words, and found what she believed to be the right ones.

"You had a visitor," Fleur calmly said. "But he knows you're busy, so he'll just come back some other time."

"...a --" And now it was Fluttershy who was searching for the right words. "-- visitor?"

Fleur nodded.

Fluttershy's gaze briefly, involuntarily went to where the debris had been. "...he talked to you?"

Another nod, along with the most dismissive hoof-planted shrug Fleur could manage.

"...and you're okay," Fluttershy carefully checked, disbelief and hope mixing into the soft voice in desperate equal measure. "...you're really okay?"

Fleur's sigh was mostly artificial, completely credible, and fully expert. "If I wasn't okay," she stated, "I wouldn't be here. Do you have time now?"

After too many seconds, "...yes. Until something else happens. And while I was mixing the medicine, I was -- thinking. About sexy walks. And attracting partners. I had a few -- ideas. I think... can I try again?"

"Go ahead." Fleur settled back to watch.

Fluttershy took several deep breaths, gathering what little strength she had. Feathers rustled. The incredible tail twitched. And once all the shreds had been temporarily knit together, Sexy Trot 2.0 was unleashed upon the world.

Fleur watched it all, mostly in horror. The movement of Fluttershy's hips, with wings inadvisably involved and forelegs left as what appeared to be a complete lack of afterthought. The little head bobs which never should have been part of any pony movement. And then there was that totally idiotic thing which she was trying to do with her tail --

-- memory clicked and this time, she had to deliberately keep her hooves planted on the dirt.

"Peacock."

"...um... yes..."

"You are trying to attract a pony," Fleur needlessly clarified, "by moving like a peacock."

"...but it works for them..."

"And I'm sure that if you were looking for a peahen, you'd be bringing in any number of potential partners," Fleur stated, followed by using six seconds to get that image out of her mind. "It's the right idea, but the wrong species. Try again."

Fluttershy tried again.

"Ram."

And again.

"Badger."

Yet again.

"Okay," Fleur said after the concept of speech finally came back. "There was a time in your life when you were in the presence of a horny manticore, you memorized the way they move, and you just figured out how to mimic it, even when you have exactly the wrong kind of tail and mane. I'm sure there's a situation where that would be useful and I never want to find out what it is. You are trying to lure in a pony. And if you can pay enough attention to recreate some degree of how a horny manticore moves, you must know something about pony --"

"-- I... don't." And there was a rising tide of red coming up under the yellow fur, even as that lovely head tilted away from Fleur, looking down at the dying grass. "I don't... watch ponies. I didn't want to see... what I was missing..." With a just barely audible increase in volume and a much more perceptible rise in pain, "...and I don't know how ponies move when they want to be with somepony else, I don't..."

She stopped. Looked up, directly at Fleur, if only with that one eye.

"...but you do."

"It's part of my job," Fleur replied. "I know how to move -- but my methods won't completely work for you. There are wing shifts which pegasi display when they're on the prowl. I can't show you how you're supposed to move because I don't have the anatomy, Fluttershy. I can give you something to build on, but it's not going to completely work for you. Not when you're moving like a unicorn and your wings are just tucked against your sides."

There was an answer to that from the caretaker and no matter how hard Fleur strained, she couldn't make out any of it.

"I didn't hear that."

Softly, "...it's most of what they're good for anyway. Would you show me? Please?"

Fleur took a slow breath, tossed her head a little and made sure her mane was in an ideal starting position. "Okay. But it's still going to need a lot of adjustment."

"...I understand. But -- just so I can see. Please?"

She nodded, then took ten unnecessary and fully normal hoofsteps, moving past Fluttershy. If she was going to demonstrate for her charge, then she was going to follow the same pattern her student had been using. Go to the starting position, get ready, and then --

Other than Fluttershy, there were no pony witnesses in that pasture. Nopony was around who could truly appreciate what Fleur was doing, much less collapse into a trembling mass of rising hormones. The local audience reacted to her by simply -- watching. Closely. There was no outer reaction beyond that, and Fleur had serious doubts about an inner.

But if anypony else had been watching...

Hooves did not impact the earth: they brushed against it, gently gliding across the surface in a way which would have translated so well to rubbing fur. Every so often, the forelegs would plant just a little more solidly while adding a tiny sliver of rotation to their landing, as if the land itself was a weary muscle in need of expert massage. Hips shifted in such a way as to make the wondrously-styled tail sway over hindquarters: hide, reveal, hide, reveal -- and every time, just before the true scope of what was being revealed could be fully taken in, the hiding would begin again, forcing any normal spectator to strain for another glimpse. A tiny smile rested upon the absolute corners of her mouth, added to eyes which were half-lidded. The mare regarded the world through seeming to glance backwards at all of it, as if checking to see if any portion had chosen to follow. Daring it to follow, presenting a challenge for which Sun and Moon might have to rally strength before any attempt at undertaking -- but the dare had to be honored, for strength needed to be proven.

That regard was completely casual. All of it was effortless, for everywhere she went was a place she owned simply through venturing there, and those who chose to follow would forever be moving through her lands. She was in charge, in charge of everything and the only option anypony would retain would be the illusion that they had the right to say no. She would decide which of them were allowed to say no. She would decide everything...

Fleur stopped, turned, trotted back.

"Like that," she said. "Only with wings. I know what that looks like, but I can't cast illusions. So we really need to find a pegasus mare for you to watch. I'm going to start checking out Ponyville's nightlife, and once I locate the right place, you and I are going to go --"

"-- I... I can't do that."

Fleur had been expecting it. "Not exactly that, no. You're a pegasus and I'm a unicorn. The movements are going to be different. But once you adjust --"

"-- you're... beautiful."

It was something Fleur heard a lot, under all sorts of circumstances. The words, coming from Fluttershy, meant very little. There had been no attraction within them, nothing even faintly resembling an attempt at approach. It had simply been a statement, and it was one which had been meant to lead into another.

"...and... I'm not."

Fleur heard the sincerity. The absolute, unquestioning belief.

"Fluttershy --"

And before she could get past that, the rest of the words came, faster than she'd ever heard the pegasus speak, emerging on a geyser of pain. "I was really gawky for a long time, and my wings aren't aerodynamic enough, not like Rainbow's, never like Rainbow's and I can't do anything to fix it, my tail is... I can't ever buy dresses from stores because nothing ever goes over my tail right, and I can't buy dresses at all because I can't afford them and everything I have is a gift, she can't afford to keep giving me gifts like that when all the materials cost her so much and she doesn't even get her costs back, my tail is too full and my wings are too big and I... I'm not beautiful. I'm not even... I'm..."

"You were a model." The words were not helpless, at least not for those which sounded outside her mind. "You don't get to be a model if you aren't --"

"-- she... said there was a temporary trend, a fashion cycle which had come around, and... I sort of fit the dresses, because they were made for me -- well, altered -- and I moved like she told me to, she just wanted somepony who would do whatever she told them, and I just... did it, because somepony told me to, and I didn't want to make anypony feel bad. But she said there wasn't anything special about me in the end, that I was just like a thousand other ponies who could take direction, and..."

The original intent had been for Fleur to take her own vengeance on the renamed Lens Cap. Nothing more. But the moisture was gathering over the visible blue-green eye, that gaze was dropping steadily downwards, and Fluttershy wouldn't look at Fleur any more. She just looked at the dying grass, because it meant she didn't have to see herself.

"...I'm... for how I look, they... they sang, and... I couldn't do the most important thing, so nopony wanted me for anything, and... when they came after that, it was just to get me into a place where I'd have to, it was a setup every time, and I -- I'm not beautiful. I'm not even -- I just --"

Those somewhat oversized wings flared out. And then Fluttershy was gone.

[/hr]

It took time for Fleur to make her way back to the cottage, with the animals carefully watching her as she approached the door. There seemed to be an increased scrutiny in that regard again, and she wondered if it was because they believed she'd made their mistress cry. Or perhaps they were simply watching, for the fainting couch had already testified to Fluttershy's tears being something other than a rare event.

It took time to approach that door, along with a surprising amount of effort just to raise her left foreleg for the knock.

"Fluttershy?"

No response, at least not one which came in words.

A little more carefully, "I know you're in your sitting room. I can hear you."

The sobs faltered.

"...come back tomorrow," the pegasus just barely said, the words faintly audible through the wood. "We... have to do this. I have to. So come back tomorrow, when you can. Just... tomorrow." And then the word Fleur had known would finish it. "...please..."

"We have to talk." Insistent. Dominant.

"...no."

Fleur blinked. "We have to --"

"-- come back... tomorrow. For now, just -- go away. Please... go away..."

She felt it then, the pressure of the little eyes around her. Watching. Waiting.

Her horn ignited, tested the door's lock. Ensorcelled, and powerfully: the lingering feel about it suggested a strength she'd never directly encountered before, a level of power she barely understood to exist. It had to be the work of the Elements' Bearer of Magic, and it was something Fleur didn't think she could break.

"You swear you'll see me tomorrow?"

"...I swear on..." and then, instead of invoking a Princess, "...I swear."

She had no way in, and so Fleur turned away from the door.

"Tomorrow," she said, and left the property as animals stared at her, their scrutiny holding until the moment she was over the bridge, her own previous thought echoing with every slow hoofstep.

'Nopony could look like this and not figure out what they have.'

She'd been wrong.

[/hr]

He'd had any number of options, and he preferred for all of them to be uninterrupted. While it was generally at least a little entertaining to watch ponies react when he decided to pay a casual visit, there were times when he simply needed privacy. And it was always best to keep the Grimcess from getting involved. Those with no sense of humor had a hard time dealing with reality, especially when so much of it was a joke.

So he could have gone to the tree, simply because upsetting the purple bundle of neuroses by cutting into her seemingly eternal need for order was something he found to be more than a little amusing. But it meant said bundle would consult the palace regarding his visit, and once that happened...

In a way, he recognized that his freedom was... tentative. He believed the Grimcess perceived him as being on something of a rather odd leash, resented the very thought, and could slip it off any time he wanted to. Not that it existed at all, of course. And if it somehow pretended to, he could so easily punish the very concept for the offense it had wrought. He just... chose not to, at least for now.

It would, after all, upset his friend.

So he waited, and there was a time when that would have been highly unusual for him. But so much time trapped in stone had taught something which could at least pretend to be patience, and he exercised that reluctant muscle until the last interfering pony was well away from where he wanted to be. It was only then that he allowed himself to fully manifest in that section of the Canterlot Archives, and he looked around at the books stacked high on sky-reaching shelves, placed carefully into alcoves carved into the walls, every last text cataloged and registered and ordered.

It was, in many ways, offensive, and that was before he reached the books themselves. He didn't generally understand the point of books. Fiction, now that was all right: the idea of creating a cherished lie, one which would distort the world around it as sapients came to believe in its teachings -- well, that could certainly work out for the best, depending on just what was being taught. But the capturing of facts and figures found on the other side of the quill, the simplistic determination to calcify... well, he could hardly be expected to take that lying down, now could he? Facts had to be tested: how else could they truly be proven?

There were times when he almost felt the librarian was starting to understand that, if only a little, and it was generally followed by an instant retreat into denial of the very concept. But he felt she would learn in time, if mostly in spite of herself. It just took the right teacher.

But for now...

"Dating," he told the books.

They perked up. Spines vibrated. Covers shifted at the edges. Several publishing logos gazed down at him expectantly.

"What, exactly, is dating?"

The texts of that carefully-chosen Archives section began to talk. All of them at once, creating a babble which he rather relished, for it was logical procession which could still rankle against the very core of his being, and the little chaos of truly overlapping arguments washed over him like perfume. He easily followed every flow of speech at the same time, taking it all in.

Then he thought about what he was hearing.

And then he did something which was still so rare for him, and listened.

"Oh, for..." and as usual, could find nothing to swear by, although at was seldom a problem. "ENOUGH!"

The books shut up, and he began to pace across the Archives' floor.

"Under most circumstances, I would be applauding right now," he admitted. "The group of you have constructed a work of art. Yes, there is but a single ultimate definition, and I typically find that standard to be somewhat lacking --"

Most of the volumes had the grace to blush.

"-- but I do understand that definition." Or at least he knew how reproduction worked, because while he could conjure a new species into existence, creating one which could subsequently wave up its own next generation was considerably more complicated. All things considered, allowing his work to use the extant system had just been a lot simpler, along with preventing anything he'd empowered from seeing what else it could dream up. "A step towards finding a mate. So ultimately, that would mean Fluttershy wants to..."

He thought about that.

"She wants to find a mate."

There were ways in which he could have found the future subject of that unexpected desire offensive: after all, he was already competing with all those others for her time, if only on a strictly technical level: he couldn't make time and had no power to change the past, but he was completely sure that he could have her all to himself whenever he truly needed that, just because. He took offense at having to work for the moments when he was the focus of her attention because he was expected to. Also because it was offensive, and having this -- Fleur... on the premises gave him no comfort. Adding another entity to that...

But the suddenly-established fact was overshadowed by another, much more important one.

Fluttershy -- wanted something.

"All very well and good," he decided. "Dating. I get that, I really do. And under so many other circumstances, I would admire the lot of you, because while you all seem to mostly agree on what dating is -- none of you are in any accordance about how to do it!"

The entire upper section simultaneously winced.

"You," he declared, pointing to one of the offenders. "You believe that immediately following an encounter, one should send flowers to the mare's home. At the very least. Assuming things went well, of course, because an apology bouquet is something different, and perhaps a little more bitter when consumed. Because the mare needs to know she is the subject of your attentions. Correct?"

The book awkwardly nodded, which was a truly impressive feat when you considered the total lack of head and neck.

"And you," he accused, spinning to face another, "state that the only way to succeed is through ignoring the mare. Make her feel as if she did something wrong, to the point where she and she alone makes the next move simply because she must learn how the other pony feels about her. Do you deny it?"

That book vibrated in a rather uncertain way.

"You! You say to compliment her at every possible moment. You! No, insult her, make her feel bad about herself to the point where she can be controlled. And then we get to you: compliment, but only backhoof kicks, praise which makes the mare feel bad about herself! A truly impressive and, might I add, somewhat nauseating feat. You say to concentrate on a single mare, you want those dates to be spread out among many, and you want them all to know about each other and battle it out!"

"I'm not supposed to be here," that last book timidly said.

"Oh?"

"I'm a harem fantasy which one of the junior Archivists was reading on the sly," the text apologetically admitted. "Sorry."

"Ah. Hardly your fault." Which was followed by a spin on his single hoof, one which left him facing a different volume entirely. "Then what's your excuse?"

"I inspired her author," the volume reluctantly confessed. "Sorry..."

He sighed.

"Which of you," he carefully inquired with completely false patience, "contains information on the right way to date?"

Several thousand volumes simultaneously insisted it was them. It touched off the fight, and he watched the hardcovers as they went after the paperbacks. The harem fantasy sensibly hid under a desk and was soon covered by the drifting remnants of shredded pages.

"Yes," he observed, watching a partial guide to effective backhoofed compliments go past him, "this is a lovely little bit of chaos. And normally, I would approve, I truly would. The problem is that this particular portion of happy disorder has completely failed to answer my question."

He snapped his talons. The books stopped fighting. Fragments wove together, united, bound themselves to spines just before the covers of those on the shelves closed, never to move again.

He took a quick glance under the desk.

"Harem fantasy?"

"...yes."

"Remind me to look up 'harem'."

He straightened as much as he ever did, looked around one more time.

"So apparently," he sighed, already feeling unjustly put upon, "this is going to require research."

And then he was gone.

After three minutes had passed, the lone still-animated book risked peeking out from under the desk, then found itself wondering what it was supposed to do with its life.

Light flashed.

"Research," Discord said, "requires a research assistant."

He picked up the rather surprised book, and they both vanished.

Dangerous Learning Curves Ahead

She needed a place to think. Somewhere she would have privacy, without having to worry about being interrupted by the animals roaming on the periphery of the cottage grounds -- and since Fluttershy didn't use what Fleur felt would have been basic, common sense precautions, the cottage residents might see "periphery" as stretching just about all the way to Ponyville. A place where ponies moving to and from the cottage wouldn't disturb her, and now she'd had her first taste of proof that Fluttershy, even without the veterinary license, effectively had the profession's hours: if somepony needed help, the cottage was open for business. Fleur needed solitude, at least for a few minutes.

The abandoned mill provided.

She wasn't thankful for the circumstances which had given her the opportunity to check up on it, but being able to venture within during daylight hours allowed her to see just what level of pony inquiries had been made in the wake of her first break-in. The answer quickly turned out to be "none." When she'd initially gone inside, there had been no protections beyond a few locks which had been rapidly proven as something much less than unicorn-proof, at least for a unicorn who knew what she was doing. And now she knew that at least when it came to daily checks, nothing was happening. She'd evened out the coating of interior dust before leaving, negated all physical signs of pony presence. Nothing new had appeared. Nopony had gone inside since she'd left, and the telltale splinters she'd arranged across the door frame only broke when she entered.

It still wasn't a good time for a full exploration. Daily security checks were off the board: once-per-moon visits only required two ponies to intersect within the non-miracle of perfectly bad timing. But she did glance around at the machinery as it rested (and rusted) under the dust-laden glow of Sun. The water wheel continued to turn, for the river outside was flowing and the axle had yet to permanently jam. But Fleur suspected that time was coming: there was an odd creaking to the rotations, and the portion of the wheel which could be viewed from the mill's interior had an unsteady wobble at the apex. That vibration traveled into the gears, teeth skipped slightly -- but everything continued to turn, at least for a little while longer. Energy without direction, work without purpose.

The mill was dead: she'd known that at the moment of first sighting. It just didn't know it was a corpse. It laid perfectly still and pretended to breathe, tried to present the illusion that those breaths brought in air which would still do some good. It twitched instead of moving, but it kept twitching and you would wait for one of those twitches to gain a little more strength, become true movement, the stretching out of a foreleg as chance for first step or --

-- it was dead. Dead and rotting under Sun and Moon. In time, the twitching would stop, and that time couldn't come soon enough. But for now, it was a place to think.

She made sure she wasn't standing in a sight line for any of the windows, even the highest ones: pegasi could always be flying by. The best place turned out to be behind a long conveyor belt, the heavy canvas still going around and around as the water insisted on providing the corpse with that ineffective illusion. She watched the same dark stain go by three times as her thoughts finally began to shift into some sort of workable order, and they led off with the same refrain which had followed Fleur all the way down the path from the cottage.

Something happened to her.

Something bad. Something dark. Something when Fluttershy had been a child. Something...

inevitable

...which shouldn't have happened. An event which had expressed its opinion of that by happening anyway. Because childhood was often laughably described as innocence and hope and potential in a world which hated all of it, and so that world had hated Fluttershy. It couldn't be stopped. No intervention ever came. Things -- happened, and the most anypony could hope for was to survive, learn from them, and find a way to forge their pain until it hardened into steel at their core. The purpose of pain was to make you strong, and Fluttershy... wasn't.

Fleur thought she knew the rough shape of what had happened, just from the words which had emerged before Fluttershy had fled. The world was cruel, and it often expressed that cruelty not only towards the young, but through them. But the words... it was unlikely they had been spoken on purpose. You forged pain into a solid because if you let it flow through you, the heat would continue to rise until blood turned to steam and everything found a way to vent. Things came out. Sentences which weren't meant to be spoken, actions you hadn't wanted to take. Fluttershy's pain had reached its boiling point, and the pressure had pushed out words.

A pony who'd deliberately spoken might have done so as a sympathy ploy: come near me, talk to me, pity me -- and now that you feel sorry for me, you'll do anything to make me feel better, anything I say... because pain, sufficiently solidified, could be wielded as a weapon against the world. But Fleur, even with having only known Fluttershy for so little time, was sure the pegasus was incapable of that. The words hadn't been meant to emerge, and she'd hidden from whatever had been done in their wake. She would want to forget, even when doing so was impossible. She would ignore it, allow the heat to drop into the lower level of background torment while the inner river flowed and waited for its chance to flood through her again. And she would not want Fleur to talk about the words, in any way, at all, and possibly ever.

So what can I do with her?

No matter what anypony might lie about, there was no cure for pain. There was only the forging, and Fleur only knew how to place her own river under the pressure of cold logic, force bale-weights of time and need against it until only the steel remained. Pain happened, for that was the way of the world and when you chose what to do with it, you could only choose for yourself. Fluttershy's river would push against her from the inside and every so often, a gear would skip. Dam it and the flow would push on the barrier until everything exploded.

"She has... certain problems."

So in addition to a potentially infinite amount of time, Celestia had both a gift for understatement and a rather snide skill at creating unusual prison sentences, because Fleur's had just turned out to be for life. There was no cure for pain, and Fluttershy's agonies would forever keep her from finding a mate --

--no. There has to be a way out of this. Even if there's no way to match her with anypony, match a blank who won't ever let herself believe anypony could be attracted to her when she's that beautiful with that tail, there has to be some way I can get enough leverage over Celestia to get out of Ponyville, and that could still start with the Bearers. With Fluttershy. I can't abandon this. Not that she could anyway, at least not in a way which involved physical departure. She could have prospectively just shown up at the cottage every so often, pretended to go through the motions of teaching while claiming she was taking the slow path -- but that would have been aiding and abetting in her own jail time.

Pain can't be cured, because the past doesn't change. What happened to her -- happened, and she's not the sort of pony who can forge it. Or forget. Nopony could ever truly forget.

Gears clicking nearby. Mesh, mesh, mesh -- skip -- mesh, mesh...

But maybe it can be diverted. Send it flowing in a new direction.

Fleur had been taught how to do that, as a first hoofstep towards living with everything. Did Fluttershy know how to do it? Could that be taught? Or would just getting her out into a social setting provide new opportunities, carve out fresh channels...

She took a deep breath, watched the dust swirl within the light.

She wasn't a therapist. She'd met several and managed not to laugh at any of them over the moons in which she'd been forced to have some degree of contact, because nopony could get their escort's license without passing certain classes, including one in psychology -- and that was a course which those future escorts shared with future psychiatrists, each gazing with mildly horrified fascination at the alien form of life on the other side of the aisle. To a large degree, Fleur had found that course beneficial: she'd already had a pretty good idea of how ponies thought (and her talent didn't exactly hurt there: the hardest part to get through without full-scale public mirth had been the chapters on equine sexuality, and Fleur could have merrily rewritten most of that if it hadn't been so blatantly self-sabotaging, plus she was certain nopony ever would have published it), and having some portions of it confirmed didn't hurt. But to hear her teacher talking about means of cure... it had taken too much to stay on her bench, and she'd usually wound up exiting the campus at high speed, trying to find a private place before the giggles could completely take over.

Pain couldn't be cured. Ever. But you could live with it. You could work with it, use it. And somehow, she would need to find a way of working with Fluttershy's. It would hurt the pegasus: Fleur knew that. It might kick her over and over until something broke, and Fleur would have to try and prevent things from going that far. But it still had to be done. Pain was many things, including

inevitable

Another breath, gazing around at the mill. Shadows were playing across one filthy windowpane. It could have been wind shifting a branch, or it might have been something flying by: either way, she shifted deeper into the darkness. Just in case.

We keep going.

[/hr]

There were hours to work with, unexpected ones, and Fleur made the most of them.

A few queries brought her to the bookstore, and it gave her two of the things she'd needed most: a personal copy of Ponyville's weather schedule -- and a map, one which had been commissioned by many of the local businesses and therefore not only indicated streets, but had various highlighted sections where marks were overlaid on buildings and nearby text indicated just what kind of facility was operating there. She quickly located the spa she'd passed earlier, saw the library tree, noted with some surprise that there was a public bathhouse --

"Excuse me?" The bookseller reluctantly turned to face her. (Fleur already knew the shop owner didn't like her. Beauty had its price, and part of the payment could come in jealousy from those who were strictly average in appearance and couldn't stand the thought of anypony who surpassed them being allowed to exist.) "The veterinarian." Fleur's corona ignited, and a tiny spot of glow indicated the proper place on the map. "Is she any good?"

"Sweetbark?" the bookseller asked, looking in as closely as she could manage without any degree of actual approach. And then, with a completely unexpected smile as the dislike towards Fleur's appearance was momentarily overridden by the shared bonds of what the pony was now perceiving as another pet owner, "She's perfect."

"Really?" Fleur casually asked.

"She," the bookseller declared, "has never lost a patient. Everypony here knows that. You're currently in the same settled zone as Equestria's best vet. Just feel lucky if you ever get to see her."

Get to? Fleur examined the thought, then allowed it to manifest as speech.

"Well, because she's perfect," the bookseller explained, "there's a lot of demand for her services. So much that she can't see everypony, or every animal they bring her. She has to decide who she can squeeze in. But if she can see you, your pet will be perfectly fine. You can count on that. I've been taking my Kori to her for years --" a quick nod to the green-and-gold cockatiel preening itself on the perch near the front display window, proudly standing guard over the bestsellers "-- and she's perfectly healthy."

Carefully, "Well -- what if she can't work me in? Where do I go then?"

"You could take the train to Canterlot," the mare told her. "But if you're desperate... well, there's a cottage out by the fringe. But you might want to avoid that, unless there's no other choice." A tiny shudder traveled across the skinny body, and several nearby magazines seemed to vibrate in sympathy.

"Why?"

More softly, tone dipping into the near-whisper of casual gossip. "Because that one isn't perfect. Animals die there. All the time."

[/hr]

Fleur's field carried the unfurled map some distance in front of her as she trotted out of that shop, still thinking.

Mark magic was, in many ways, subtle: relatively few talents had overt manifestations beyond boosts to their possessor's skills. But within Equestria, that subtle power was also just about universal, and all the little magics added up into something which could move the world. And it was true that some ponies had stronger talents than others. (Fleur, who'd had practically no chance to discuss such things, still suspected she was fairly advanced within the herd.) So somepony whose mark and talent was for being a vet, assuming they'd backed natural inclinations with study, would always be more skilled than somepony who'd put in an equal amount of work without having the appropriate icon to back it up. Fluttershy's mark appeared to be for communication with animals -- not healing. And in that sense, when it came to the treatment of her charges, she was effectively destined for some level of second place. A natural vet who'd taken all the courses and kept up with the unending flow of journals would be better. Period.

But -- perfect?

Fleur had known ponies with veterinary marks. Not well: she'd occasionally had a question answered if she'd piped up with just the right tone, but she'd mostly been treated as either intrusive background material or extra equipment while the vets went about their duties: either hold this and steady that while lifting here or leave. Those vets had been skilled, and she'd occasionally thought she could see when their marks went into action, spotting the little flashes of insight as they arrived within pony eyes. But they hadn't been perfect. As far as Fleur knew based on the strength of the talents she'd been able to observe, a pony could be the best vet in the world and when faced with a fatal wound or incurable disease, all your mark would do was tell you that the organs wouldn't heal, the infection was beyond all hope, and it was time to approach the owner and ask if they wanted some time alone with the one who was about to be lost. For a vet to have never lost a patient would mean a talent which could magically cure those diseases, knit flesh and replace blood -- something she'd never personally witnessed.

So is it possible she has one of the strongest talents in the world and ponies are coming from all over the continent for a chance at guarantee, hoping she can squeeze them in? And Fluttershy gets the leftovers, most of which are going to be really bad cases because any pony who comes that far did so for a major reason. Without that same magic helping her, the animals die at the cottage. It would let her maintain a practice with a true vet in town, because that vet is perfect -- so perfect and so nationally reputable for that perfection that it's impossible for her to see everypony.

Was that within the realm of possibility? Could any mark grant magic that powerful?

It was remotely possible that Sweetbark was the Bearer of Magic, taking the Element simply due to mark strength, and that the Element had further boosted her ability. Anypony in the settled zone could be the Bearer of that Element, and perhaps being a Bearer of any kind would bring such benefits. But...

When it came to magic, Fleur wasn't an expert. She'd never attended any level of gifted school, although she'd spent more than a few nights accompanying their graduates to parties, because it sometimes seemed as if the ability to learn about how thaums interacted cost more than a few former students any capacity for figuring how ponies did it. Get beyond her own abilities plus the things she'd personally observed and it wouldn't take her long to enter the worrisome realm of guesswork.

She wasn't an expert -- but she knew when to listen to her instincts. And in this case, that deeper voice was telling her something was wrong.

I have to identify the other five Bearers. Soon.

Fleur took another look at the map.

[/hr]

The light brown earth pony stallion had a mane which moved across his head in waves, a series of small spiky crests working their way down his neck into what never quite resolved into a final cascade. He was perhaps a decade older than Fleur, somewhat handsome, wearing a ridiculously-long rainbow-hued scarf as first shield against a light touch of fall chill, and he was attracted to her. She'd felt his attraction from several body lengths away, noticed the movement of familiar pieces coming to rest against each other. Fleur wasn't exactly his type: there were a few requirements which she was missing, and he had no way of judging what she was capable of in the privacy of a bedroom. But he had hope, and it had all come surging into his pupils at the moment she'd pretended to coincidentally glance in his direction -- followed by a shy smile and careful, half-timid trot towards him. (He liked initial timidity, and he liked it to vanish upon contact with a mattress.)

"Yes?" he said, with most of the hope shifting into his voice. (He had a pleasant voice, lightly accented, and she decided he was Trottingham-born.) "Can I help you with something?"

"Please," she smiled. "I'm new in town, and I was just looking at this map..." Her field opened it a little wider, rotated it for his viewing pleasure. "I noticed how many things are indicated, all the businesses which want a new arrival to know where they are. Is this part really true? Is that the original Barnyard Bargains?"

"Surprisingly," he smiled back. "I know -- most ponies think it's the one in Canterlot. But yes, that's the very first. In fact, the owner lives in town."

Which got a genuine blink of surprise out of her, and she filed that little fact away for later. "Oh! I just thought they might have decided to sneak the claim past the head office. And... well, I am new." She held back the 'sir,' as to address this pony as an elder would break the illusion of his actually having a chance with her. And illusion it was, because while he was certainly handsome enough, unless he turned out to be the Most Important Pony Around, there was just about no way Fleur was ever going to spend too much time with somepony whose mark displayed an hourglass. "And I've heard so much about Ponyville! Well, I guess everypony has by now. And I was looking at the map, and..." She tilted her head, made the smile a little shyer. "...I was curious about something."

"What?" he quickly asked. "I've been here for years. I can probably answer pretty much any question you might have about the town."

"It's a silly thing, really," she smiled. "But in a way... well, I wouldn't be here right now if it wasn't for them. Not under Sun or on stable ground. I was thinking about that, just from being in town. I guess most ponies don't think about it at all, even when they're this close, but... I thought, since I'm here, I could thank them... but I don't know where they live. The Bearers, I mean. And if you could just show me --"

The smile had vanished.

Blue eyes moved their gaze over her, completely avoiding the barrel he'd been taking so much care not to get caught looking at. They went over Fleur's face a few times.

"Are you just visiting here?" he slowly asked. "Or have you moved in?"

"Moved in!" she declared, trying to shore up his sudden ebb of enthusiasm with a balancing surge. "Just a little while ago. I'm actually about to start house-hunting --"

"-- good," he cut her off, and the right forehoof lightly stomped. "Welcome to Ponyville. I hope you enjoy being here. And because I also hope you enjoy living here, I'm going to tell you the same thing I tell pretty much everypony who asks me that. What just about anypony here would tell you when somepony asks that question. Only this time, I'm going to be a little more polite about it."

He took a deep breath. The lean muscles along his torso shifted.

"If you were a tourist," he told her, "I would tell you not to bother them. And if you're going to be a resident -- then you should mostly find out which ponies they are on your own. Because once you manage to meet them, once you know them... you'll realize why they shouldn't be bothered."

He shrugged slightly, started to turn away from her -- then glanced back.

"How long have you been in town?"

Fleur, half-frozen with the shock of having been denied, still managed to keep most of her scramble to recover completely internal.

"This is my second day," she continued to smile. "So I really do need somepony to show me around, who's been here for years and knows the best neighborhood to live in --"

"-- second day?" A small snort. "Then I can pretty much guarantee you've already met one. Or she's met you. You've been in the presence of Laughter's Bearer, and I hope you got a giggle out of it, at least once the shock wore off. And once she's fully done her part for you, there's a good chance you'll meet at least a few of the others. They probably won't tell you who they are. Most of them usually don't. But given enough time, you'll see all of them, you might speak with most of them -- and after that's happened, when you figure out which ponies they are -- then, when the next new arrival comes into town and asks you who the Bearers are -- you'll tell that pony not to bother them. On the day that happens, no matter where you were born or how long you've been here, you'll be a Ponyville native. I hope it happens soon. But until then -- let it happen. All of it."

Is he smelling the cottage on me? She had to find the Foal-Castille soap -- no, that couldn't be it, there was no way under Sun that Fluttershy could have been Laughter...

"Now," he continued, "if you're looking for a place to live, I do have a suggestion. The settled zone is expanding fast: we've had more than a few ponies moving in since the Elements were rediscovered. New neighborhoods are springing up. But there's a few older places available and if you really want to learn about Ponyville, I'd suggest moving into one of them. It'll be easier when you're among ponies who've been here a while. So -- if you're looking to rent, I know a house which has been empty for -- a while. It's actually switched owners because the last landlord couldn't keep a tenant in it any more, and the current one dropped the price into the basement as their last possible lure. Would you like to see it?"

He smiled again, and there was warmth in it. Fleur, who'd been denied, didn't care.

But -- low rent was low rent, although it begged the question of why the owner(s) couldn't keep a tenant in the house.

"It's in a good neighborhood?"

"Decent," he assured her. "It's on the west side of town, and there's a lot of families in that area."

Which would at least put her closer to the cottage, and there was a chance she'd already gone past the For Rent sign in the dark. "Would you show me? Please?"

Another smile, and he flicked the spiky curve of his tail: an invitation to follow. She did, but not too closely, and only pretended to ignore the additional regard he tried to sneak across her form. Stallions sneaking glances at her was hardly anything new, and she was familiar enough with the cons generally directed towards new arrivals to be fairly sure he wasn't trying to lure her into one -- while still being fully on guard because in the event that she was wrong, she'd have to do something to stop him. (She could sense his attraction, and that he wouldn't proceed without her permission -- but perceiving other intentions was beyond her talent. It was perfectly possible to be attracted to somepony you were about to rip off.) But there were other things to think about, because Fluttershy couldn't be Laughter -- that was seriously supposed to be an Element? -- and he seemed so sure that she would have already met that pony --

"...once the shock wore off..."

-- no. No, that is not possible. There was a little shock when I went into the library and saw an alicorn doing reshelving, but that wasn't the least bit funny unless you think royalty being employed as a librarian is a joke. (At best, that wasn't funny/ha-ha, that was funny/what the buck is going on?) So the only other pony that shocked me is the one who came out of the bakery. Pinkie.

An Element which would choose that pony as its Bearer was, charitably, an Element with a very strange sense of humor. But the stallion seemed so certain -- and a pony who threw welcome parties would certainly have a method of meeting new arrivals.

...it's possible.

Fluttershy. Pinkie. One who wants nothing and one who's a trysexual. She had many ways of getting to know a trysexual, and thinking about pretty much any of them already had the headache working its way in.

She would have to attend her own welcoming party. All of it. No excuses, no cutting out early, and with a considerable amount of attention paid to who her hostess was spending time with.

Four to go.

[/hr]

"So how do you know about this place?" she asked the stallion. (He'd given her his name, and it had made her all the less likely to spend hours with him after this. The hourglass would have been bad enough alone, and given that degree of fresh reinforcement -- it was easier to just think of him as 'the stallion'. It was certainly less nauseating.)

It produced a small sigh. "I'm friends with the mailmare who has this route. She knew the last long-term occupant, and because she comes through on every delivery day, she sees when ponies move in. And when they move out again."

Fleur looked at the house. The strange inward triangle slant of the upper level, the dipping path which exposed the stone foundation and basement as it worked around to the back. "So what's wrong with it?"

"Because ponies wouldn't be moving in and out if something wasn't wrong, yes?" he admitted, adding a touch of wince. "Right... look, before I tell you the big thing: the upper floor is cramped, the plumbing isn't perfect, and the ramp is outright treacherous. But the insulation's been redone, you've got a porch, and the rent is about as low as you're going to find while still getting a roof. It has problems, but it's a good value for the rental price."

Fleur needed to present a public image, and that requirement was often a costly one -- for other ponies. Saddlebags which went so far into decorative that they forfeited most of their practicality because thinned-out bottom layers were in style, dresses that consisted of translucent layers more flimsy than cotton candy and just as prone to dissolving in the rain -- all things she could generally acquire as gifts. But that was her public image.

The house was oddly shaped, more than a little ugly, and desperately in need of numerous outer renovations. There was a chance the inside was worse. It wasn't a home anypony wanted to occupy if they needed to make a strong impression, especially one which was meant to be backed by the raw impact of perceived wealth. But as an escort, she went to the homes of other ponies or, just about as often, their hotel rooms.

Nopony ever came to hers.

"Then what's the big thing?"

He swallowed, and got it over with.

"Ponies have been saying it's haunted."

And there was the con. (She decided he probably wasn't running it and had just made the mistake of believing it. Still, she was going to stay on alert.)

"There's no such things as ghosts," she said. "Would you please take me to the realtor?"

Get a price. Get a look at the interior. Possibly get a roof, one which wasn't dead. And after that, she just might find herself doing a little scouting.

Fluttershy needed to gain confidence, and the best way to do that remained giving her a success. The pegasus was attracted to nothing -- but no matter what she said and somehow believed, Fleur knew it wasn't the other way around. Somepony in the settled zone wanted Fluttershy. That pony might not be the right one for her, and Fleur was going to be careful about that -- but somewhere in Ponyville was a stallion (or mare: for a pony who wanted nothing, anything was a potential option) who would at least say yes.

Once the realtor visit had wrapped up for better or worse, Fleur was going to draw up the lesson plan. And after that -- she had a map, and what passed for Ponyville's nightlife had also been clearly marked.

It was time to start setting up for the first evening of Date Camp.

Fortunately, Twilight Never Published Any Post-'On The Application' Paper

The rental price could best be described as 'suspiciously fair,' and Fleur had spent most of her time during the interior tour searching for extra reasons to back that suspicion. But it was as the hourglass-marked stallion had said (and the realtor kept trying to gloss over): the upper floor was cramped, the ramp was outright treacherous, and the carpet had been forcibly removed from one room in such a way as to leave little scraps behind, every last one of which seemed to hold a portion of the neglect from all of the departed sections. Take all that out, ignore the supposed haunting because there was no such thing as ghosts, and...

Fleur didn't consider herself to be cheap. She would spend on things that were necessary, at least during those times when she somehow couldn't get anypony to buy them for her. The frivolous existed entirely within the category of gifts and once she was no longer in a position where that gift would be regularly seen by the giver, she would often sell it -- at least for those pieces which didn't seem as if they might gain value over time. Fleur would easily tap her funds whenever that deed was meant to acquire something essential. But that was it: the essentials, because the most essential thing was living. Existence required money, funds came from work and eventually, work ran out. A tenth-bit wasted now was a tenth-bit she was going to need later, especially after Celestia had taken so much of her hard-earned money and her best means of quickly making more might have been forever blocked.

(She did consider that if putting Fluttershy together with anypony else was truly a task which could never be managed over the course of a pony lifetime -- or in this case, the foalbearing years -- then it was at least a period during which she could also repeatedly invoice the palace. But that was still embracing her prison sentence, plus she suspected Celestia might become fed up well before the first decade ran out.)

Shelter was essential, and shelter which aided in survival even more so. Caves were cheap -- but caves were also occupied, and as for the mill -- no. The little house had walls, a roof, and a price which made Fleur suspect she'd missed something major -- but it was shelter, and so she'd carefully read over the lease, mentally underlined every escape clause, and signed. She'd wanted to stall on that last part for a day or two, because doing so now effectively left her paying double rent -- but she couldn't take a chance on the house getting away, especially not after finding out what some of the other properties in the area were fetching.

So it had been the realtor, and then the post office: there was a suddenly-immediate need to make contact with her Canterlot landlord, close out her business in that residence and set up the return of her security deposit. Another letter had (reluctantly) arranged the securing of her possessions: she didn't truly trust anypony or anyone among her things, but she also couldn't scramble back to Canterlot so quickly without arousing suspicions, and so that meant she needed an intermediary. It was something else which brought her hate for Celestia back to a low seethe: normally, she could have at least partially relied on her knowledge to keep whoever she chose from doing too much, but with her blackmail discovered...

The best things are safe. She told herself that, and it normally would have been true. But now she wasn't sure if Celestia had gotten to those too, and she'd found a quiet place to let herself come down from what had been approaching full boil.

She had a place of her own to sleep in and in many ways, that was a benefit. But it also meant she might give off the appearance of a pony who was settling in. That had its own positive aspects: as an illusion, it was something she could try to sell for at least a few members of the local police (if not their chief). But she couldn't fall into it herself. She was trapped within an open-air prison and had just finished picking out her cell. That was all.

But if you were in a prison, you had an obligation to explore every last bit of it: there was no other way to learn the jailers' shifts and take advantage of any holes which might exist in security. Fleur had multiple reasons to learn everything she could about Ponyville, and now she had to find out about one particular segment of the settled zone's routine. She had to explore its nightlife. And with something which could be mockingly described as a home base to work with, she also had a place where she could rest and formulate a plan of attack.

Not that she'd had much time to work with there. After settling terms with the realtor and thanking her guide stallion with tones which suggested he still might have a chance after she'd settled in a little more -- a lie, but there remained a chance he might be useful later -- she'd headed for that original Barnyard Bargains. Sadly, no amount of careful flirting had led anypony to introduce her to a chain owner who wasn't actually there at the time -- but she'd done enough to confirm she'd been told the truth: that pony lived in this settled zone. And she'd also learned a rather intriguing new piece of information.

He was single.

Oh, there were no guarantees there. Fleur was beautiful and, unlike Fluttershy, knew it -- but she wasn't exactly universal. There were those who found her to be everything they'd ever dreamed of, others who were at least curious enough to approach, and she'd certainly been with a large number that were just willing to try her for an evening -- but she also knew when somepony found her completely uninteresting. There were times when no piece matched with her, and even a few which had ponies considering her as repulsive: minority interests which refused to see beauty in anything which didn't precisely fit. Nopony in the world could ever match everypony's tastes, and so there would always be roads which were closed to her, at least if sufficient blackmail material didn't present itself. But still... a single, extremely wealthy stallion who had contacts all over the continent and somewhat beyond. She'd been so distracted by the thought that she'd almost missed spotting where the original store in the franchise kept the Foal Soap, which had then been purchased as a decidedly essential expense.

Enough food to get her through a few days, along with toiletries, two towels, cosmetics, and a single blanket. (Her new residence didn't come with furnishings.) And then she'd trotted back to what was supposedly now her part of town, ready to wash up and make herself presentable for the fast-approaching evening. Getting back to that house had to be done at speed: she didn't know just when the local nightlife began, and she wanted to arrive at what most ponies would have seen as an unfashionably early time -- but that was almost standard for her when she could arrange it on social situations: she needed that time for sorting out as many puzzles as possible.

Sensing a familiar grouping stopped her a mere half-block from what was just as supposedly her front door.

Fleur paused in her trot, watched as the little filly (who hadn't seen her: looking in the wrong direction entirely) waved a forehoof in temporary farewell to her friends. It was followed by taking a deep, slow breath, and the older unicorn recognized the expression of a youth who was just now realizing that some level of explanation would be required for the tree sap which laced her fur, and she'd postponed figuring out what it was going to be for just a little too long. And then Sweetie headed for what was clearly her own front door, outwardly preparing her speech while deep inside, a puzzle which was still in the process of figuring out what its own solution would be slowly added tints to the edges.

That door opened. Fleur heard both a mare and stallion voice during the seconds before it closed again.

So she's a neighbor. A mere half-block away, too.

Well, that was fine. Fleur had nothing against hearing children at play: it was a precious sound, something which never lasted for very long. And as for Sweetie's puzzle -- well, that wasn't really Fleur's fault. There had been a moment of kindness during a time of high emotion: something which always had the potential to create a fresh aspect, and now Sweetie was on the verge of something that could, under certain circumstances, turn into that first true filly crush. It could even lead to the things which a near-adolescent would eventually begin to seek in her future partners. It wasn't exactly uncommon for a youth to have daydreams about an adult, and there was absolutely nothing wrong with it. A natural part of growing up, so long as the adult did the proper thing should those dreams somehow wound up being voiced.

Fleur would not

would never

encourage her. But she also wouldn't inflict deliberate cruelty in order to force the piece into fading, much less push to the point where it collapsed inwards into a contour-relief pit of things the filly would never want. She would just live nearby, say hello when greetings were needed, and perhaps misdirect the occasional hunt for whoever had sent the latest deer crashing through a greenhouse. There might even be the chance for other protections --

don't let there be

Sweetie was a child, and so the best thing Fleur could do was let her be one, for as long as the world would allow it.

Sweetie was something very close to innocent. The world loathed innocence.

[/hr]

And then she was trotting under newly-risen Moon, looking for that future stage of Fluttershy's lessons.

She was clean. Her mane and tail had been styled. Her hooficure had been adjusted: the cosmetics had been expertly applied. And all of that had brought her to a state where she was not quite all she could have been. She had shown Fluttershy how to trot in a way that advertised the desire for company -- but there were variations available, and Fleur's current tread clearly stated to any who might care to listen that, at least for the moment, she was just looking around. She might change her mind later if she found the right pony -- say, a certain very local business owner -- and there were always those who simply ignored all messages and replaced them with what they wanted her to say. But while she needed to discover more about the town and always had her senses trained towards anything interesting, she didn't truly want job-unrelated company for longer than the duration of a drink: one which somepony else would pay for -- and also one with no alcohol involved, where she'd been able to watch all of the mixing. Her head needed to be clear, and as for companionship...

It had been a hard two days. And she could internally argue that spending time within somepony else's bed could take the edge off that -- while knowing she was lying to herself.

Fleur took pleasure in sex, enough that some of her orgasms weren't faked. (The majority were, as most of the ponies who spent time with escorts didn't seem to truly care whether the escort got anything out of it.) And she had what she thought was a healthy sex drive, certainly high enough that the idea of a fully-booked week didn't turn nauseating. But sex was something to be done with purpose. She needed to arrange security, and sex led to that. The idea of doing it purely for pleasure -- well, she could arrange that just about any time she liked, but it was also something she could do alone. Anypony could scratch their own itch. Fleur would be curious enough about individuals (or more) to arrange things once, but to turn to somepony for pleasure over and over was to potentially become reliant on them. She knew that, especially, since she'd so often been on the receiving end of that growing neediness. To be on the sending one was to lose control. And as for a one-night encounter...

Sex would make her body feel better, for a little while. But it would do nothing for her mind. It wouldn't return the time which Celestia had turned to ash. And even when it came to sheer physical pleasure, she couldn't spend any post-sex time in anypony else's bed, not tonight. For she had faced down Discord, she had won simply through surviving -- but there was a price to pay for that, and every last bit of it would be waiting for her in the nightscape.

She was afraid to sleep. She was willing to admit that to herself, because admitting to fear could often be the first step in either overcoming or channeling it. But she would not use wake-up juice and stronger things to postpone sleep, because sleep would always come eventually. She would not seek a life without dream: the clarity and frequency of her nightscape visits had led her to research such magics, and she had learned of two spells. One, which she had not been able to master, denied the manifestation of a single caster-determined subject, and she still dearly longed for that working. But the other prevented a pony from dreaming at all. The caster could only use it on themselves, and the duration went on for a lifetime. For a pony who could no longer dream, that usually turned out to be about two moons.

Sex? There was always the chance of encountering a pony tonight for whom sex with Fleur would be the best possible thing -- for Fleur. That pony could be practically anypony at all: Fleur had no issues about being with mares or stallions, and there was a range waiting beyond that. But to stay in that bed would be to allow another the chance to witness the moment when she dropped into dream and couldn't get out...

Fleur passed the candy shop -- or rather, the shops: the one which would still be open for another hour or two, and the one which hadn't yet opened at all. (She didn't venture inside. It wasn't from not wanting to become involved in the inevitable dominance struggle, for that had yet to truly begin, nor was it from regrets about not getting her chance with the double-jointed mint-green unicorn. She simply knew she had something of a sweet tooth, and so tried not to indulge it. Not only was the purchase generally unnecessary, but her smile had to be a pretty one, and dental potions were expensive.) Further on, past a store which sold --

-- she paused long enough to take a second look at that sign, decided somepony was playing a joke, moved on --

-- and then she just barely spotted the pony in the shadows.

Most wouldn't have. But Fleur paid attention to her senses, was always ready to compare the results against the lessons of memories. She saw how the stallion stood, the inability to totally relax while leaning against the wall in what should have been a position of rest, the focus in what had nearly been gloom-lost eyes. She felt his pieces, and how none of them aligned with her. And yet he still focused his attention as she passed, turned just enough so that the last thing she truly saw was the glint of light from a nearby window off the badge resting on his chest.

She focused, memorized his puzzle's configuration, added it to the huge gallery within her mind. And then, while looking at that inner image (which held nothing special, nothing at all, and was still just unique enough to memorize), she let silent laughter fill her mind.

You said you know what I am, Chief Rights. And knowing that, you send your officers into the streets, with instructions to keep an eye on me during any encounter. To follow for a while, as this one's starting to do. See what I'm up to, where I'm going, who I'm with.

You think you know what I am -- but not even Celestia herself seems to have considered, much less briefed you, on all the implications...

She trotted on, with a stallion following her whom she no longer had to watch at all. A police officer whose presence she could simply feel.

And because Fleur was experienced and always remembered her lessons, she also knew the exact moment when her expert, completely casual-appearing shifts in direction managed to completely lose him.

[/hr]

Canterlot had a nightlife: bars, clubs, concert halls, theaters and cinemas, cultural events. If you didn't feel like attending any of the preceding, then there was always a party to attend somewhere, or an excuse for throwing one. And for those whose jobs generally put them under Moon, the capital was also starting to develop something new: a daylife. The venues which had typically catered to those whose shifts ended before the Sun was lowered had realized that the ponies who labored during Lunar hours also had entertainment bits and nowhere to spend them -- so some cinemas and theaters now held dawn matinees, a few clubs paused only long enough to clean up after the last shift, and the cultural events were trying to figure out if it was within anyone's culture to stay awake that long. It had led to an economic boom in the city, along with a flood of new jobs created by the need for so many places to hire double shifts. Even Manehattan, famed for never truly sleeping, was rumored to be scrambling to catch up, fuming all the way.

Ponyville had...

...there was a bowling alley.

A bowling alley.

(Two ponies emerged from it as she passed, and she could tell they were a couple. The extremely tall mare had a mark for the "sport" itself, the shortest stallion she'd ever seen worked in construction, they were rather attracted to each other, and they were verbally fighting with the facility of those whose inevitable bedroom makeup sessions were mostly meant as a means of getting some rest before the next round.)

She'd read the map, and what it had told her was that most of those looking for entertainment under Moon might be best off heading for the train. She'd spotted the cinema's icon on the unfurled paper -- but until she'd trotted past the building, she hadn't known it had but one screen. Most of the concert venues seemed to be known as 'No one's using this pasture for the next few hours,' and the main source of theater was also labeled as being outdoors: summer stock. (Much to her amusement -- and light horror -- the primary school was also listed among the theater groups, which struck her as an odd combination of parental pride and total desperation.) There didn't seem to be a single concert hall. But as for bars and clubs... yes, a few, and she felt gazes focusing on her as she entered the closest of the first.

She didn't pay much attention to the lighting (soft blue, fairly standard) and mostly ignored her having made the wrong choice for a place to start, for this was a bar which mostly hosted a somewhat older crowd. There were far too many married stallions and mares, which meant the pieces which matched to her had tinges of fantasy, regret, and at least one tentative is-it-worth-the-risk? But for those who didn't look, or glanced away after seeing nothing which particularly interested them -- it was easy to see why they were there. For the most part, they were friends who talked for a while before heading home, shared a quiet drink while discussing their day. There was no dancing here, and she doubted there ever would be. This was the kind of bar you went to long after a partnership had been formed. Virtually anypony sipping at the contents of their mug as they rested on burgundy cushions next to low-slung dark tables would be out of the single life -- or at least looking to avoid it for a little while.

Fleur didn't pay much attention to any of that, at least after accessing that there was no direct threat to her in the building. She was too focused on the stallion in the far left corner, morosely gazing at the contents of what she was fairly sure was at least his third mug of the young night.

Fluttershy had only her sad white slate: attracted to nothing, afraid to even dream. She had no pieces to match. But there were ponies whose pieces matched her. Fleur had believed there had to be somepony in town, one or several, who dreamed of the pegasus, who would give anything for a night with those somewhat-oversized wings and a chance to be the first to truly enjoy that tail. And in her very first survey of the nightlife scene, the very first bar she'd stopped in...

He hadn't seen her yet, and so she surveyed his pieces as closely as she could. He was attracted to pegasus mares beyond (or perhaps above) all else: that was easy to read. It was just as simple to tell he wasn't currently in a relationship: many colors were dimmed from recent rejection. And even if she'd met him during a moment when her talent was shut down, the way he was regarding his mug was more than a clue.

Not bad-looking, really, although it was in a borderline way: he wasn't anywhere close to approaching ugly, but he was the sort of pony (an earth pony, but that wouldn't be a problem with a pegasus who didn't have any requirements at all) who was on the edge of fully becoming a Type, only truly appealing for those who were attracted to said Type. Fleur blamed his mane. There was a lot which could be done with a mane like that, and he'd chosen a rise like the slow approach to the edge of a cliff, which ended in the same kind of abrupt vertical drop. It said a lot about him, starting with his exact age, because Fleur had seen the magazines which had said when that was in style, and he'd never read the ones which told everypony else when it had cycled out.

Still, he kept his light brown fur well-groomed, and the eyes -- well, the fact that they were almost lost in the lighting told her they were just about the same shade of blue. His features were pleasant enough. He wasn't all that tall or solidly built for an earth pony, but Fleur wasn't sure about putting Fluttershy with anypony who would be physically intimidating, not when added to all the fears which would come from just trying to interact for the first time: a visibly weaker specimen might be best to start.

Fleur didn't like everything she was sensing. She could only truly read the sexual aspects of a sapient being: other facets of personality needed to have at least a little attachment to a piece for her to get any idea of the rest. As such, she couldn't completely figure out anypony through their puzzle's solution. But in this case... there was a neediness there, something approaching desperation. He had to be with a partner: he was unwilling to go for very long without one, and she suspected he was in the bar to drink away the pain which had come from the departure of the most recent, basking in his own agony within relative solitude. And the pieces themselves seemed to have faded and brightened so many times as to blur some of the original hues...

Serial dater? It was possible. She could even be looking at a serial monogamist, which begged the question of why his relationships had broken up so many times. But there was nothing violent or dark in him, at least not which was tied to his pieces. Just a near-desperate longing for somepony to be with, and it was a desperation which seemed to keep right on coming back.

And so many of his smaller pieces matched to Fluttershy.

Fleur put it all together, added an expert guess. He knows her. He's seen her more than a few times. He hasn't tried asking her out, at least not recently: there's no rejection tinge to those pieces. But he's thought about her. If I bring her up in conversation, he'll probably start to fantasize, and then I'll feel the hues shift...

It was enough to start with. Enough that she was willing to learn more. And so she carefully trotted through the bar, her movements now letting everypony know that her choice had been made, until she slowly, casually lowered her body to be on the same level as his (or almost so, as she was somewhat taller), on the opposite side of that low table.

He didn't notice, which seemed to confirm the current mug as being at least his third.

"It won't talk back," Fleur said, and smiled just in time for his startled gaze to see it.

He blinked twice. (Pieces shifted, told her that she would be his interest only in dire emergency, and he wasn't sure he was quite that low just yet.) "Huh?"

"The mug," she smiled. "You're definitely talking to it. But they never talk back -- well, not to you. I've heard some ponies with brewing and tasting marks claim they get words along with the flavor, but..." A small nod to the horseshoes on his left flank. "So if you're being witty, it's wasted. Why not try talking to a pony instead?"

She looked at the tired little smile, felt him decide the emergency wasn't up to that final standard. "I -- appreciate the interest," he told her, and the tinges which had come from his own rejection deepened. "But I'm not sure I'm good company for anypony right now, or anything except this mug. It's nothing against you. It's just -- been one of those days."

Fleur sighed, arranged her posture to show a twinge of inner pain. "Same," she admitted, or displayed something to pass for such. "Sorry. It's just that -- I just moved into town, I only have one friend here and she's not much of a talker, plus she's been working too many hours already for me to drop by and interrupt... I was just looking for somepony I could talk to for a little while, if only so I'd be talking to somepony else. And you looked like a pony in need of conversation."

"It's all right," he accepted. "Sorry. Maybe some other time. But if you've got a friend here..."

Another careful, artistic sigh. "I just don't want to bother her again, but..." She started to stand up. "Oh, well. I guess it's off to Fluttershy's. I hope your night gets better. And that you stop before the mug does start talking back."

He blinked.

"You know Fluttershy?"

Four pieces began to glow.

Fleur nodded, wearily smiled. "She's the only pony I do know."

"And you're her friend?" That with an open note of surprise on the end.

"Surprisingly," and she put a little bit of tease on that, added to a tiny touch of amazement. "Sorry to have bothered --"

"-- she will be tired," he quickly said, and that glow got brighter. "She works -- well, you know. Sit down, please. I can get past myself for ten minutes if it means she gets a little more rest."

She feigned a blink of surprise, slowly settled back down.

"You clearly know her," Fleur stated. "Are we friends of a mutual friend?"

It got a smaller smile out of him, and she felt the regret of fantasies unfulfilled. "I've never been that lucky. I just see her regularly. She mixes my Shimmy's medicine -- oh, right: you're new. Shimmy's my ferret, and she needs medicine --" his eyes briefly closed "-- for the rest of her life. So I see Fluttershy every so often just to pick up a fresh supply. How did you meet her?"

Fleur considered her lies, then decided she wanted a little more time to narrow them down. "Well, if we're going to be talking -- Fleur." She extended her left foreleg over the table, presented the hoof.

After a long moment, he raised his own. "Caramel."

[/hr]

This nightclub was a dominant one.

It had to be. Oh, it was possible to get along in the lower tiers of the nightlife if you were willing to settle, which generally translated into putting up with paws and hooves stepping on your face, then politely bending your knees in acquiescence to whoever had just used you as a launch point in their own quest for a higher ascent. But if you truly wanted to succeed in Protocera, you needed to have that drive which told you to be the first. You understood your place in the dominance chain, and then you told everyone else to move out of the way for you, link by link. A little aggressive advertising, some very hard-hitting promotions, hiring (because 'stealing' is such an ugly word) the best talent away from the competition... all it took was a little sincere effort, and the club would dominate, right up until the moment the trends either changed or someone came along with a better idea and large eyes trained on the link immediately ahead.

But for now, this club was dominant, at least for the rather specialized segment of their market. Because someone had decided their best way to success and what they felt would be permanent residence on the final link was catering to somepony. In terms of resident species, Protocera was the single most mixed nation to exist -- but that was for the physical aspects of their residents. It meant truly specialized businesses were few and far between, and some of those which had tried to get themselves established had wound up being driven out of business by those who felt things had gone too far beyond the accepted norms. But this nightclub prospered. It played the music which currently dominated the market. The dance floor was taken up by the most popular styles, right up until they were replaced by the new most popular styles and if some of those movements had to be adjusted for those without wings -- well, that was why they came to the club: for talk and dance and music, a chance at romance, and the potential (although so many saw it as a certainty) of sex. There was magical illumination and spell-boosted acoustics. There were vegetables which looked like meat. There was a proper communal drinking trough, and some of the customers had never even seen one before. There was chatter and socializing, acceptance and rejection, laughter and song and just trying to have a good time throughout the night.

And then there was a flash of white light.

The music stopped. Movement stopped. Tiny multicolored spotlights played over the warped form which was now standing in the exact center of the dance floor.

"Everyone," the larger of the two newest arrivals announced in what he still falsely believed to be his most regal tones, "please continue about your business. I am only here to observe."

There was a moment of what he would have considered to be a perfect silence. He hated it. Silence was, in its way, order. It was the total absence of anything interesting being said, it was the usual result of having one's thoughts pounding against stone, and so he normally would have considered it to be a relief when the horrible thing was broken. However, having the resumption of sound come from multiple, near-simultaneous screams was, under the circumstances, somewhat offputting.

The owners of the screams moved. Some of them took flight and since the club was a slightly mixed one on most nights, two different configurations of wings beat at the air. Hooves pounded. The bartender vaulted her station, and her hind legs knocked over most of two shelves along the way. One far-traveling DJ somehow wound up with her horn sticking through the hole in the center of a record, and he wasn't sure if that had been accidental or just a rather hasty way of saving her favorite album. Dishes flew, meals scattered, dignity evaporated, and all hope of romance temporarily died under trampling hooves in the rush to get out.

And then the club wasn't dominant any more. It wasn't much of anything, excepting an empty place for a rather put-upon new arrival to sit down in the middle of that now-silent dance floor, letting the little spotlights play across his twisted body. He liked the colors, but felt the patterns needed to be a little more random: that was arranged with a snap of his talons.

Then he thought of something else, and snapped them again.

"Where..." The book being balanced on his paw swallowed. Or rather, she made a swallowing sound, and did so without benefit of mouth, throat, or saliva. She didn't understand how she was doing that, and was more than a little concerned about whether she should ask. "Where are we?"

"Protocera," Discord sighed. "Or the Griffon Republic, depending on how much you believe that from their government." Morosely, "You know, there are some people, and I'm not saying who, that would feel somewhat disrespected by such a reception. A little put-off, you might say. As if they aren't particularly wanted anywhere. Now of course, this is in no way happening to me. The locals are simply... not used to my presence. In any way. No one around here has seen me for -- well, there wasn't exactly a 'here' at the time, not under the same name. So really, it was a little much of me, expecting some sort of protocol to be in place for an official visit."

He sniffed. It felt like a dismissive one. Mostly.

"I," he just-as-regally stated, "expect too much from others sometimes. I really do."

"But -- why here?" the book eventually risked. "You said you wanted to learn about dating by watching ponies do it..."

It triggered another sniff. "And so here we are, in a pony nightclub, at least for what was the majority population." There had been four griffons, but most of his view had been of their fleeing tails.

"But we're in Protocera," the book finally tried.

"And?"

"They're not ponies," the book helplessly said.

"The anatomy," Discord pointed out, "begs to differ."

"They're not ponies in their heads," the book weakly insisted. "They grew up with griffons. They mostly think like griffons. They're just griffons with hooves..."

"And how do you know about that?" Discord asked.

"Well," the book offered, "it's a pretty common thing, for my kind of story. If you want a pony to be a lot more aggressive than normal, you have them come from Protocera. You can usually spot them within the first few chapters, because they're just about always one of the first ponies to be added to the harem. They're easy to pick out."

"Are they?"

"Very," the book confirmed. "They deny they're attracted to the main character every chance they get, push them around too much, call them an idiot, and expect that character to fall in love with them."

Discord thought about that.

"Does it work?"

"It depends on the writer," the book admitted. "But they usually don't win. There's certain --" and somehow, she knew the next word was going to be a bad one "-- rules...?"

It got the book a frustrated glare, intense enough to heat her cover. "Rules."

"About the types," the book very reluctantly followed through. "Who they are, and sometimes when they appear, and almost always if they win."

He thought about that. "Tell me about some of those types."

"Well," the book said, starting to feel a little more comfortable within its chosen (or written) subject, "there's just about always an athlete. Someone driven to do things physically above all else. They may not be too bright. They like to beat the main character in races and competitions, but they secretly respect anyone who can give them a fight." Discord nodded, which felt like encouragement. "They usually last a while. And then you get someone who's there as a counter to the athlete, who's completely into books. She studies and puts herself into her classes, she probably doesn't date at all, and the main character is the first pony she's ever really noticed. She blushes a lot and gets things wrong when they aren't about her studies, which is supposed to be cute. A lot of those win in the end."

Another nod. The grey ears were rotated forward. That red gaze was focused.

"And then," the book went on, truly warming to the material, "you pretty much always have somepony with a ridiculously full tail." (Which was when the book completely missed Discord leaning in.) "She's mostly there so other ponies can make jokes when her tail bounces around a lot. She typically goes nearly all the way to the end. But she always loses."

Discord took a slow breath. Half the lights went out, and most of what remained started glowing in ultraviolet.

"Fluttershy," he told the book, "has an extremely full tail."

"...does she?" the suddenly uncertain book asked.

"One might even say," Discord tensely continued, "a ridiculously full tail."

The book thought about it.

"...I'm -- very sorry for her loss?"

"And why," Discord challenged, his gaze smoldering as wisps of smoke began rising from the edge of his eyes, "does the mare with the ridiculously full tail always lose?"

The book tried to work it out.

"I think," she reluctantly said, "it's because... most authors and readers have more average tails?"

Discord carefully set the book down on the dance floor, rested his chin in his paw and sighed.

His eyes widened. He took a moment to bring them back down to something which comfortably fit on his face.

"But that," he realized aloud, "is only what happens when she's part of the herd fighting for the main character. What about the times when a mare with a --" he nearly spit the word "-- ridiculously full tail is the protagonist?"

"I don't know," the book eventually admitted. "It never happens."

"Because?"

After a full page-trembling twenty seconds had passed, "...see... previous footnote?"

Discord sighed.

"Well," he declared, "it is happening this time. Consider us to be venturing out into previously unestablished authorial territory, with no rules to follow." Which triggered the worst smile in the world. "I like that. It means anything might happen..."

The book, with exceptional wisdom, said nothing.

"Very well," Discord stated. "Direct appearance in a Protoceran nightclub for the purposes of observation: does not work. We check it off the list --" he paused, used his paw to wipe the foul words from this tongue, scattering italicized letters all over the dance floor "-- and move on. Shall we go?"

He carefully picked up the book.

"Um..." the book slowly offered.

The put-open tones crashed back in. "What is it?"

"You never said why you brought us to Protocera."

"Do things need reasons for taking place?"

"...usually."

"Really."

"...in -- literature..."

The timid, openly worried speech pattern went into his ears, and he thought back to the moment he'd seen the nightclub's soon-to-be-former patrons moving for the exits. What some part of him had wanted to do. Where he'd wanted to go.

Discord sighed. "If there was to be a reason," he said, "then there would be at least two of them." The book, for lack of any other options, listened. "Firstly, we are currently gallops upon gallops away from Equestria. This provides a measure of, shall we say, privacy. If my second exertion somehow missed wiping anyone's memories, then it will take a very long time for news of this visit to reach the Grimcess. Time we need. For research. You understand?" He straightened to the extent his body normally allowed without invoking change, began to put things back the way they had been in the name of secrecy.

"Yes," the book admitted, sounding somewhat comforted. "So we're going to stay here?"

"Not for long." Three of the tables uprighted themselves as Discord looked at the book which was timidly balanced on his paw. "You need a name."

"...I do?" the book eventually asked.

"Yes."

With what seemed to be genuine curiosity, "Why?"

Discord wasn't sure. He wasn't fond of names. To name something was to define it, and to define anything was often to remove the possibilities of it ever becoming something else. He often felt as if pony names worked that way, and so deeply resented most of them. At one point, rather early in their relationship, he'd told Fluttershy that he was thinking of having a word with her parents about what they'd done to her simply through what still felt like a majestically ignorant choice, and he'd allowed her to spend nearly a full hour with him before he'd also allowed her to believe she'd talked him out of it.

Names... limited. There was something very wrong with that. But at the same time --

"Because," Discord stated, "I am not going to keep calling or thinking of you as 'the book'. What happens if you're lost among some other books and I need to yell for you? What happens then?"

"I'm -- the only one who could say something back?"

"Not the point," Discord sniffed. "Besides, books talk all the time when I'm around. How else is someone supposed to learn anything?"

The book just barely managed avoid answering that. "But I don't have a name," she weakly protested. "I have a title. And an author, and a genre --"

"Genre," Discord repeated.

"Yes."

"Which means?"

"My entire category of story. I told you: I'm a harem fantasy."

He nodded. "Harem Fantasy it is, then. Now --" the bottles repaired themselves, although one sealed itself with a slightly lower liquid level. "-- disgusting stuff. If they're going to make it look like blood, they should at least have the courtesy -- at any rate, shall we go?"

The talons began to raise.

"Wait."

This time, his eyes didn't roll so much as rebound, and he was rather proud when the six-point bank shot landed them back in their sockets. "Oh, what is it now?"

"You said -- there were two reasons."

Eventually, he nodded. "Yes."

"What's the other one?"

"Yours. The one you stated."

Harem Fantasy thought about that. Then she realized she was thinking of herself as Harem Fantasy thinking about something, and then she got a headache, which was happening without having an actual head, which somehow made it worse.

"I don't understand," she admitted.

"You said," he reminded her, "that there are ponies here who don't think like ponies. Griffons with hooves."

And that horrible smile came back.

"Isn't that interesting?" Discord not-quite-asked. And they vanished.

When You Think About It, It's A Perfectly Natural Question

The dark was never silent.

She would try to sleep: it was when she was supposed to, after all, and a good filly (or one trying so hard to be good, to figure out just what being good meant) would do what she was told. But as she twisted and twitched under the blanket, trying to let the darkness carry her into what she'd been told was called a nightscape, the sounds would reach her. There were times when they kept her from falling asleep. At others, she would become tired enough to slip into dream despite the sounds which filled the little rooms -- and then an especially loud specimen would break through, jolt her legs and fail to send the blanket flying, for it tended to tangle around her horn as she shifted in what was supposed to be her rest. It was hard to be completely still in sleep, not when so much of her wanted to run.

The moans: those were the most constant thing, and so could be falsely thought of as the worst. They pushed through closed doors (not that she had a door which could close), would kick their way into lowered ears and set up echoes inside her mind. There were little gasps now and again, abrupt and sharp: the unpredictable punctuation in the continual run-on sentence of the litany which was read out to her every night. And sometimes... sometimes, there were worse sounds. She didn't have words to describe them yet: only a specific set of trembles which took over her limbs whenever one of them came through.

She didn't want to listen. She wished she didn't have to. But when she couldn't sleep... all the many times she couldn't sleep, an exhausted filly body only half-aware of those parts of the world around her which weren't based in sound... she listened. To moans and gasps and things far worse as they came over and over again. She had to.

The horrible thing was hearing them.

The worst thing would be hearing them stop.

Fleur's breaths had been deliberately slowed, and it had happened at the exact moment she'd realized she was awake.

She lay still on the floor in the rented house's bedroom, eyes still closed. She was considering her position. The way she'd curled up in the night, tucked her head beneath the lone blanket, and then somehow twisted herself enough to begin wrapping that fabric around herself, tighter and tighter, a curl working outwards from covered horn...

Behind her, the wall softly groaned to itself.

She took another breath. And then she began to carefully twist herself in the opposite direction. Unwinding and unweaving, freeing head and limbs, exposing her horn to the open air and making it that much easier to cast. She was strong enough to simply fling a cloth covering away -- but doing so with something which was so intertwined with her own joints was begging to send herself into the inward-slanting outer wall with it.

I need that plumber was her first fully coherent thought, and it wasn't a particularly original one. Fleur suspected that at least a few of the haunting claims had arisen from the condition of the building's pipes. To activate a faucet was to cue one of the world's least musical symphonies, metal groaning and creaking as water forced itself towards a never-ultimate destination, completely failing to hit the high notes along the way. Taking a bath could leave the internal system complaining for hours, and when those noises continued into the night...

It was possible for a pony to hear in their sleep, react to sounds. Some of those perceptions might trigger an internal alert, bringing that pony back to the waking world in time to confront the trouble which had just arrived. But others sank directly into the nightscape, because the sleeping mind would mistake them for memory. Those sounds became part of dream, and those dreams --

-- Fleur slowly pushed herself up: forelegs straightened, then the back. She needed a plumber -- but it seemed as if Ponyville somehow didn't have that many right now. From what she'd discussed with Caramel after her initial (and very partial) complaint about the problem, the market was just opening up after its previous (and sole) occupant had departed. Plumbers were still coming into the settled zone on a rather tentative, somewhat shaky basis, uncertain as to whether it was safe: after all, there was a chance for the prior officeholder to break out of prison. And the few who had risked their lives were earning their fortunes because Ponyville citizens, who'd never seen water flowing under the pressure of a work ethic before, had responded by placing the new arrivals into a realm Fleur had often occupied in Canterlot: The Princessdom Of The Perilously Overbooked. With no true emergency pressing against her flanks and a mere week of residency for seniority, it had taken a major piece of flirting just to get something scheduled for the same moon.

It had been a week. She'd sent an invoice to the palace for most of it.

Fleur glanced out the window: Sun would be raised soon, and that meant it was time to start her day. Unfortunately, it was still possible for others to peer in: the security device which rendered transparency into something one-way was either still in her Canterlot residence or somewhere within the postal system. She didn't have much confidence in either shipper or shipping, and with nothing having arrived and so many of her hours spent away from the rental, she had yet to even get a glimpse of the local mailmare.

Bathroom. Morning routine. With the chill of fall slowly increasing, she generally saved her bathing for the evenings: to trot through the crisp morning air (she'd taped the weather schedule next to the mirror) with damp fur was to beg for illness. But there were still things to do and after her toiletries concluded, she went through all of them: managing her mane and tail, making sure the cosmetics properly balanced and enhanced her natural hues, brightening a smile which seldom found an opportunity for natural emergence. Being pretty took time -- but it was time she needed to use, even in Ponyville. A portion of the day whose intent had gone through day after day of becoming fixed into something on the level of clockwork. They were hours she needed, and a use which was fully understood. But it was still time which passed.

A week had passed, with nearly every last minute of it resented, and just about none had done any good. Because Fleur was dealing with one of the greatest lies to have ever been uttered by anypony's mouth, a two-word term so inherently contradictory as to be both incredibly insulting and, for those who didn't understand why it was wrong, that offense was completely invisible.

It had been a week, and much of that had consisted of free time.

She'd explored, of course: she was doing some of that now, before heading out to the cottage. When in a new territory, it was necessary to learn all the its and outs: main highways and back streets, quick shortcuts and alleys which a desperate pony could flee through. Fleur's capacity for magical movement didn't include teleports, and the method she did have was -- 'unexpected' was a good word, but it also wasn't all that effective, plus she wanted to save it until the moment it was truly needed. So for shaking the officers who were still trying to non-valiantly (and very ineffectively) shadow her, she needed to learn all the little mundane routes. The map she'd acquired at the bookshop didn't have everything, and the rest was slowly being added to a comprehensive chart drawn up within Fleur's head. Not wasted time at all, except for the part where it never would have been necessary at all if Celestia hadn't destroyed her life.

The explorations had taught her a few things, and the first discovery had been that in many ways, Ponyville wasn't all that bad. It wasn't a place she ever would have deliberately chosen to live in: when you wanted to be in the center of power -- actually, considering that it was the residence of the Bearers, it wasn't all that bad in that department either. But take them out of the equation and while it didn't seem to offer enough of anything while completely overlooking most of the small refinements which could be gifted to an escort under the delusion that it would make them responsive to the idea of interactions outside of business hours, it had homes, families, shops which generally weren't more than horribly inadequate or complete jokes, and some of the eateries smelled decent. It was a settled zone which a pony could settle in, as long as they had no ambitions towards advancing in life or ever being able to go anywhere else. So as prisons went, the air was clean, the walls were invisible, and the majority of the other prisoners didn't even know there had been a crime involved. In that sense, there were still worse options.

She hadn't used the time for meeting all that many ponies. (She'd been into a few more shops, of course, including that one, and left the last without a purchase: sofas were unnecessary and when it came to quills, to write your plans down was to create the chance for somepony else to read them. Fleur's notes stayed where they were safest: within her head.) She'd had any number who'd wanted to meet her -- but she was still being careful about that. You didn't just plop yourself down into the middle of a social web: you tested the strands, saw where the vibrations went. To simply insert herself was to risk struggling to free her hooves as the predators closed in. For the most part, her time away from the cottage had been spent in directly learning about a single pony: Caramel.

The pegasus who'd given her the directions to the cottage (Rainbow: Fleur had a good memory for names) had warned her about that stallion, and it had nearly made Fleur break off their first meeting immediately after the introduction had been made. But she'd pushed on and in time, she'd found out why she'd been cautioned. Some of the things Caramel said had provided hints. Most of the details had emerged from the fast-talking voices of mares who'd hurried up after seeing her in his presence, with even some of the most jealous momentarily discarding their envy in the name of feminine solidarity. For she'd considered that he might have been a serial dater, and it had turned out that she'd been drastically understating the case.

But three of those seven nights had seen some time spent with him. His public decision had been that Fleur, as somepony new in the settled zone, needed a protector. The private one -- private for everypony except Fleur, who'd worked it out just from watching some of his pieces shift -- was that he was seeing her as a gateway to Fluttershy. And since that was her exact intention, she allowed him to continue believing it was his alone.

She knew something of his habits now: when that much gossip overlapped, there tended to be a core of truth at the master intersection. But when it came to Fluttershy, those habits didn't matter. Caramel was meant to be the first trial gallop of Date Camp: nothing more. Fluttershy would go out with him and through doing so, score a success. And perhaps they would somehow form some level of connection, begin the process which would free Fleur -- but she had doubts there, because the edges of that gossip were jagged.

It would have been wondrous, watching the connection form on the first try. But if (when) it didn't, she could use it to give Fluttershy another kind of success --

-- so that's the Rich estate.

She looked at it for a while, at least as much as she could see from the entrance path: there were no gates or fences, but the path which led off from the main road curved. There were also trees to deal with, for Mr. Rich lived a little outside of Ponyville proper. When it came to giving him enough space for an actual estate, it helped -- but he'd left the natural borders of the property intact, and so Fleur could only get small glimpses of a slow-browning great lawn and elegant building from between the tree trunks.

Not bad. Not bad at all. Of course, it would be better if she could get a closer look. Or an invitation.

She hadn't spoken to the stallion yet. She'd seen him: Fleur had made a temporary habit of browsing in Barnyard Bargains until he'd finally appeared, and his looks -- weren't really important, although he had a definite dignity about him, even if it was starting to feel as if Ponyville was mainly populated by earth pony stallions in varying shades of brown. His age was more or less immaterial, the weariness she'd spotted on his face was something she knew how to deal with, and his power -- well, it wasn't as if he was a Princess or even a decently-placed politician, much less a noble with any degree of connection among the Houses. But he had economic power. He pushed levers and bits shifted across the continent.

Fleur hadn't talked to Mr. Rich (which was how everypony referred to him, as if he had no first name at all). But she'd gotten close enough to solve his puzzle, and found there were a few pieces which matched her. Not many: the brightness of some sections suggested just about all of his dating (and formerly-married) life had been conducted with earth ponies. But there was a lingering curiosity regarding unicorns, along with a few tentative, never-explored youthful fantasies which might just need a little interaction for their hues to sharpen again. It was enough to start with. She simply wanted to learn a little more about him before beginning that acquisition, especially as concerned any connections he might have stretching out to Canterlot. There were mistakes she couldn't afford to make again.

(She had learned that there was a daughter in play. She'd heard ponies talking about that filly: few of the words had been kind, and those which weren't angry were generally dubious. It was an additional obstacle to overcome. And children were often innocent -- but there were few things so falsely innocent as the casual cruelty of youth, and the public doubts regarding any change of heart for that filly were strong ones.)

I'll get in there. One way or another. He wants to be with somepony again: he's probably been thinking about it for a while. I just have to create the right opportunity.

But for now, she had to turn around and begin the trot to the cottage.

Even if she'd found the door unlocked, she still wasn't at the point where she would have considered simply trying to trot inside unannounced: her charge startled easily, and things were hard enough already. And even though most of her arrivals would have been best off started through immediately searching the ridiculously extensive grounds -- Fleur still wasn't sure she'd seen so much as a third of the property -- she still knocked on the cottage door. There was always a chance.

This time, it opened within seconds.

"Yeah?"

But Fluttershy hadn't opened it.

Fleur was used to being stared at, was completely familiar with just how some ponies tried to hide or disguise their scrutiny, while others allowed it to openly continue until their still-mobile unheeding legs introduced the side of that turned head to the side of a tree. She knew everything there was to know about being on the receiving end. But to be the pony whose eyes had involuntarily gone wide, unable to look away no matter how much she wanted to, knowing that she had to...

But there was just so much to stare at.

The white-furred stallion -- the largest stallion she'd ever seen -- wasn't handsome. The vast majority of ponies had features: he had geography. The jut of his chin was a small hill, the depths of his eyes red-tinged lakes. Golden hooves indicated mining potential in the lower regions, and the earring suggested that some early excavations had been used to decorate the edge of a cliff. The brush-cut blonde mane spoke of grass rustling along the mountain's crest. And muscles bulged in every place where space was available, and in a few which wouldn't have been accessible before a few of the larger ones had shoved.

He wasn't handsome. For those repelled by strength, a level of physical power more excessive than anything she'd ever imagined could exist in a pony, there was an argument to be made for some level of ugliness. But if so, he was fascinatingly ugly. It was an ugliness which went nearly all the way around the circle of appearance and started to approach a strange form of attraction from the wrong direction. It demanded attention and for several horrible seconds, Fleur found herself completely unable to stop providing it.

And in the midst of that horror, she became aware that he knew she couldn't look away.

"Yeah...?" he repeated, and the power in that tone might have made many ponies take a step back. But --

...as long as I'm not afraid...

Fleur focused. "Is Fluttershy in?"

"Yeah," the stallion stated.

"Can I see her?"

At first, she thought he was taking a moment to look her over. But that steady red gaze was moving around her, and she realized he was checking for the presence of a pet. No animals were located beyond the ones who always seemed to follow her after she'd crossed the bridge, and a tinge of confusion entered his expression by way of minor earthquake.

"...yeah..." he thoughtfully considered --

-- and then, from the sitting room, "...it's all right. That's Fleur."

The stallion took a deep breath. It was a fascinating process to watch, and an even more fascinating effort was required to stop.

"Okay," he said, not quite looking back. "Do you want to wrap up now? I can take some of the books out if you can spare them. There's been a lot of study time available in the tent."

"...that's all right," Fluttershy softly offered. "I'll pick out some things to put in your saddlebags. I'm sorry, Fleur: I remembered you were coming, I swear I did, but our session ran a little long..." A short pause, and then, to the stallion, "So I want you to start with this one -- come back in: I need to show you the first page..."

The stallion backed up slightly, put himself clear of the doorway before starting to turn -- and it was only then that Fleur saw the wings. Or rather, what was left of them.

He wasn't looking at her any more. He had no way to see her staring. But there were senses beyond the standard ones and that which only she possessed. He felt the weight of her eyes, and his posture tightened.

She watched through the doorway: multiple thick books being placed into saddlebags, which were then donned with no acknowledgement of their weight. The stallion trotted towards the door, and Fleur made her legs work in time to give him space. He went past her, stepped onto the path, the broken remnants flared out and --

What is this place?

Fleur heard the soft hoofsteps come up behind her. She didn't turn. Her attention was still focused on the sky.

"...I'm ready," Fluttershy said. "We can start now."

"Who was that?"

The hesitation was typical -- but this time, it was also rather brief. "...Snowflake."

Fleur's mind tried to apply a name which suggested an ultimate level of fragility to a body which had openly declared a previously-impossible level of physical power. "Is he a client? Somepony who has to learn how to take care of his pet at home, and you're giving him the books --"

"-- he's my substitute," Fluttershy quietly told her. And, while Fleur was still blinking, "...when there's missions -- somepony has to take over for us here. For the things we do every day. So I've been teaching him, and -- most of the animals like him. He's learned some of the basics for medicine. So when we all go, he comes here, as the palace's hire. He does whatever he can until we get back."

It made sense, although the partial nature of that compensation still infuriated Fleur. The palace would cover for the Bearers' day jobs, but it wouldn't pay them for the missions: what kind of arrangement was that?

The injustice of it normally would have set her inner self to seething. In this case, there was still a certain amount of confusion in the way. "He fills in for you?"

"...we met a little over two years ago, when he moved to town. We -- sort of had somepony in common, who said we should meet, and..."

Fleur waited, and that was becoming habit: time spent in holding her tongue until Fluttershy mustered the strength to continue speaking. But this time, she waited -- and nothing else came.

Finally, she glanced back and found herself unable to meet her charge's eyes, not with the mare's head dipped so low and the visible eye coated in pain.

She still could have approached, at least in theory. Made that attempt to offer some form of comfort. But it had been a week, and so she'd learned that if Fluttershy truly didn't want to talk about something, then bringing it up had the potential to end lessons. They'd never truly discussed the words which had been spoken just before the pegasus had fled from their first session: the ones which had created the opportunity for Discord to appear. They weren't at the point where such discussions could be had, potentially might never reach it, and Fleur knew every attempt she made could potentially postpone that near-impossible day by moons to come. If Fluttershy wanted to speak, she would. And if she didn't, nothing would make her.

Time spent in waiting for pain to recede wasn't always wasted. Time used in hoping it would vanish forever was.

Eventually, "...Snowflake is -- my friend. A little more than my friend."

Fleur had shut her talent down as she crossed the bridge: it was habit now. She knew nothing of the stallion's puzzle. But if there was any chance that Fluttershy felt something towards him --

"...he's... sort of a sibling," the pegasus awkwardly finished. "We're not from the same family, not by blood. But we're... just about brother and sister. It's... hard to explain... I can't really even..."

And it was a bad time to ask, because it always was. But on the whole, Fleur still considered what she'd been told to be good news: it at least proved that Fluttershy was capable of forming some level of relationship with a stallion. Snowflake had found a way to make a connection. In that sense, the trail didn't have to be carved out from nothing, although there was still going to be a lot of trouble finding the tiny blaze marks on the sapling trunks.

But there remained a question, and the process of voicing it began with a statement. "His wings were partially amputated."

She saw the blink, and knew it had come from pure surprise. "...how did you know? Most ponies just think they're small..."

Too many images flashed past her inner vision, and it gave her one more excuse to ignore Fluttershy's query. "He flew away. He's missing more than half of his wings and he flew. How did he --"

"...he's -- strong," Fluttershy quietly answered -- but there was pressure forcing itself out through the words. "There's -- only so much I can say, Fleur. Please..."

She can't explain about strength? How is being able to haul more than anypony should and fly when they shouldn't be able to some kind of secret?

But she couldn't ask. Not from Fluttershy, when even the most normal conversations were an effort, with any pressure providing another excuse to flee. She hadn't asked her charge about the identities of the other Bearers, despite having access to that source: she might be introduced to them in time, finding out on her own was a challenge to her skills, and -- it had seemed as if she might not get that answer. She hadn't tried to pry into previous missions, not after the first attempt. (Anypony would have been curious about what had happened in the fight against Nightmare. Anpony would have asked. And Fluttershy had simply blushed, murmured about royal privacy, and weakly attempted to change the subject.) After a while, Fleur had only tried to teach. Hours committed to lessons. Or what should have been lessons...

"Let's get started," Fleur temporarily surrendered.

"...so what are we doing today?"

And with every last tenth-bit of the irony simultaneously kicking Fleur in all four shins, "Talking."

They were still on the absolute basics, and there were too many reasons for that. The attempts at sexy trots had been postponed, other things had been interrupted -- repeatedly -- and very little progress had been made. But there had been a little advancement, at least in understanding: Fluttershy recognized Fleur as her teacher and even if the lessons made the pegasus want to retreat, she seemed to comprehend that the lessons would still keep on coming. Fleur had even told her charge about a portion of the short-term plan, simply because springing it on her out of nowhere might have created a full week of locked doors.

"...so this is for the... test gallop?" Fluttershy tried as they reached the debris-free pasture area, settled in to face each other.

Fleur nodded. "It's what I told you: I've been scouting out somepony for you. Eventually, you're going to go on a date with that pony."

"...but..." A lump of hard-swallowed saliva made its way down the shapely neck. "...somepony -- with me..."

"There are ponies who want to date you," Fleur solidly stated. "I've already found one. That doesn't mean this is the pony you should be with for the rest of your life. If it works out that way in the end, then we'll finish quickly. But part of the way you learn how to date and be social is by dating and being social. So in a little while, you are going to have a date. But before that, you and I will go out on the town together, so you can watch other ponies interacting. And today, we're going to talk."

"...I'm going on a date," Fluttershy tried. Her voice didn't seem to indicate full acceptance of the concept on their third go-round either.

"And on dates," Fleur told her, "ponies talk. So we're going to talk."

That blink of innocent confusion. It was a very pretty one, and Fleur still hopelessly wished to never see it again. "...about what?"

"Casual things," Fleur said. "Little things. Anything." Because Fluttershy had trouble talking, and the best case for a shutdown in that department was a rather attractive and awkwardly silent blush huddled on the other side of a table for hours: something which wouldn't do much to encourage a second date. "There's an art to conversation, Fluttershy. But right now, I just want you to talk about anything you're comfortable with. Just to have that conversation with someone you don't know all that well, because it'll prove you can. And you pick the topic."

The pegasus took a slow breath. Feathers softly rustled as those slightly-oversized wings twitched -- but the limbs never extended out of the folded position.

"...did you -- ever have any pets?"

Fleur blinked.

"No." It was the truth.

"...because I've seen you coming and going a few times now. And it sort of feels like you've --"

They both heard the squawk, and Fleur fought to keep her face from twisting into a wince. She knew that squawk now, and it had taken very little time to discover just how much she hated it.

" -- oh," Fluttershy finished. "I -- oh, here she --" and the much-despised parrot landed on Fluttershy's right shoulder, squawked again. "I have to -- you know..."

And after a mere week, she knew it by heart. Fleur nodded. Fluttershy's wings spread and the pegasus flew away, leaving the unicorn standing in the browning pasture.

Again.

The hours should have been committed to lessons. They were hours Fleur never would have wanted to give, the time spent laboring under her sentence -- but one method of escaping the punishment required the sacrifice of that time. But in reality, they were hours she generally spent in waiting for Fluttershy to return from dealing with the latest emergency. Time when Fleur was doing nothing at all. Time wasted. And the only thing which could make that horror worse was that she was wasting it in the place where Discord had presented his calling card.

She had slept on the night after meeting him, eventually -- and then the nightmares had come. They hadn't fully stopped, although the exact topic occasionally stepped aside and allowed other things to use the inner stage.

Time spent in waiting, and in waiting for him to return. Wasted time was bad enough. Waiting here, again and again...

"I can do something."

"What makes you think you can?"

"Because it's better than doing nothing!"

The pause had been as long as it dared.

"Then prove it."

It took mere seconds to reach full gallop.

Fluttershy looked up when she heard the hoofsteps, and the visible blue-green eye blinked with surprise.

"...why did you --?"

Fleur didn't answer immediately. The survey of the treatment room had her full attention.

The padded table which occupied most of the center had flip-up panels hanging off the edges: they could be raised to accommodate larger animals. Dangling straps indicated the chance to hold down the more reluctant occupants, with none of them currently in use. There were shelves lining three of the cream-colored walls, and most held bottles of medicine, the contents of which broke up the light into sickly-seeming rainbows. Other shelves carried little devices. Scales. Instruments of all sorts. The one wall which didn't carry any equipment was half-dedicated to frequently-used, ragged books, with the rest given over to posters displaying the anatomy of the species which found their way to that table with the greatest frequency. The space was clean and smelled mostly of sterilizing agents, with a strong overlay of panicked feline.

"...easy, Charlotte," Fluttershy whispered. "Easy..." The ragdoll cat managed an agonized, frightened mew. "...she won't hurt you..."

Which was when Fleur focused on the wrenched, horribly-bent right foreleg, and saw the first splinter of red-dripping bone spiking out of the fur.

-- the smell hit her.

Blood.

Just about every pony in Equestria would have tensed. The majority would have felt their senses narrow, their perception of the world temporarily shrinking until there was nothing but the scent. Heartbeats would quicken. For a few, hooves would begin to pound, wings might flare, and everything possible would be done to get away as the odor of their own fear filled the air. If that newest scent grew strong enough, other ponies would sense that, and some of them wouldn't bother to think about what there was to be afraid of before they began to run. Enough ponies, enough panic, and all thought would vanish. The herd, ruled by instinct alone, would stampede.

But Fluttershy, surrounded by the miasma of that which brought fear, simply stood there, still trying to figure out why Fleur had entered. And the unicorn --

-- stepped forward.

"How are you going to straighten that?" Fluttershy didn't have a horn. Without the ability to merely glance at the broken leg and surround it with a field --

"...I have... a double-clamp," Fluttershy softly said, keeping her tones calm as an outstretched wing gently stroked the cat's fur. "With hinges and -- screws, big enough to turn with my mouth. It stretches out for different sizes, but it's not -- nice. It's scary for them, and -- it hurts. Anything would hurt, even with what I've already given her. But just seeing it -- they know something bad will happen. Fleur, you shouldn't be --"

Her horn ignited, the smooth-bordered corona at the partial level. Without pressure or manipulation, soft pink glow carefully surrounded the broken leg.

"What did you give her?"

This blink was from shock. "...willow bark extract, with cloves and turmeric. Plus there's some -- chemicals added. It helps, but it can't take things completely away, not for her species. And I can't use a sleep drug yet, not when I have to ask her how she feels and if anything's going wrong. I wish I could, but she's scared to sleep right now, she wants to be awake.... Fleur, what are you --"

"And you've sterilized the area." She could see the remnants of the white fizz among the bloodied fur. "So the break has to be straightened before you can set it and put the cast on." Which would probably be via mouth wrapping, using a flexible guard to cover the teeth and prevent anything else from getting in. "You do the splint and cast. I'll straighten her leg."

Fluttershy's mouth opened, and there was a moment when no words emerged.

"...you -- you're going to --"

"I'm not good with splints," Fleur said. "And I'm not the pony who can keep her calm. But I can straighten."

"...but -- if you've never --"

"She's strong. She's going to try and kick against the pain, because she doesn't understand that she has to stay still. She's going to kick hard and if you can't keep her still, it's going to make things worse. Can you hold her, Fleur? Are you that strong? Can you keep her completely still?"

"I..."

"Can you?"

Fluttershy's head came up a little more, tossed, and the mane shifted back. For the first time, both eyes were exposed, and Fleur finally saw her entire face: the gentle perfection marred by confusion and concern.

They looked at each other across the table, in the soft light of corona glow, and both heard the mew of pain. The sound which didn't understand what had happened. The utterance made by the helpless against the cruelty of the world.

And Fleur still had a chance to lie. To apologize for having come in, making assumptions in the face of expertise. The falsehood expressed as apology, all coverup automatic. And then it would have been back to waiting in the pasture, never to intrude again.

But memory had taken over at the moment she'd come through the door.

"I have."

There was a single second before the next words came. They were sharp, but calm: the patient couldn't be panicked. They also arrived with no additional hesitation at all, the seemingly permanent pause banished for the duration, and so gave Fleur very little time for wondering what she'd just done to herself.

"Move closer. Get your best viewing angle. I'll tell you when to start straightening, slowly, and when to pause. I'll need to clean this again at the midpoint: the movement may extend the skin wound, and we're going to have more bleeding no matter what we do. Can you deal with more blood?"

The word "Yes," made its way out of the mist of rising personal horror.

"Okay. I would usually wrap her in cloth to immobilize the rest of her. But I want you to get your field around her entire body. Don't let anything move. She's going to try and get away as soon as the pain intensifies. Be ready for it."

Fleur, unable to find the words which would save her, the utterance that could take things back, simply nodded. The glow spread, and the cat's wide eyes tried to make sense of what was going on, attempted to comprehend something it couldn't understand...

"Charlotte?"

Another pained mew.

"Start," Fluttershy gently stated.

Fleur focused. The mangled leg shifted, and the feline's wail rent the air.

"Stop."

She did. The helpless scream didn't.

"Easy..." Fluttershy whispered to the cat, feathers almost drifting across the corona-covered back. "Easy, Charlotte. I know..." and then words went away, replaced by a soft mewing, one overlaid with the complexities of pony tones. The cat's eyes slowly went back to normal. "She's ready for the next stage. Start."

Again. And again. Movement. Pain. Calming. Repeated as many times as necessary.

There was blood. There was always blood: it was one of the first lessons Fleur had been taught. That there would be blood, and a pony's instincts would want to react. But she was more than her instincts. She was a sapient, a being who could think. And if she truly needed to deal with the blood and everything which came with it, she could.

No true fear came from the blood. But the past kicked her, over and over, and it was all she could do to remain still as her soul was bruised.

[/hr]

There was a new odor now, a faint chemical one: bandages hardening. The cat slowly closed her eyes, raised her ears and listened to the outer world again.

"And rest..." Fluttershy whispered. "It's over, Charlotte. You did your part: you told me everything I needed to help you. I'll give you something so you can sleep now, and then we'll go find your pony. You were very brave, staying awake so you could talk to me like that..."

A soft, weary purr vibrated the inner surface of the field. It was a strange sensation, coming from the inside --

"....you can let go now, Fleur." The corona winked out.

"I didn't pass anypony on the way in," Fleur managed. It was something to say. "How did she get here?"

"...she... wanders. When she shouldn't. Two of my raccoon friends found her, and they can carry if they're careful. Sometimes it's easier to come and get me, but they were close, and -- they don't always think about it. Her pony is probably looking for her, and... I'll have to tell her. That won't be easy, but..." The yellow head dipped and the mane slipped back, covering the right side of her face. "...I'll get Charlotte home. Fleur -- how did you --"

"-- I have to go."

Fluttershy blinked. "Fleur?"

"I have to go," she repeated. Fluttershy had to leave in the middle of things all the time: Fleur was entitled to do it once. "Right now. There's things back in town which I have to deal with, getting ready for our outing. I'll come back tomorrow."

"...but --"

"-- I have to go, Fluttershy. Now."

And after twenty heartbeats had slammed against her ribs, "...okay. I'll walk you to the --"

There was probably words to come after 'bridge', and Fleur lost them all as her field, acting on a thought barely acknowledged, slammed the door.

The mill seemed to beckon her, and that was the central reason she went past it. There were too many voices to deal with already, and all of them seemed to be her own. Even the ones which were just repeating the words which she'd never said. Ultimately, it was all hers and --

-- I was just sick of waiting.

Wasting time. Time when he could have come back. I thought it would be better back at the cottage. That I could do something, just so I wouldn't be doing nothing, and...

She wasn't galloping. To start running would have been to risk the chance that she might never stop, and the titanium was still around her right foreleg. A week and there had been no signs of abrasion or fungal infection from constantly having metal rub against her fur. It was probably part of the magic. A minor aspect of the workings which would track her wherever she went.

Fleur could run to the limits of the world, the border of her own lifespan, and the Princess would simply bring her back.

She's going to ask questions.

I can ignore them. She doesn't answer me half the time, or uses whatever I say as a reason to stop. I don't have to answer her. That's fair. It's not like she's going to challenge me. She doesn't have the strength to challenge me. I just don't answer her and --

-- what if she asks me to do it again?

She was trotting down the path which led to Ponyville. Every sense told her that, and all of them were ignored. Memory ruled the world.

I made a mistake. Why did I do that? I've been stressed, of course I've been stressed, Celestia destroyed my life and anypony would be stressed after that, but...

She was only trotting. Galloping wouldn't have helped. The -- other kind of movement was just one more reminder.

I forgot.

I forget that something is the worst thing I can ever do.

I know that mistake and I made it anyway.

She didn't go back to the rented residence immediately. She explored the area a little more, because it was something she still needed to do, and there wasn't really anything else scheduled. Fleur wasn't supposed to see Caramel again until the following night, and then she had put aside an evening for taking Fluttershy out on that survey tour -- but for the current day, there was nothing significant planned. A day which was rapidly moving into night: Sun-lowering was becoming progressively earlier as autumn deepened, and she'd been exploring

wandering

for a while.

She didn't have to answer Fluttershy. That was the core of it. No questions needed to be entertained, and any dubious attempt the pegasus might make to insist (which would probably just be a whispered partial repetition, one which barely managed to clear the ellipsis) could be ignored in favor of getting back to the lessons.

Fleur had made a mistake. A familiar one, because she'd heard the pain of the helpless and --

-- stop.

Stop thinking about it.

Just... don't do it again.

It won't lead to the same thing. It can't. But...

She knew what would be waiting for her in the nightscape, and it was almost enough to make her wish for Discord.

Go back to the house. Wash up. And then I'm going out. It would be easy to find a pony. Somepony who would keep her from sleep for a while, and as long as she left before her eyes inevitably closed...

Part of her recognized that it wasn't the best plan. It was very likely that she would have rethought it after cleaning herself, found something else which would postpone the dreams. But it never had the chance to happen, because she trotted towards that rented residence and its groaning pipes. Fleur navigated streets which she was coming to truly know, avenues she might wind up fully memorizing within the first three years, turned the corner which served as the entrance into what wasn't her neighborhood and --

"SURPRISE!"

-- realized she'd completely forgotten about Pinkie.

Party Hardly

She didn't jump: the rest of her senses had taken in their share of information while the chorus of welcome was still settling into her ears, and so she knew there was no true threat. It had been a week, and that week had allowed her to speak with Caramel about a few of Ponyville's more casual subjects, especially when it came to things he would bring up. As it turned out, for any long-resident to ask a new arrival 'So were you Pinkied yet?' was a perfectly natural, and rather early-arriving, question.

Fleur had learned one thing about that Bearer's habits: whenever somepony new moved into town, if the schedule permitted it and the baker felt such an event would be beneficial for them, she would create a welcoming party. She didn't always attend: there were a lot of new ponies in town these days and despite what Caramel insisted was a near-talent for just about being in multiple places at once (added to winking hints towards some kind of story about a day where that had apparently come true), she'd realized that it was simply impossible for her to personally supervise every gathering. There were parties where all she did was ask the neighbors to put something together, others where she might suggest a list of activities, and then there were times when what the settled zone sometimes saw as Laughter herself decided she had to watch over the festivities.

The new arrival, who was now making herself trot forward, had been waiting for it. Wondering about it: what kind of party it would be, when it would hit -- and if that blur of energy and sugar-rushed vocabulary would actually be there, which also brought up the question of comets and second impacts. For Fleur hadn't been back to the bakery: after talking about the subject, she'd found herself with an extra reason to let the baker have a chance to set the time of their second meeting. To let that mare come to her. It had left her waiting, and her patience had just paid off. The Bearer of Laughter was beaming at her, from the very front of the assembly.

Fleur looked over the full group as she moved towards it, because there could easily be more than a single important pony in attendance. She hadn't really expected to spot Mr. Rich, and didn't: her attempts to pick out brown earth pony stallions had her locate that one older male whose mark still meant she wasn't ever going to be truly interested. But there were neighbors in attendance, those she'd seen going in and out of their homes. A few tradesponies she'd noticed around town could be made out, added to a number she'd never encountered before --

-- there was a flash of soft yellow fur. A particularly familiar shade of it.

Fleur shut her talent down.

It didn't make her pause in her step: she continued to approach the gathering, making sure one of her prettier smiles was in place: something fairly welcoming, but not too open. It was likely something she would have done anyway, because there were at least fifty ponies at this gathering and to trot into large groups with her talent fully active was to risk sensory overwhelm: she'd found that out the hard way. She could try to use it while within such gatherings, focusing that sense on one pony at a time, and that focus would normally protect her -- but there was still a limit to how much information she could process at once.

Fleur would have likely turned her magic off when initially entering the party: she recognized that. But to have done it automatically, at the mere sight of Fluttershy...

I have to be careful about that. Habit can be dangerous enough. Instinct is worse.

Still trotting closer, now looking over the setup itself: extra lighting devices illuminating the street, glimpses of food-laden tables just visible through milling pony bodies. There was a small stage reserved for a band, plus she was sure she'd just seen what looked like a rather large wooden tub. One pegasus was setting mugs out while an earth pony rolled a cask forward, and moving left from that brought her to --

-- the Princess.

Not Celestia, or the younger of the Diarchy. Certainly not the one who'd been sent to take custody of the North. The one she'd seen shelving books, on Fleur's first day in Ponyville.

The Princess is attending my party.

Opportunity knocked, and Fleur trotted forward to answer the door.

The pink mare, curls bouncing as she moved to greet Fleur, smiled happily at the guest of honor. "Surprise!" she repeated. "Well, maybe not as much of a surprise as it used to be. I mean, all the ponies in town know I do this now. The ones who've been here for a while. And the ones who just got here can run into ponies who'll tell them, which means the only real surprise part is the time, and I had to make sure nopony spoiled that for you! Nopony told you, did they? Because you looked surprised. But maybe you're just a really good actress! You're pretty enough to be an actress. Not that all actresses have to be pretty --"

Fleur had also been advised on a number of anti-Pinkie tactics (with no promise that any of them would work), and so felt free to cut in. "-- nopony told me," she smiled back. "Not a single pony." Not even --

-- Fluttershy is at this party.

Fluttershy... came to a party.

It was a chance to see what her charge was like in a social setting, without having had to arrange the entire stage: Fleur should have welcomed that. But it had only been a few hours since she'd left the cottage, without any real chance for memories to start fading...

We just won't talk about it. She spends most of her time in not talking about things, so now it's my turn.

But still... Fluttershy was at the party. Along with a Princess, and at least one other Bearer. And the caretaker had come of her own free will...

Maybe it's because of Pinkie. The Bearers supported each other, and so Fluttershy had come because she'd known her friend would be there. It was still an encouraging sign, to know that Fluttershy could be among a gathering this large (and getting larger, as there were more ponies coming up the street behind her, with a few more emerging from their homes) without --

-- Fleur took a closer look.

Absolute rear of the group. Shrunken posture. Head is down. Ears are nearly flat. Spine curving in. Tail pretty much all the way between her legs, or as much as it can be. Moving backwards --

-- and right behind the backup casks.

She kept the sigh internal. There was only so much time to work with at any party, and she couldn't afford to waste any on frustration. Not with at least one other Bearer and a Princess to see.

"All anypony told me was that there would be a party," Fleur smiled. "And a party which comes with even that degree of warning is still a party. I know this is my welcome party, and --" she'd had about a week to practice the words "-- it's nice, just to feel welcomed." A little more softly, "Thank you, Pinkie."

The earth pony blushed, pink fur taking on highlights of rose.

"It's..." The first awkward pause she'd heard from the baker, which led into the first words to feel normal. "...what I do. It's what helps." The baker's smile quirked slightly at the left corner, and then she spoke again, much more softly. "Now, because you're so new, I'd better tell you: there's a lot more ponies coming. This is just the early crowd! A lot of ponies want to find out about you, because you're new and you're so pretty. Mostly the pretty part. I haven't had this many guests tell me they were coming since -- actually, she might come too. So this could run a little long, but it's also about you and if you tell me you're tired and want to stop, I'll make sure it stops. Okay?"

"All right," Fleur agreed. But it had brought up another question. "How many ponies is a lot?"

"A lot a lot."

Which didn't come across as being particularly helpful. "And that adds up to --"

"-- also, because there's so many ponies, I had to ask some of your neighbors if the guests could use their bathrooms. But I didn't say anypony could use yours, because you've only been here a little while and some ponies don't like strangers trotting through their homes. So if you're okay with that, I'll let ponies know, but if you don't want it, I'll make sure everypony understands."

That answer was immediate. "No strangers." To have a full herd going into the house...

"Okie-dokie!" Followed by a hopeful, "But maybe they won't be such strangers when the night ends, right? So there's more ponies coming, and more refreshments, and please don't worry about paying for any of it because you don't have to worry about that, nopony ever does. I actually got some donations this time! Because there's been ponies who've seen you trotting around, and they wanted to trot over here instead of trotting into things because they were watching you for too long. I heard about the fountain. Six times. But by the fifth one, it was just about the whole town falling in and that didn't make any sense, because there's ponies who'd never look no matter how pretty you are, mostly because you're not a stallion -- oh, look! The band's coming in! Which mostly means Lyra right now, but that's special, because she's a little shy and she doesn't come to most parties. But she's not here because you're pretty: she's with Bon-Bon. She's here because I thought the music -- well, wait until you hear! Once she gets set up. And reaches the right songs. Which could take a while. So are you ready to really meet everypony?"

Fleur made a very careful point of not glancing towards the alicorn. "Yes," with her own smile approaching gentle radiance. "Just say the word."

Pinkie nodded, turned, and said it.

"PARTY!"

Ponies cheered.

And so many things began.

For the most part, Fleur allowed herself to be circulated, the party's natural rhythm dictating where and how she moved. But she had more than a little experience of being among such gatherings. Even if the Canterlot versions tended to be far snootier and had (until some of the more choice information began to come in) often seen jealous mares attempting to lash their tails out as barriers to her progress, the flow was just about the same. Ponies who wanted to meet her, ponies who had to be met. And because Fleur was experienced, she knew how to work with the current, altering her movement patterns in ways which made it seem as if the party itself had carried her away from the pony she'd just decided wasn't important.

She was fully aware of the limitations imposed by time: after all, there was only so long the party could go on. They were in a residential neighborhood, out on the street because there was no way for any single residence to host all of this. There were children who had school in the morning, parents who would see them out before heading off to work -- eventually, the event would be shut down just to let everypony get some sleep and ideally, this would happen before the police arrived to enforce that desire.

Still, it seemed as if Pinkie had a high mastery of her craft: so far, the music was being kept fairly low, at a level where Fleur sometimes had to make a deliberate effort before she could determine just what was being played. There was laughter, but none of it was echoing from the bottom of multiple empty mugs. Ponies were being polite and welcoming, with jealousy being kept to what Fleur saw as the typical nightly minimum encountered on just about any night when she was in public. And as for the guest list...

She didn't always get the chance to use her talent: somepony would catch her at the wrong moment, and too many of those came just after she'd gotten another partial glimpse of Fluttershy. And the majority of the puzzles were nothing interesting: a number of ponies had attended under the hope that they would have a chance with her, and so most of what their pieces indicated was their dream of being with Fleur. But as she learned just who those ponies were, what kind of power they could wield...

There would be a point when Fleur had to reach Fluttershy: get a closer look at how her still-present charge was managing -- along with just which ponies the pegasus was more freely (or at all) associating with. (She glanced over whenever she could, made sure Fluttershy was still there. She generally found that much, and no more.) But that could easily become part of the party's natural circulation, and so she let it carry her along, bringing her where it desired, right up until the moment she began to direct the currents.

And the first tidal pool she washed up in was that of the Princess.

The final approach was simple. There were no Guards: not a single armored barrier to entry. She simply excused herself away from a mare's fumbling half-expressed attempt to ask her out, twisted past a married couple, did a quick social twirl through the center of a sports argument -- and then, for the second time in her life, there was an alicorn in front of her. Or in this case, slightly below, because the Princess was... small.

She hadn't expected that. If asked to picture a Princess, Fleur's first image -- what she suspected was just about everypony's first image -- would have been Celestia and even if that picture was now tinged with hate, it still required the largest frame known to the three main pony species. Princess Luna was appreciably taller than the average, while Princess Cadance, who was closer to pony-normal, still would have had to bend all four knees before reaching it. The newest of royalty, however...

Her manestyle mostly said she had never really learned how to do anything with her mane, and it was probably too late to start now. The purple fur was decently groomed, but it felt like the grooming of a mare who understood that ponies groomed themselves regularly and therefore some degree of grooming was required. She wore no regalia of any kind, which at least went nicely with the lack of Guards. The wings were carried in a position which suggested somepony who'd just accidentally bitten their tongue and thus got to spend the rest of the day fully aware of the fact that there was a tongue in their mouth, when they'd gotten completely sick of the thought after the first two minutes.

And she was small. Clearly an adult, perhaps a few years past graduation -- but there were teens who were larger than she was, and just about everypony possessed more mass. A naturally-slender body had been added to one of the narrowest rib cages Fleur had ever seen, and it might take a mere pair of missed meals before the ribs themselves were put on display.

She was attractive, in her way. But it was the beauty of a crystal vase, one which had seen a blaze of fire placed inside. Powerful, fragile, and completely unaware.

Be careful. If Celestia told anypony else about me, this would be the pony. Just treat her like royalty...

"Princess," Fleur began, her forelegs dipping into the curtsy of a Royal Greeting Stance as a warm breeze rustled her fur. "It is an honor to --"

"-- librarian," the Princess said.

The word had been soft. Even. Extremely... controlled.

Fleur, caught in the process of lowering herself, looked across to the mare. "Princess?"

"I want you to try something," that voice went on. "Every time you would say 'Princess,' say 'Librarian'."

Oh, good. She's insane. "...all right," Fleur carefully said, and resolved to make no sudden movements: the purple eyes looked a little too serious for open retreat. "Librarian, it is an honor to meet you. I didn't know you lived in this settled zone, but I did find out shortly after I arrived. I simply did not wish to bother you, because I know a Librarian has many duties. But to have a --" Which was when the word began to scrape against her tongue. "-- Librarian... attend my welcoming party, to know a... Librarian... has graced me with her presence..."

She was still in the half-dip. She wanted to straighten again. And she would have, if not for the ten bale-weights of a very odd embarrassment pressing against her spine.

"It sounds stupid, doesn't it?" royalty quietly asked her.

Fleur, unsure of just what the most powerful individual in Ponyville wanted her to say, wound up pausing for what she felt was far too long -- then risked a nod.

"My name," that mare steadily told the night, "is Twilight Sparkle. The mayor generally calls me 'Ms. Sparkle' and when she's angry with me, which happens a lot, it's much louder. There are ponies who only think of me as Magic and when that happens, I'd rather they didn't think of me at all. The bank manager calls me things I can't repeat, my brothers call me their sister, and my friends call me Twilight, except for the times when some of them use 'egghead' or 'Sugarcube'." She took a breath, and that rib cage slowly shifted. "I also get a 'dearest' every now and again. And yes, I'm an alicorn. Most ponies call alicorns 'Princess' on instinct, because that's the only thing an alicorn's ever been. But I'm a librarian. And I think we've proven using that as a title sounds just as stupid."

She didn't know what to say, and suddenly didn't know if there was anything she could say at all. For there was power, still, and there remained a sort of fragility. But the vase was so much closer to diamond.

The party went on around them. The party was, with careful intent, ignoring everything.

"You're helping Fluttershy," the alicorn said. "I think you can start with 'Twilight' for now. We'll see if you stay there. Straighten, please."

She had to force her legs to work, one joint at a time, and almost felt as if the bones were grinding against each other.

Twilight Sparkle: Magic.

Fleur hadn't used her talent on the alicorn just yet, in part because she'd been afraid of what that mare had been told -- and now, because if anypony could pick up on that subtle flow of thaums...

Celestia had done that, but had admitted to having strained for it. This was an Element.

Fully vertical again. It left her looking down on the little mare, if only physically.

"I..." She tried another breath, started over. "I'm glad to meet one of Fluttershy's friends."

The librarian, her expression quiet and neutral, simply nodded.

"She really hasn't talked about you," Fleur tried. "Well, she hasn't talked about any of you, really." And decided it would be a good time for a rather artful sort of wince. "We -- get interrupted. A lot."

Which produced the smallest of smiles. "Yes. It's a special peril of the cottage. I've had a lot of conversations with Fluttershy which wind up stretching out across six separate emergencies. I understand there was one today, and --" a little more softly "-- that you helped her. It took a long time before I trusted myself to hold an animal still for her. I'm still afraid to do it. And you just galloped in and did it, Fleur. So thank you."

It should have been comforting. It wasn't.

She's been telling them about me. And Fleur should have expected that, should have been ready for it, but she'd been so concerned about what might have been flowing the other way...

Twilight was looking at her, the large eyes silently roaming across Fleur's features. She knew it wasn't an assessment of her beauty.

"I know you're helping her," the small mare said. "Or trying to. And I know you keep getting interrupted, because that's just how the cottage works. I know the palace sent you. Will you tell me why?"

She tried another breath, felt the seconds flowing through it.

As long as I'm not afraid...

"If you have to ask me," Fleur said, "that means Fluttershy hasn't told you."

"Or maybe she has," Twilight countered, "and I want to see what you say. Why are you here, Fleur?"

"I don't know if she's told you," Fleur replied. "If she hasn't, then that means she wants to keep it private. And that means it's not my place to say."

The librarian's horn ignited. Just a partial corona: the thinnest possible coating of light. The glow of Magic.

There was a buffer space around them now, just enough to notice. Also enough to notice that it was steadily getting wider.

"Fluttershy asked for help, and the palace sent me," Fleur told her. "Shouldn't that be enough?"

"It would have been," came the immediate reply. "Once."

Fleur blinked.

...ally?

-- no, it was far too soon to think that way. But the words had been so stark...

"We've found," the alicorn continued, "that keeping secrets from each other tends to backfire. But we can't tell each other everything because we can't ask each other everything. So there are things which stay private until exactly the wrong moment. Fluttershy knows she has to talk to us, and we know we have to speak with her. But when we ask her about you, why you're here, why you spend so much time at the cottage, because Rainbow's seen you on your way there and back a few times now --"

Rainbow. Fluttershy mentioned her, now this, that flying ego might be a Bearer...

"-- although she's given Fluttershy her privacy while you're there, because the cottage birds tend to beat her back when she doesn't. We asked Fluttershy about what's going on, and all she'll do is say that you're her tutor, and she doesn't want to talk about it until she feels like she's making real progress. She said she was afraid we wouldn't understand. We're friends, and she doesn't want to talk to us about you. Why?"

She could be lying. The palace could have briefed her about everything. She could be testing me.

But test or not, there was only one answer Fleur could give.

"It was hard, wasn't it? Getting Fluttershy to trust you?"

The corona flickered.

"The first time we met," the librarian eventually said, "if my brother hadn't been there, then she wouldn't have talked to me. At all."

Fleur immediately resolved to meet the brother, and hoped he was of dating age. "I'm still trying to find a way where she'll trust me, even for the things I'm trying to teach her. And if she doesn't want to talk, Twilight, then the best way to betray that trust is by doing it for her."

A long moment of silence, where neither party buzz nor music could reach them. And then the field winked out.

"When she's ready, then," the alicorn told her. "Welcome to Ponyville. Why don't you go try the bobbing tub?" She nodded to her general left, with the dark horn indicating a more precise direction.

Fleur glanced that way, noted the wooden tub again, spotted a flash of red moving up and down on the surface --

-- blinked again.

"You use a bobbing tub? At a party?"

"...yes," Twilight cautiously said.

And with sincere words spoken directly to one of the ponies who'd faced down nightmare, "You're braver than I thought."

It was Twilight's turn to blink. "Bobbing for apples is brave?"

Fleur's head immediately turned left.

Oh. Apples. And that's just a reflection from the skin onto water...

It had been a rather draining sort of conversation, one which had left her with no more idea of what Twilight truly knew than she'd had going in. And other than the fact that she wasn't currently existing as a rapidly-dissipating cloud of ash, Fleur wasn't entirely sure she'd won.

"I think I'll pass," Fleur quickly decided. "I'd rather not have to leave the party to redo my cosmetics. But it looks like a very nice bobbing tub. For apples. It was nice to meet you, Twilight, and -- I promise that it'll be Twilight. If you let me."

The buffer zone was starting to close in again, with the buzz slowly flowing back.

"You're tutoring her," Twilight not-quite-stated.

Fleur nodded.

"I hope the lessons are good ones," said the most dangerous individual in Ponyville. "Enjoy the party, Fleur."

Pinkie found her a few minutes later.

"So how's it going?" the baker inquired. "I always try to check on the guest of honor! To see if there's anything I can do. Or change. Or anypony I have to kick out. I thought I saw that one stallion get a little too close to your --"

"He's taken care of," Fleur said. She could tell the difference between accidental contact and that which was designed to get the tactile sort of feel: a quick, rather choice public comment had sent the pegasus packing at high speed, in desperate search for some impossible means of healing the wound to his reputation. It had actually been quite refreshing for her, both in allowing a moment to vent and clearing out space: it had been nearly an hour now, and ponies were still arriving.

"Okay," Pinkie readily accepted. "Are you hungry? Did you get to the food table at all? If you need me to bring you anything --"

"-- you said you got donations for the table?"

Pinkie nodded.

Hesitantly, "Were any of them from... that one place, with the dark green --"

It triggered a rueful little smile. "No. He offered, though. He might even come, at the very end, because it takes him a while to clear down the restaurant, even when nopony's eating there. It's a good time to hit the refreshments, because after one pony sees him near them, nopony else will want to be. It's not his fault, really -- well, the cooking sort of is, but he's a nice pony, really he is! It's just that there's a few ponies in town who can sort of clear out a party if they show up, and there's one of them..."

The last words had been rushed. They had also been much softer than everything which had come before, dropping almost instantly into desperate whisper, and so Fleur followed Pinkie's gradually-descending line of sight until she found --

The baker sighed. "I knew she lived around here," the earth pony sadly said, "but she gets grounded a lot. I didn't know if she was going to come outside. Oh, if too many other ponies see her here..."

Fleur was still looking.

"She can clear out a party?"

"Not always," Pinkie sighed. "Mostly if ponies decide she's trying to get a mark for party hosting. Or catering. There was a band once. And since she's always looking for her mark in every place which isn't the one she should be looking, most ponies just assume she's thought of something new, or one of the others did and she's going along with it -- she's usually the one just going along -- and then when everything starts to go wrong... I don't want to ask her to leave and honestly, it's not her fault most of the time, not as the main one, but..."

Fleur looked at the two-toned mane, which was becoming much easier as the rest of the party pulled back from it. Saw the worry in dark green eyes, although that was a little difficult with the filly's head held so low.

"She stays."

Pinkie blinked.

"I know you're new, and she means well, she just about always means well, but when it's her mark --"

"She stays," Fleur repeated. "She's my neighbor. As far as I'm concerned, she welcomed me before just about anypony else, and anypony who thinks she shouldn't be here can feel free to leave. Would you please tell her it's all right if she stays? But just until her bedtime."

"There's some stories which might not have reached you yet," Pinkie quickly said, "and what a lot of ponies think are the worst ones, they're kind of the understatements --"

"She stays."

Pinkie's head tilted slightly to the right, then the left. Looking Fleur over.

"All right," the baker said. "I'll tell her now." Began to move away, trotting down a very clear path. It gave Fleur a perfect line of sight, to Sweetie and beyond --

-- a wing shifted, and dark blue flashed into Fleur's eyes.

It took a moment to recover: she hadn't been expecting the reflected light, or thought that a beam would bounce that way at all. Her first assumption was somepony moving a polished instrument towards the band area. But then her vision cleared, and she saw --

...I...

There was a moment where the only thing which moved was Fleur's fur, and that only because the warm breeze had rustled across it again. She was upwind from where she now wanted to be, and it felt like so many body lengths to cross when it was just a few and it would still take forever, there was a crowd there already and that meant competition, she knew what it looked like when ponies were seeking the chance to be the one and as soon as she got there, she was going to make sure everypony in the cluster knew what it was like to lose.

(She would remember that later, having been upwind, after it was too late for the memory to matter.)

There was a metallic at the party. It was the single rarest fur trait known to emerge from the blood, for a pony to possess a coat which reflected light in the same way highly polished metal would, and this was the first one Fleur had ever spotted. A pegasus mare, just starting into the adult years. Her mane and lustrous tail were flawless obsidian, she had the wide rib cage of an endurance flier --

lots of endurance...

-- the eyes were the brilliant yellow of Sun which had somehow found its way into night, and outside of a mirror, she was the single most beautiful mare Fleur had ever seen.

...I. Want. That.

It was a rather simple statement. There were nights when Fleur had trouble sleeping. There were so many times when she wanted to think about something other than getting out of the open-air cell, to stop having memories of her meeting with Discord intrude on the quiet moments. She hadn't been with anypony (or anyone) since two nights prior to the destruction of her escort's license. It had been over a week of being alone, with her life shredded and spent time burned in front of her eyes, over a week with nopony touching her and the most beautiful mare she'd ever seen was right there.

Instinct tossed her mane. Experience lofted the tail. Raw desire pushed through her limbs and sent her moving forward with shifts of legs and hindquarters which, just out of her sight, almost instantly broke up a dating couple, started two small fights, triggered one near-fainting, and made dozens of puzzle pieces rearrange themselves.

It was entirely possible that the pegasus wasn't attracted to unicorn mares, or didn't desire mares at all. Fleur looked forward to finding out just how long it would take to change her mind.

Moving quickly, almost on the stalk. Fixed on her target. And part of her noticed that the mare didn't look entirely comfortable, but that was all right, because it meant the current hunters weren't any good at it. In fact, the little twitches she was seeing within the feathers, normally the sign of a pegasus who was seriously thinking about getting the buck out of the area, something she'd had recent refresher courses on because that was just about Fluttershy's default state, would actually help because Fleur could present herself as a rescuer for the exact duration of one evening, and that because she couldn't afford to go back to anypony too often --

-- another look at the mare.

Maybe twice.

I could go to three.

Four. Four is the absolute limit --

-- three body lengths to go, the sway of her tail released a sea of spectator hormones, she was almost there --

-- which was when somepony said something.

They were words she didn't hear. But judging by what happened, she knew they had been exactly the wrong ones.

The metallic reared back. A forehoof lashed out, swiped across an earth pony's snout. Wings flared as the offending mare yelped, and then the offended one took flight, blue flashing as feathers shifted beneath the lights --

-- gone.

Fleur stopped. Took a long look at the mare who'd just scared off the most beautiful pony she'd ever seen, at least for those who weren't occupying a silvered surface. Memorized that earth pony's face, followed by pulling out several dozen casual plans for ruining lives and beginning a rather rapid review.

Which was when Pinkie caught up to her again.

"I told Sweetie she could stay," the baker told her. "She was really happy -- Fleur?"

...no, can't sabotage her standing in her House without knowing if she has one... "Pinkie -- do you really remember everypony?"

"Their names and birthdays," Pinkie promptly said. "What they like to order at the bakery as their usual. That they really don't like one-pony bands no matter how much I try to show her how great they are, when you'd think that because she's a musician, she'd know that already."

"The metallic who just left. What's her name?"

"The pretty pony I told you about when we met? That's Joyous!"

"Joyous..." Fleur exhaled the word, felt its flavor on her tongue.

Pinkie nodded. "Joyous Release."

...Sun and Moon bless her parents. There might be a more perfect name for a one-to-four-night stand, but Fleur couldn't seem to think of it.

"I'm just glad she came," Pinkie continued. "Even if she didn't stay long. I'm even glad she slapped Nicker! Because Nicker probably deserved it, and it means that now Joyous can slap ponies who deserve it. I know you might think there's a chance it wasn't deserved, but it's Nicker. Oh, and you can slap Nicker too. If she says something which would make a pony slap her. But that'll have to wait, because I'm going to find out what she said, and then I'll probably kick her out. And when I say kick, it'll probably be dragging her out by the tail. But it could be kicking, because it's Nicker and she'll be down to her last chance. Later, Fleur!"

She'd listened to, at best, half of it. "And do you know if Joyous is seeing anypony right --"

But the baker was already gone, and the crowd filled in the gap behind her.

The next ten minutes were frustrating ones. All Fleur could learn for a certainty was that Joyous was fairly new to the settled zone, had arrived with her parents (and still lived with them, although everypony expected that to change fairly soon), and was very obviously the subject of enough fantasies to justify a brand-new Archives building just to hold them all.

The pegasus she wanted had fled. The one she was stuck with had come out from behind the casks.

It wasn't that much of an advancement. Her head had ventured towards more or less open air, but only to give her a slightly easier means of speaking to the unicorn stallion. And that was something which almost gave Fleur hope as she approached (and found herself shutting down her talent again), right up until she heard what they were talking about.

"...so because you're new," the pegasus said, "I thought that maybe you didn't have a special companion yet! Because Dulci delivered some of your smaller things, and she said she didn't hear any pets." Looking embarrassed now, "I always ask her to check. Just for pets. Because I have a kindle of kittens at the cottage right now, and it's so hard to find ponies who'll take cats --"

"-- I had a kitten once," the stallion half-smiled, and Fleur looked him over for the second time, because it was so unusual to find a male using visible cosmetics. The white-furred unicorn wasn't anything exceptional: perhaps a decade older than she, a little overweight, with a toffee-hued mane and eyes pink enough to make her think of cotton candy. Outside of the makeup, his most notable feature might have been the eyebrows: dark and thick, like arcing lines of licorice -- and the reason she was focusing so much on candy was because the stallion had dusted himself with tiny specks of glitter, which made every breath he took under the lights into a dance of spun sugar.

"...you did?" Fluttershy hopefully asked.

"And then," the stallion sighed, "she turned into a cat." A wry smile. "Now, if you could find me a kitten where that doesn't happen..."

"...no," Fluttershy replied. "...it always does." There was a faint smile on the visible side of her face. "I'm sorry, Mr. Sweet. There's nothing anypony can do about that."

"I know," the unicorn ruefully declared. "But let a pony dream. It was nice to meet you, Miss Fluttershy. And now if you'll excuse me, I think there's a clear path to the band opening up. Which means I'd better move, before the Heartstrings mare spots me here. Have a good night."

He cleared out, politely nodding to Fleur as he passed her. It freed up the last of the approach path.

"...hi," Fluttershy uncertainly said.

Fleur looked around before replying, made sure there were no ponies openly listening. "I wasn't expecting to see you here."

"...Pinkie told me when the party was going to be, and... it's a little easier, knowing Pinkie's here. She stops things. Twilight too, but those are different things most of the time. I..." A long hesitation. "...saw you talking to Twilight. And then she talked to me."

Fleur felt the risk within the words as they arose in her mind, and still released them into the world. "What did she say?"

"...that she hoped I'd let her know, when I was ready. And..." Feathers rustled. "...that she doesn't understand why apples are dangerous, at least when they're in a bobbing tub. I think you really confused her with that one. I don't get it." Thoughtfully, "Even though I've seen apples being dangerous. Mostly when they've been kicked."

Fleur considered the weapons value of an unripe specimen hitting the snout, then changed the subject. "So you attend parties?"

"...mostly if it's just friends. We have parties a lot." A tiny smile. "...there's some -- side effects to having Pinkie as a friend."

"Laughter." Because it was time to see what would happen, at least for that.

Fluttershy quietly nodded.

"But this is more than just friends." There were at least two hundred ponies now... "A lot more. And you came anyway?"

"...I'm..."

Fleur waited.

"...the reason you're here. Instead of Canterlot. You were sent here because I asked for help, and... I know that could take... a long time. You're here because of me, and..." She took a deep breath. "...I know it's not easy, teaching me. I came because it's... your party, and I thought... I should be here. If I could. And I can't stay much longer, I have to get back to the cottage and take care of things for the night, but... I did come..."

She could have resented Fluttershy for that, and did not. Ultimately, it had been Celestia, and if Fleur hadn't been caught, then another pony would currently be serving out the harsh sentence. But --

She's trying. She's actually trying...

No questions about what had happened with Charlotte. Just Fluttershy, trying.

"...it's not easy," the pegasus quietly said.

"I was watching you," Fleur stated. "When I could."

"...I saw."

"You spoke to a few ponies."

"...clients, mostly. Plus there's always new ponies in town now, and there's so many friends waiting for them at the cottage, if I can just talk them into meeting the right one. That's hard. Not just finding, but asking, and hoping they'll come at all..."

And the rest of the time, you were hiding behind casks. For an indoor event, it probably would have been a closet or, in the absence of garment rooms, pressed into the most defensible corner available. It still meant Fluttershy was at least capable of being in a social setting, and she'd made herself stay for some time.

It was a good sign. It was the first truly good sign.

A wisp of music reached her ears. Her left forehoof tapped out the beat.

"Have you eaten?"

"...no. The rest of the refreshments are -- um... over there."

She's just about broke and she can't make herself venture out enough to reach the free food. One hoofstep forward, three gallops back. "I'll bring you something. Any preference?"

"...no sugar. Hentucky Blue grass, if there's any left."

Fleur nodded, turned and trotted away.

More ponies approached, now that she was away from Fluttershy and 'available' again. She was polite in her temporary dismissals, making it clear that she'd have the time to talk after she finished what she was doing, and that got through to most of them. A few of the more determined simply trailed along, breaking off after the rudest received an 'accidental' tail flick for his trouble.

Two hundred ponies or more, with the most recent arrivals well beyond fashionably late. Food. Connections. Things she could exploit. What was now a very boring bobbing tub. And music, good music, music she hadn't heard in --

-- Fleur stopped. Listened.

...why are they playing that?

The sound was in the air. The echoes were already in her head. And the baker had said something about reaching the right songs...

...her Element -- would it let her just know what kind of music would --

-- she got her legs moving again.

Sound travels. Music travels. That has to be it. That's got to be it. Whoever's playing it just knows a lot of music, and now it's time for that song. Or...

It had to be coincidence. The alternative was nightmare --

"-- hey!" A brown snout moved in from the right, and the rest of Caramel's face quickly followed. "Sorry I'm so late, but we had a major spill at the candy shop. And when it's sticky and it's all over the floor..." He grinned. "I keep telling Bon-Bon, just let the local kids know and they'll have it licked clean in a minute, but she never goes for it. How's the party been so far? Did I miss anything big?"

She didn't want to think about the music, and the earth pony had just given her something else to consider. "Not much, honestly," Fleur lied. "Except for my saying hello to a lot of ponies. I'm glad you made it, though." With a little touch of side-glance as she turned towards the table, her field gathering in the grass. "Not that I knew you were coming, when you clearly could have told me so many things..."

"The legends say there's stuff which happens," Caramel solemnly said, "to ponies who squeal on a Pinkie surprise party. And there the legends stop, for nopony survived to finish the tale." A brief pause, followed by a much more serious "Also, Pinkie Promises. Don't break them. Ever. Any luck with meeting somepony good?"

Which means he's checking on my romantic prospects, in the hopes that it'll somehow advance his. "I saw one pony before, but -- early departure." A rueful shrug. "Typical."

"It happens," he told her. His right forehoof casually tapped with the beat. "By the way, have you ever heard this song before? Lyra plays a lot of her own compositions, but this doesn't sound like her work. Maybe it's something which just caught on in Canterlot --"

Fluttershy is at the party. Fluttershy can be at a party. She can talk to stallions, at least when it comes to a limited subject range --

"-- follow me."

"And where," Caramel grinned, "are we going? We're not going off to find the party, because that's right here --"

"Just follow me!"

She wasn't sure what was in her tone. Fleur only knew it got the earth pony's eyes to open wider than she'd ever seen them. And then he was next to her, trotting along with a mixture of curiosity and confusion, with the presence of an obvious male companion temporarily keeping other suitors back just long enough for them to reach --

-- the pegasus poked her head out from behind the casks. "...I think that's fescue," Fluttershy said, "but it's okay, anything they had is fine -- Fleur?"

She also wasn't sure what expression was on her own face, and stepped aside so that Fluttershy wouldn't be able to readily examine it.

"Fluttershy," Fleur said, "Caramel has something he'd like to ask you."

The words reached four ears, and created the first moment of public connection earth pony stallion and pegasus mare would ever have. They both stared at her.

"Um," Caramel abruptly said. "Um... I -- I do?"

"...he does?"

There was an odd set to Fluttershy's jaw, something tense. Perfectly natural for a mare who'd just been thrust into an unexpected social situation.

"You do," Fleur said. "Right now."

"I..." Caramel tried (and failed). "Okay..."

The buzz was slowing around them. Getting softer, with the music starting to fall away.

He swallowed.

"I'll be at the cottage in two days," he said. "To pick up Shimmy's medicine. I'll have my payment ready."

Fluttershy nodded.

Oh, for -- "Caramel. You. Have something to ask. Fluttershy. Right now."

Desperate blue eyes focused on her horn, mostly because the stallion was so shaken that his aim had just been that off. The gaze slowly slid down to her face.

Fleur nodded to him. A tiny nod, no more than the width of four tail strands in each direction, as her lips parted just enough to mouth a single word, one only he could see.

Now.

She saw him take the guess and somehow, with the boost of unfilled fantasies speeding mental flight, he landed on exactly the right target. Watched his eyes go so wide as to nearly have the edges meet behind his head. Staring at her...

Another nod, which she just barely managed to make even smaller.

"Fluttershy..." He nearly choked on the word. "...I was wondering if you -- would... go out with me?"

Which was when Fleur saw that tension move from yellow jaw to the single visible eye, the expansion of the pupil from shock as hard lines began to set in around the snout --

-- but she also saw something else. Something which Caramel, his attention and fear now mutually fixed, completely missed. She saw the moment when Fluttershy glanced at her.

Fleur, whose motion was only spotted by a single pony, just barely nodded.

"...yes...?"

Because 'Morals' And 'Standards' Are Two Completely Different Things

It was rare to be in the presence of something which could instantly stop a party in mid-gallop, for the social movement was created by what, by this point, had to be at least three hundred sets of hooves. Parties, in their way, were a kind of herd. A herd had momentum, and so typically had to be steered. Oh, a major event would draw attention, cause a number of paths to curve or even halt -- but the more distant portions, unaware of what had just occurred at the epicenter of disturbance, would just happily continue to blunder along.

(Fleur's duties as an escort had taken her to many parties, and some of those had seen something gossip-worthy break out. There were other times when the event would arise from the introduction of gossip to the undercurrents, added to a few where Fleur had placed a tiny touch of bait into the water just to see how how the fish would react. To let them know a predator was among them, and they had better start thinking about what they were going to give her in order to keep the reels from winding inwards. (Up until Celestia had caught her, all hook snares had been mistakenly presumed permanent.))

In this case, the yellow pegasus had just said 'yes', or rather, "...yes...?" As with just about everything Fluttershy ever said, the vocalization hadn't been that loud. There had been sufficient volume to reach Fleur's ears, and then it had carried across the extra distance to Caramel, where the weight of that unexpected soft utterance had slammed brown ears down against his skull from sheer shock. After that, there had been barely enough left for the reply to drift out to two, perhaps four nearby ponies --

"So..." Caramel, ears now pressed so flat that Fleur wondered if he was capable of truly listening to anything other than his own stunned thoughts, valiantly tried to rally against the impossible pressure of success. "Um... three -- three nights from now? I'll -- meet you at the cottage? Two hours after Sun is lowered?"

There was a long pause.

-- "She said yes, did you just hear that? Caramel asked her out and she said yes!"

"...yes," Fluttershy tried, because it was a word which had recently been uttered and therefore was readily available for additional use.

Caramel swallowed. "I'll -- see you then?"

"...yes."

"Caramel got Fluttershy to go out with him? Fluttershy?"

Fleur successfully resisted the urge to smile, simply listened as the ripple of gossip raced out from the epicenter of impact, a subtle force which was already shifting Ponyville's social life into an unexpected configuration.

"Fluttershy's dating?"

That was when the lyre-playing unicorn missed a note.

"Fluttershy is dating?"

"So..." Caramel, who seemed to have some awareness of just where half of the spotlight was now shining, was going through a certain amount of stage fright as the eyes of an ever-increasing audience focused on the male lead. "Is there -- anything you'd like to --"

Yellow wings flared.

"...I -- have to go," Fluttershy said through the sounds of her first flaps. "...I have to put the cottage to bed for the night."

"Oh," Caramel tried, his expression now very visibly waiting for a social retreat to match the physical --

"...so... in three..." It was Fluttershy's turn to swallow. "...three days. Two hours after Sun is lowered. At the cottage. ...okay?"

Select portions of the audience gasped. Several swayed slightly. Fleur wondered how many denial-dampened puzzle pieces had just seen their colors freshly glow with renewed hope.

The stallion, who had neither script nor prompt box, just barely managed to improvise a nod.

Fluttershy, now about three times her own height in the air, looked down. The single visible eye briefly moved over Fleur, and it was a look which contained questions. It was also an expression which knew those queries would have to wait for the next day, which might have explained something of the lingering hard set to the lower jaw --

-- but then the pegasus was flying away, heading towards the cottage. And due to the speed of rumor, which actually moved somewhat slower than sound, no more than seventy percent of the party watched her go.

Seventy percent -- plus a little more.

The book, which had been set down on the slightly-raised rim of the nearest flat roof which overlooked the event, wasn't entirely sure of what to say. She still didn't have any real idea of how she was managing to say anything at all, and hadn't even tried coming to grips with any reason she might have had for applying feminine pronouns to herself. But she did feel it was the sort of occasion where she clearly had to say something, and so did her best.

"Er," Harem Fantasy said, and immediately regretted it.

The draconequus, who had been watching the party from a position on her left (or above her, with a shrunken body standing on her front cover, he'd gotten bored at one point and gone into the event as a salt lick, only to be become vastly offended when somepony had approached him with the intent of doing the deed and vanished, leaving a confused mare to wonder just how many mugs she'd had that night), didn't shout. He didn't yell. His volume wasn't raised at all and somehow, the single even-toned word was so much worse than screaming could have ever been.

"Him," Discord softly said.

"Er," Harem Fantasy tried again.

"Him, I ask you," Discord peacefully -- peacefully -- continued. "Him."

"Um." Which didn't seem to be much of an improvement.

"I pop back to the cottage," the chaos entity said, "because we've been traveling for a while now, haven't we? Doing research. And when I find my friend isn't at home after sunset, discerning her current location is a perfectly natural concern. Because she could be on a mission, and you have no idea what those can be like."

"Mission." That attempt had the dubious benefit of releasing an actual word.

"Missions," Discord steadily went on, "can be highly dangerous. All sorts of horrible things can happen on a mission. Magic. Monsters. Mayhem. Me."

"You... happened? On a mission?" Complete sentences should have felt like progress, and did not.

"I happen to a lot of people," the draconequus said. "So it is perfectly natural for me to track her and of course, upon learning that she is at a party, to keep an eye on her. From a distance, because ponies still have some odd reactions when I choose to attend. And it has let us see that this Fleur is setting Fluttershy up on a date. With him."

"...what's... so wrong with him?"

"Have you met him?" Still far too soft.

"I really haven't met much of anyone," the book admitted. "Everywhere we've gone, as soon as someone saw us, they ran away. Screaming."

"Well..." A deep, complete unnecessary breath. "There is that."

"Even when you changed yourself into a condiment bottle and waited on the table --"

"-- she," Discord interrupted, "was about to try and dispense from me. I'd like to see anyone take that lying down. Or standing up in a frozen, inanimate, and completely boring way which I'd already had to maintain all the way through their idiotic small talk. Additionally, I was holding horseradish. Do you have any idea what's in that stuff?"

"No," the book admitted.

"It is," the draconequus declared, "nowhere near as interesting an ingredient list as the name might lead one to think. Saying something at that moment was absolutely required in order to prevent catastrophe, or at least spillage. Additionally, it got us out of there before either could begin speaking about their parents. But of all the ponies this Fleur could have chosen --"

"-- it looked like your friend was the one who said yes," Harem Fantasy tried, and automatically fought back any number of visual qualifiers. The night had provided her first look at the pegasus, and she'd quickly learned that anything she had to say about that tail had better be overwhelmingly complimentary.

"But who set it up? Who chose him as the first? Perhaps as the only?" A slow head shake, antler and horn cutting through the air with barely-audible sizzles. "One simply has to look at him in order to understand how completely unsuitable he would be for her. How common he is, with absolutely nothing interesting about him at all. The most notable quality he may possess may be his capacity for transformations, which I assure you is something much less than unique. Breath into toxicity, food into horse apples, and thoughts into lies. Now you might believe that last quality at least makes him somewhat interesting, but the lies themselves are boring. And when it comes to the pony he would be speaking those lies to because given enough time, he always lies..."

"How... how do you know this?"

"It is," Discord said, "rather interesting what one can learn from hanging around a dress shop while one's friend is visiting there. Even if one winds up maintaining the form of a few dozen hangers in order to -- avoid interruptions. I know something of him, Harem, and I can summarize that knowledge quite neatly, even though a rather succinct summary might be seen as order and thus would count as a further irritant. He is, in quick and completely blatant shorthoof --" and there was no rise in volume: simply an increase in emphasis as the twisted body leaned forward, talons gripping and then cracking wood "-- not good enough for her."

He wasn't angry. Anger would have been so much easier.

"Fluttershy," Discord calmly stated, "can do better."

"It's just a first date," the book desperately told him. "Sometimes that's what allows the protagonist to meet the next member of the harem. Somepony shows up wherever they're dating, and it makes the date go wrong while adding somepony else in so more things can go wrong later. Usually in a funny way, at least while it's early in the story. Or sometimes they get through the whole date, the main character oversleeps the next morning, has to eat on the gallop, and then crashes into the next candidate while they're on their way to work." She thought that over. "It helps if one of them has a piece of toast in their mouth. Does Fluttershy like toast?"

"She is being taught," the chaos entity said, not seeming to have paid attention to any of it. "How to date. Because she wants something. And at the end of the lessons is him?"

"Maybe he's just an early test," Harem Fantasy tried. "A trial gallop? A false romantic lead to lure the reader into the deeper chapters?"

He took another breath. A slow, steady, completely controlled one, an inhalation where nothing around them changed. And perhaps he was simply trying to stay concealed in all ways, to not disrupt a party which his friend had attended -- but it didn't feel as if such stability was natural for him. It simply felt...

...dangerous.

He floated the book up to his paw, snapped talons against each other.

The bloom of light, lost in the radiance from the gathering below, took them away. And with the excited babble of fresh gossip still sounding below them, only Harem Fantasy heard his final words.

"She will do better."

Fleur had been to many parties after arriving in the capital, and counted more than one of them as debuts. There were different social circles in Canterlot, varying levels of power, and so she'd wound up in positions where she'd effectively had to introduce herself again and again -- with some of those positions coming after the central event had ended. This was yet another in the series, and for her to have become the lesser subject of discussion at a debut generally would have led into, at a minimum, some long-term plans towards dominance, with some chance of instantly unleashing inspired bursts of twisting rumor.

But in this case, the focus of her prison sentence was Fluttershy. There were other potential routes to freedom, but all currently existed strictly within the realms of fantasies and what-ifs which chased Fleur into the more forgiving parts of the nightscape, at least until she awoke to find that the daring escape hadn't truly occurred and she was still trapped in Ponyville. Announcing herself to the settled zone had the potential to create long-term benefits, perhaps even something which would find the key to getting her out -- but if that didn't happen, then the task was still before her, and somepony had to take the initiative on getting it solved. For lack of all other unfairly-sentenced candidates -- there was a chance that somepony out there deserved this, but she remained certain that pony hadn't been her -- Fleur had to be the one who moved things forward.

She had been planning for it to happen in a public setting all along: the more visible, the better. (To have it take place at the party was simply luck, and Fleur accepted the tenth-bit in payment towards the massive debt owed to her by the very world.) But the idea had always been there: start the gossip flowing. It had taken less than a minute for most of the gathering to learn the news, with some extra time required to pick up the stragglers. (There would always be a few whose social blindness qualified as disability, who would typically find out about the change in the world's order just in time to be introduced to any prospective children.) Those in attendance would go home, head to work the next day, and some would talk to the ponies around them, pass news on over a boring lunch comprised of last-of-the-season flowers. Some of the words would be distorted by then, of course, and a degree of course correction might normally be required -- if only Fleur had the connections to insert herself in the path of the changes and fix things: occasionally manageable in Canterlot, currently impossible within Ponyville.

There were those who said gossip traveled faster than the sounds which carried it. This was scientifically, magically, and patently false. Gossip briefly froze in each mind which received it, was dissected, could have words subtracted and added while, depending on the recipient, any part of the original which survived might be carefully misunderstood. It took time for gossip to navigate the paths of distortion, and you could never be completely sure what would arrive within the twitching ears of the final recipient. But in this case, the story was simple, and so Fleur was confident that the heart of it would echo all the way to the last link in the social dominance chain.

"Fluttershy is dating."

But that was just the first step, because that gossip would come with a coda: Fluttershy was going on a date with Caramel. And upon hearing that portion, the topic would shift somewhat. It wouldn't be so much about the fact that Fluttershy was dating at all, and go a little more towards the stallion who would be her companion for that first night out on the town. Given how many mares had approached Fleur after seeing her in Caramel's company, it was easy to picture a flow of desperate mare traffic heading out to the cottage, all the better to talk Fluttershy out of it, and so Fleur resolved to be there rather early the next morning.

For Fluttershy to be dating Caramel... it had set the party abuzz, told ponies that the world no longer operated quite as it once had. And it was possible that the two might connect-- but Fleur, who had been using hours in learning about the stallion, had more than a few doubts. She also had no delusions about seeing her sentence end in less than thirteen moons, at the moment she heard a newborn's cry force itself past the closed delivery room door. Fleur had looked ahead to the possibilities of that first date and as far as romance was concerned, perceived something much less than success. The most major triumph she could hope for would be of a different sort entirely.

The party was still talking about the news, and some of that discussion would go on long into the night. She was standing in just the right place to see what happened when the words reached Pinkie, and thus got to witness a tail spontaneously uncurl itself. The baker, following the landing from the impressive (and spontaneous) high jump, had immediately broken into full gallop, not stopping until she'd reached Twilight -- and that meant Fleur got to watch the news as it sunk into alicorn ears.

It seemed to take three repetitions: the first brought confusion, the second created a series of ear and feather twitches, and the third finally sent purple eyes wide -- just before they narrowed, at the moment when the alicorn began to visibly search through the party. Fleur suspected she knew just what (or in this case, who) was being sought, and so spent the next portion of the night circulating somewhat faster than before. As it turned out, Twilight had magic, access to several forms of power, and an Element waiting somewhere in the wings -- but she didn't seem to be capable of navigating the social dance. Fleur, who wanted a little more time before trying to explain herself, consistently remained two twirls ahead, and most of her subsequent views of royalty were brief glimpses of a lightly-swishing streaked tail -- which, half an hour into the chase, finally unleashed one mighty lash of frustration before its owner stomped away from the entire gathering, horn oriented not on cottage, but the library tree.

There were other ponies to avoid, of course. Fleur pleasantly noted the presence of six 'I-thought-I-was-undercover' officers, and just as pleasantly failed to speak with any of them. There were a few conversations where six seconds in that pony's presence turned out to be six hundred percent of the time required to learn there would be no need for ever speaking with them again. And then there were ponies she had been hoping to see and didn't: the Rich family patriarch never appeared, nor did she get a single glimpse of anypony whose interactions would confirm them as a Bearer.

But the party went on, and she continued to meet those who might have influence: not the mayor, but some of those who worked in Town Hall. Members of the weather team, but not the coordinator. Some stayed until everything was shut down, while others were only there for a few minutes, and one cyan blur only paused in her flight long enough to line up the swoop, just before removing a large quantity of free food from the refreshments area.

Sweetie... well, the filly had a bedtime. Fleur wanted to get close enough to at least thank her for coming: she was starting to feel as if that was something the filly didn't hear very often. But the perpetually-maintaining space around the child was a little too open for casual venturing while Twilight was still on the chase. Beyond that, there wasn't that much time available before her mother came out to collect her, and... Fleur got to regret not having had the chance to say even that much, because it seemed as if just about nopony wanted to even get near Sweetie. The only one she briefly spotted in the filly's vicinity was the sugar-dusted white stallion, and that was probably because he seemed to be only slightly less new to the settled zone than she: some overheard gossip strongly suggested he was the owner of the upcoming rival candy shop, which explained a lot about why he kept moving into places where the musician spouse of the original store's owner wouldn't see him.

She danced with a few ponies, when she felt there was somepony worth dancing with. She paid careful attention to every beat from the band, and was thankful to hear things so much less familiar. There were few connections made, and not as many interesting or important ponies as she might have hoped for. The majority of the puzzles had been boring ones, and she hadn't gotten to assemble anywhere near as many as she would have liked: too many ponies around, for just about the entire duration.

But on the whole, it hadn't been a bad party. It didn't have the wealth or presentation of a high-class Canterlot gathering, but it did have an advantage in that once you took out the lead musician and future sugar-stirrer, very few of the attendees actively loathed each other. And when the time came to close it down, the gathering dispersed without fights. For every pegasus who could no longer fly in a straight line, there were two waiting to take them home. Things shut down evenly, peacefully, and without a single neighbor having come out to complain. Given that, Fleur readily acknowledged Pinkie as having more expertise at some parts of the craft than any number of Canterlot hosts.

Not much in the way of new connections, very little which she could currently see a way to use, and a host of ponies whom she'd left still believing in the dream of winning her just because she hadn't found a reason for disposing of their fantasies yet. In that sense, the gathering had been something of a failure. But Fluttershy was now officially on her way, and when looked at as a party alone...

She waited until just about everypony else had left, when it was down to a volunteer clean-up crew and the hostess who'd had very little trouble recruiting them. And then she approached.

"Thank you," she told Pinkie, and made sure the words came out as sincere. "I feel -- a little more welcome than I did."

The earth pony didn't respond immediately: it took a few seconds before her teeth could release the pushbroom's grip. And then she turned, looked directly at Fleur, body still and eyes solemn.

"That's part of why we have parties," she quietly said. "So everypony can feel a little more welcome. Because it's hard, coming to a new home, when you don't know anypony here, and you had to move really fast, and you just feel -- lost."

Fleur blinked. Managed, just barely, not to pull back --

"Fluttershy told me," the baker went on, "that you had to come here really really quickly. And I know what that's like, when you just have to leave. Maybe it's even a little worse when you can see where you used to be, at least on a clear day if you're facing the right way. And I even know that when you're pretty, there's ponies who won't talk to you because you're pretty. Some of them didn't come tonight, but -- a lot of ponies didn't, because there's work and kids to take care of and lives, but a few were here. Mostly for the food. But maybe some of them will change their minds..."

Fleur exhaled, found a smile. "Everypony seems to talk to you."

"Of course they do! Because everypony knows me!" The briefest of pauses -- and then a smile came back. "And I'm cute. Ponies talk to you when you're cute. Sometimes it's hard to make them stop talking, because being pretty means you're too good for some of them and cute means those same ponies might think they have a chance."

Fleur, fully aware that when it came to any one-to-ten scale of appearance, the majority of pony approach courage started to run out around eight, gently (and non-condescendingly) nodded. "Can I help you clean up?" It would be a chance to keep talking with a Bearer, one who seemed willing to talk and didn't seem as if she would be asking any awkward questions --

"-- no. You were the guest of honor. You just go to bed," Pinkie smiled. "But thank you for asking, because a lot of ponies don't. And..."

This pause was longer, enough for Pinkie to take a slow breath.

"...I know you've been spending time with Caramel. I know a lot about Caramel, because ponies talk in bakeries and sometimes they talk about him. I know he's not the worst stallion. But you haven't known him that long, and maybe because you're becoming friends with him, you thought encouraging him to try was a good idea, and --"

A much deeper breath, and the blue gaze briefly dropped.

"-- she said yes," Pinkie continued. "I didn't think she would ever say yes, or -- even say anything. Just fly away, or charge through if there was no room to fly. And to say yes to Caramel -- he's not the worst stallion, but he's nowhere close to the best, and when it's him and Fluttershy, they..."

She scraped her left forehoof across the ground. Looked up.

Fleur used the opportunity. "Ponies talked to me too, Pinkie. Mares. A few of them, after they saw me with him. I think I know what you're about to say. Can I just say something first?"

Pinkie nodded. The curls didn't bounce.

"I won't let him hurt her," Fleur stated. Watched Pinkie, and waited.

Ten heartbeats passed, and she felt every one of them.

"You mean that," Pinkie said.

Fleur silently nodded.

"She's older than me," Pinkie told her. "A year. But we all forget that sometimes. We treat her like the youngest, all of us. We have to let her make her own decisions, and... I hope this is the right one. Because it doesn't feel like it."

There was strength under that slight layer of padding. Fleur could almost feel it, standing so close. Pinkie was trying to decide if something was funny ha-ha or funny-off, and wouldn't react well to the latter. The Bearer of Laughter took the welfare of her friends very seriously, and anypony who endangered that just might wind up on the receiving end of a final punchline.

Fleur wasn't afraid of Pinkie, because she both understood where the emotions came from and wouldn't let Caramel hurt Fluttershy. But she was beginning to recognize why some ponies might start to worry. A mare who knew everypony, talked to everypony. That was what the rumormongers of Canterlot aspired to, and this pony had achieved it simply through hosting parties, along with a light touch of being cute.

As an earth pony, the baker's kicks could do a lot of damage. As the settled zone's conversational hub, her words could do even more.

"Things changed when we all met," Pinkie softly told her, told the night. "They changed again after Discord, and then when Twilight changed. They changed after Trotter's Falls --"

Where? Fleur thought she'd seen the name on a map once, when she'd first been planning --

"-- and then when Applejack --" Stopped. Her head and body both shook: a rapid series of back-and-forth half-twists, physical motion meant to create mental centering. Fleur waited it out, and the bright colors finally steadied their position again.

"Things always change," Pinkie finished. "And now they're changing again, because that's what life is. I'm going to trust Fluttershy, because sometimes we have to and we don't. But change isn't always good, and..."

She looked directly at Fleur.

"Don't let him hurt her."

I already said... "I won't --"

And with the sentence coming in like a razorwhip, the tail-mounted weapon slashing to cut, "Don't you hurt her. Ever."

The Bearer turned, tilted her neck down for the pushbroom again -- then glanced up.

"It was a fun party, wasn't it?" Pinkie asked, with her smile bright, pleasant and happy. "Good night, Fleur."

It took Fleur some time before she fell asleep, or even reached the blankets. There were things to plan, a personal cleanup to go through added to a final review of the night, filing memories away until the moment they might become important. (Chief among those was putting the name 'Applejack' onto her list of ponies to investigate: she suspected she'd just heard the name of another Bearer.) But eventually, she reached the moment when she could rest. She lay down, closed her eyes, and began to think about a pegasus.

Joyous. Joyous Release.

It was, in small part, attempting to trick her own nightscape. Having the metallic as her final waking thought in order to find that beauty awaiting Fleur in dream. Reflecting on the reflection of light off dark blue wings, and then considering how illumination might play across hindquarters, that rib cage and rich obsidian mane, the warmth from yellow eyes...

I never asked Pinkie why that music was playing.

And so something else met her in the dark.

Pinkie felt that life was the state in which things always changed: Fleur believed the purpose of life was to work for stability and then maintain it. There was a certain inherent conflict to those views, and Fleur couldn't see any reconciliation on the horizon. But things did change and when Fleur trotted up the final approach to the cottage shortly after Sun-raising, she found one of those changes waiting for her.

She didn't visibly start: the view of the cottage opened up all at once as you turned that final bend, and she'd learned to brace herself for whatever might be spotted there: for starters, the existence of a now-departed tiger hinted at the possibility for a fresh arrival. Given that, the presence of Fluttershy standing on the path's side of the bridge was a lesser level of surprise -- especially (if only in retrospect) given the way so many birds had flown overhead during Fleur's trot in, followed by immediately circling towards the cottage. But it was still a change, and Fleur's legs carefully brought her to a stop.

It was possible for many things to change over the course of a single night, and Fleur was fully aware that Fluttershy's mind could be one of them. She took the lead.

"I did say I'd found a pony who wanted to date you."

Fluttershy was just... looking at her. Still with a single eye: this time, it was the left which was exposed. That eye wasn't doing a lot of blinking.

"There are ponies," Fleur said, "who are attracted to you. He's the one who's acted on it. I know he's interested in you, because I've been talking to him. Several nights over the past week. Maybe he's the first to ask, but he's not going to be anywhere near the last. And he's not necessarily going to be the only one you ever go out with, because love at first sight is for books and movies." Poorly-written, badly-rendered, lying texts and films. "He's your first date. What you learned last night is that ponies can and will sincerely ask you out, and that's something you're never going to forget."

The blue-green regard was starting to feel like more of a -- stare.

"So the next thing we have to do is get you ready for your first. We've got a few days to prepare. That means conversation practice, picking out a place to go because you don't want him choosing everything, and we're going to talk about getting you a dress --"

"-- you've been talking to him," Fluttershy softly said. (Fleur, slightly surprised by the interruption, nodded.) "Did he mention Shimmy? He loves her. I know how much he loves her. I was the one he came to, after Sweetbark wouldn't see her. I... was the one who had to figure out what was wrong with her, and that meant I was the one who had to tell him she could never be cured. That the sickness had been in her blood when she was born, it just took time before it showed itself, and all anypony could do was make her medicine, medicine that never keeps longer than a week, medicine which lets her run and climb and get into everything and poke her nose into his snout to wake him up in the morning. He loves her so much..."

"He talks about her a lot. The things she tries to get away with, mostly." With a ferret, that was always going to be a long list.

With words on the verge of quavering, "...did he mention how he didn't pay for hardly any of it?"

"No," Fleur steadily, softly replied.

"...did he tell you about how he spends on the mares he dates?" Fluttershy quietly asked. "...he buys them gifts. Huge gifts, bigger than he could ever afford on what Bon-Bon pays him, but he can buy those gifts because he doesn't pay for other things. Like his rent, he's supposed to be always behind on his rent, he goes to parties when he's low on food and he eats a lot of grass when there's less parties around. Shimmy's medicine is so hard to make, just getting the plants for some of it was... it was hard, and then he paid a little, kept coming back for more medicine while he didn't pay any more and I needed the money for feed and repairs and books and property tax and... everything, Fleur, I needed money for everything and he didn't pay me because he was buying gifts. He dates a mare for a few moons, they always break up and then he dates somepony else, there's always somepony new in town who doesn't know about him yet and he spends on them when it should be Shimmy and rent and food."

Fleur stayed where she was. Tail steady, head held just so, listening to her charge and distant birdsong as the notes carried through the cool (and cooling) autumn air.

"...he had to... be shamed into paying me," Fluttershy softly said. "...he'd told me he didn't have any money and then I saw him leaving Mrs. Wonderment's with a device for Ratchette. That's who he was dating that winter: she didn't know about him, but she's Ponyville's mechanic, she hadn't been here that long and he thought she'd love something she could just take apart. He was probably right... but I saw him, I tried to say something and he told me... he'd won a raffle. From Mrs. Wonderment... well, you'd have to know her, but she doesn't even really do sales unless whatever she's trying to get rid of already exploded at least once. He lied right to my snout, and I wanted to confront him, but -- somepony else did it first. And it shamed him so much, especially once the word got out, that... he's always kept up since. With me. But with everypony else... ponies talk, they talk to my friends and sometimes they talk to me because they don't want to think about what could happen when they come here, so they talk about anything else. I don't think he's changed, not that much, not with everypony else, and..."

A deep breath, with that gaze now nearly all the way into stare. It was... becoming slightly uncomfortable.

"...you want me to go out with him."

Fleur nodded.

Several seconds later, "...on a date," emerged, mostly to provide emphasis.

"Yes."

And finally, with so much of the pain crammed into a single syllable, "...why?"

It was a cooler morning than the last few had been. Autumn being shifted towards winter, one wing flap at a time, with the wind changing direction to suit. Things were blowing more from the North now: a reminder of ice masquerading as crystal.

"He didn't tell me about what happened between the two of you," Fleur told her charge. "Two mares did, the night I met him, right after he left. They told me that and -- a lot of what you've told me. When you're seen with Caramel, it makes mares want to talk. I think he's been having trouble finding new ponies to date. Ones who haven't been told yet, or those who won't believe everypony else when those mares start to talk."

Nearly twenty seconds passed, along with one lost degree.

"...you knew about him?"

"I found out."

"...and you want me... to date him?"

"He's attracted to you."

"...he's attracted to pegasus mares. They're most of what he dates..."

It almost made Fleur want to smile. "And what did you think you were?"

Her charge pulled back without moving: her legs leaned backwards, her torso tilted, she seemed as if she was about to rear up -- but her hooves stayed just where they were.

"...different," Fluttershy softly answered. "...just -- different. Fleur... if you knew about him... about what it's been between us... why?"

"Because you need a first date," Fleur told her. "Something easy. Something simple. That's all this is, Fluttershy: a first date. It's just like your first flight camp. It's for learning the basics, and then you'll be able to do more."

This silence was somewhat longer than usual.

"...I hated flight camp."

Fleur blinked.

"...a lot," Fluttershy quietly said. "Because flight camp was where... a lot of things went wrong."

The yellow hooves were still holding their position. But now they were beginning to vibrate.

"...the basics, so I can do more... it -- doesn't work that way..."

She spotted the moisture beginning to coat the lone visible pupil, the little dip of the head, and spoke quickly. "If you went to flight camp," Fleur said, "you know about safety attendants."

A tiny nod, with most of the motion propelled by tremble.

"I won't let you get hurt," Fleur told her charge. "I won't let you fall. There's a reason I chose Caramel for your first. But in order to find out what the reason is, you have to go out with him. At least once. And after that..."

After that is the next lesson.

"Will you try?" Fleur asked, and did so because Do you trust me? was a question most frequently asked by those nopony should ever trust.

The wind slowly changed.

"...yes. What are we doing today?"

"We can --"

-- it was going to be more working on small talk to start, only with a fresh emphasis on topics to avoid. But that was when the next flight of birds went overhead, singing something more than alarm. And just as those echoes started to fade, Fleur heard the hoofsteps pounding up the path behind her, along with the squeak of cart wheels: a pace which seemed far too quick for a mere incoming warning regarding Caramel.

She stepped aside just in time to let the frantic mare finish a rather abrupt stop without actually colliding into anypony: the desperate unicorn clearly hadn't been expecting anypony to be on that side of the bridge. And then Fleur retreated a few body lengths away as Fluttershy quickly trotted up to the cart, looked at the unresponsive skunk in its cradle of blankets and desperate hope. Some soft words were exchanged with its pony companion and then that unicorn went past them, over the bridge, heading for the cottage.

-- wait. We can wait. Again.

Fluttershy turned, began to follow --

-- glanced back.

"...come in."

The wind hadn't finished twisting. Solstice and the accompanying Fall Finale were still some time away. The ice existed in no place other than the layer which had just formed around Fleur's heart.

"...what?" It was a surprisingly good imitation of her charge, if a completely inadvertent one.

"...you helped. Yesterday. And if you're in the room with me, instead of just... waiting... then you can talk to me while I try to help Phillipe. You'll be... teaching."

The lone visible eye was steady. Patient.

"...we won't lose all those hours because things happen, because something always happens. We won't be wasting time. We only have three days, less now, and... I think I'm going to need a lot of it. Please... come in?"

I don't want to be in there.

But it keeps us from wasting time. I've already lost so much time to that pasture, and wondering if he's going to come back...

Yesterday was a mistake. Yesterday turned into what she just asked and she can't ask me for that.

I can talk to her while she works. We don't lose hours.

I'm going to do something wrong. I always --

We only have three days.

"Just..." Her throat had gone dry. "...just for now."

Fluttershy nodded. Fleur followed her in.

And that, for what turned out to be all intents and purposes, was when Fleur's sentence truly began.

However, The Giant Posters Are Readily Available

Fleur's horn wasn't a sharp one. There were gentle ridges spiraling along the length of something not quite bone, but their edges were smooth. For the most part, she was thankful to have such a horn: she could still poke and prod when she needed to, delivering the impact of a desperate charge on a single unbreakable point remained an option, and she never had to worry about accidentally cutting somepony through making just the wrong movement -- although one of the rules for unicorns practicing their first kisses was to be fully aware of just where your partner was: tentative explorations in dark places frequently ended with blackened eyes.

Admittedly, there had been a few times when she'd regretted that lack of edge. A horn unsuitable for cutting could be used for many other things, especially in the bedroom (although the typical positioning tended to be awkward at best) -- but there had been moments in Fleur's life when it still felt as if one extra weapon could have made a difference. And in the days which followed Fluttershy inviting her into the cottage, she began to wish for a way to sharpen that horn, at least when it came to the absolute point. Make it suitable for, if not cutting, then gouging. Because horns never transmitted the force of impact to their owner's skull, they were denser than the majority of known substances and so could theoretically work their way through any number of things, and Fleur knew her horn was stronger than the wood which made up the examination room's walls.

So in theory, at any time when Fluttershy was out of the immediate area, a sharpened horn could go to work on the cottage. Gouge a passage out, one chip at a time. Of course, there was the matter of smuggling the ruined wood out, but Fleur could easily start wearing saddlebags as a matter of daily course. Hiding the increasing hole, at least on the examination room side of the escape plan, was simply a matter of choosing the right anatomical poster and doing all the work beneath it. But under one of the other hooves, that wasn't going to do anything to block off sight on the exit side. Additionally, the cottage was riddled with holes anyway: tiny passages which the smaller residents used to move between rooms. For Fleur to open any extra travelway would be to issue an open invitation for so many residents to visit, and Fluttershy would eventually start to wonder why chipmunks kept falling out of that one wall.

(Admittedly, just about everything stayed out of the examination room: the residents seemed to understand when Fluttershy needed both privacy and the chance to work in peace, at least for that single form of labor. So the chance of having that kind of reveal occur was actually rather low. Still, it only took one rodent, or perhaps a single lapine who'd just decided it had found an interesting means of revenge...)

Those were the kinds of thoughts Fleur tended to have during the quieter moments in the examination room, because all of them were easier than thinking about what she was actually doing. The things she had done so much to escape from, systemically being brought back to her. And she had to stay, in the name of not wasting time...

"Needle," Fluttershy softly said, the gentle tones at a pitch which was strictly softer than it needed to be: the drugs had done their job, and the little bear cub on the table wasn't going to wake up from mere speech. "One of the pre-threaded ones -- oh, there he goes..." She smiled at the near-infant as he wriggled in his sleep, claws weakly swiping at the air. "Can you hold him again?"

She'd released her field to allow Fluttershy full cleaning of the shallow wound which ran through the fur: fields were only truly solid when the caster wanted them to be (and some knowledge of shield workings helped there, knowledge which Fleur didn't have) -- but it was still best to avoid trying to apply anything through them: in particular, liquids could become entangled with the borders. "Yes." And for that matter, she could fetch the needle at the same time: it took a spectacularly low field dexterity not to manage that. "What keeps the thread clean until you use it?"

"Some kind of minor working on the spools," Fluttershy told her. "It drives the price up, but it means one less thing to sterilize before I stitch. The needles... those were a gift from..." and that visible eye briefly closed "...somepony I knew. He gave me a few things, when I was just starting out, because he knew they would help. They're always sterile, no matter what happens. But they do need to be sharpened every so often. And..." She took a slow breath. "...they're getting thinner at the tips. I can see that sometimes. It's been years, and... they'll break, eventually. But for now... I can still use them." She leaned towards the flexible mouth guard which had been placed on the edge of the table, started to work her jaw into it --

-- paused. Pulled back, just enough to look at Fleur.

"...unless you want to stitch?"

No. Fleur shook her head.

"...do you know how?"

Yes. "I can make an emergency repair to a dress if something happens during a party," Fleur said. "A small one, and most of the time, when it comes to trotting around a party in something damaged, I'm better off getting out of the dress. But I'm guessing stitching cloth is a lot different from stitching skin."

It isn't. It's almost exactly the same...

"...it -- isn't, really," Fluttershy said. "There's less variety in some of the stitches, but..." She put the mouth guard on, leaned her head in, carefully worked until the wound had been pulled shut, then backed away and removed the protection. "...there. A friend taught me that one. She only uses it on cloth, but -- it holds some kinds of wounds closed better than the standard medical stitch, especially with the cross-hatching. It's also harder for him to bite out if he manages to get through the bandages, and it makes an interesting sort of scar when it heals, but..." Her right forehoof gently stroked the cub's forehead, and the little bear softly grunted. "...he doesn't worry about that kind of thing. A colt might think that kind of scar was cool, and he... doesn't think about it at all."

Thinking about such things seemed to be Fleur's exclusive domain. Dreaming about them.

There was a single day remaining before Fluttershy's first date. They had started with three. And Fleur was no longer losing time to waiting in the pasture. Instead, she was working. She had hours with Fluttershy, time spent in the same room, an endless flow of passing minutes for them to discuss...

...illnesses.

Wounds.

The location of that suddenly crucial book in the basement library, which was supposed to be on the third shelf along the west wall, right near the badger's nest, and if Fleur could just trot down and get it, Fluttershy couldn't stop what she was doing right now, and oh, be careful about the badger, she's an absolute sweetheart, really, but you're a stranger to her and it always takes her a little while before she warms up to anypony new...

(Which had naturally led into a very brief talk on the subject of did-something-happen? immediately after Fleur had nearly charged her way through the door, twelve books trailing in her field because the thing to do had clearly been to just grab everything in the general vicinity and let Fluttershy sort it out.)

Oh, and every so often, they got to talk about dating and social interaction, which generally went on until the next patient came in. But Fleur used those times, along with seizing every chance she could find for a subject change, no matter how tangential it might initially seem. Anything was better than thinking about what she was doing. Than remembering that doing anything was a mistake, a mistake Fluttershy now expected Fleur to make on a daily basis...

The pegasus began to apply the dressing, and Fleur took it as a cue. The previous subject had been stitches...

"You have a friend who sews?"

Fluttershy nodded. "...it's what she does for a living. Part of it, anyway. The practical part."

"Is it more or less exciting than apples?"

The pegasus had to think about that. "...um... well -- the way she treats just about everything, it's more stressful..."

Some time had passed since the party, and one of the two days had been a market one, with the settled zone hosting multiple temporary booths in the town square. Passing through during the setup phase had allowed Fleur to spot the earth pony who just might be another Bearer, and... well, she'd actually been somewhat impressed: the lightly-freckled features had been attractive ones, and the blonde mane and tail strands were exceptionally thick. The mare's build had been muscular enough to attract those who found that kind of strength appealing -- while lacking the near-repulsive overdevelopment of, say, Snowflake. And it was hard for a pony to consistently pull off a hat: in fact, for the majority of wearers, there was frequently some difficulty in simply keeping the thing on. Applejack's basic look was rustic, something which would never fit in within high society and likely didn't want to make so much as a token effort -- but it was also oddly warm. The mare had put Fleur in mind of a low-crackling fire, something where ponies got as close as they could to bask in the gentle heat -- while trying not to forget about the pain which a single flying cinder could inflict.

(She'd had to perform most of her initial evaluation through a rapidly-growing crowd: the mare had also turned out to be extremely popular -- although from what Fleur had overheard, that status was a seasonal one, and most of the ponies had been approaching her to find out just when that particular season was expected to begin.)

"...it does get kind of exciting on the Acres around cider time, though," Fluttershy decided. "...sometimes it's a little too exciting." A soft sigh. "I told Rainbow I don't want to go this year. I still want a little cider, and I asked Applejack to save some for me. It's easier for her to do that now, with the family making more. But... the line which forms the night before, that's its very own party, and during the day, just waiting... it's too much time away from the cottage. It's hard to be away for that long."

There had already been times when it was hard for Fleur to get all the way down the hall to the bathroom. "It's not a reason to cut your date short," she reminded Fluttershy. "The cottage is being taken care of." Snowflake had apparently volunteered.

"...I know."

"And the next thing we have to take care of is your dress," Fleur continued.

"...I don't understand why I have to be wearing something..."

"Has Caramel seen you wearing clothing before?"

The pegasus nodded. "...winter garments. Just -- things to keep me warm."

"It's not the same. He sees you without clothing every time he comes here. He's used to seeing you with fur and feathers on display. But the instant you hide anything, using something which seems as if it was only created to be removed -- take something away from sight for even a second, and ponies want to look. Even when they've seen what's underneath a hundred times before, one moment of concealment can make them curious all over again. It's reminding him of why he originally looked at you to begin with."

Which, now that she thought about it, looking at the manefall which obscured so much of Fluttershy's face...

"So you need a dress," Fleur concluded. "A new one."

"...I have a lot of dresses," Fluttershy softly insisted, smoothing out the edges of the bandages. "A -- lot."

Which created what Fleur considered to be a natural question. "Why?"

"...I -- get gifts," the pegasus eventually said. "From my friend who sews. All the time. It's usually dresses, but there's also spa visits. She... thinks we both need a lot of spa time, even though it's hard for me to get there. To try and relax, and that's hard for both of us -- but it can be a little easier together..."

A cold possibility sent its first waves of ice towards Fleur's heart.

No. No, that is impossible. I'll believe another stallion flying with half-amputated wings before I let myself believe that.

But she would have to ask. This time, there was no way to avoid asking...

"...I think the dresses would cost a lot, normally," Fluttershy went on. "Not as much as they would in Canterlot, because she says price points are important when you're trying to distinguish yourself from the crowd. But... a lot. She sort of --" the blush was beginning to rise again "-- makes some of her display pieces based on my build. And then she gives them to me, and I can't sell them because they're gifts and there aren't many ponies who'd buy them because there aren't a lot of pegasus mares with my... type of body. Hardly any. But she keeps making them, because she says I'm an inspiration, and..."

Her head dipped. The incredible tail seemed to droop under its own weight.

"...I have a lot of dresses," Fluttershy softly finished. "I have a room with nothing but dresses -- and usually some kittens: they like to curl up there. Dresses and kittens. There's so many dresses, I don't know if I could ever wear them all..."

Fleur managed a nod, and then said what she'd been planning to say anyway. "But we're going to get you a new dress."

The one visible eye blinked. "...why?"

The true answer was a rather simple one: Because I can't invoice the palace for something you already own. As far as Fleur was concerned, Celestia could cover both any and every expense which could be tied into Fluttershy's new social life. (She'd already picked up a bundle of suitable cosmetics, and the bill had been sent to Canterlot while the receipt's ink was still drying.) But it was something she couldn't tell her charge, and so she went with "First date, new life, new dress. The cost will be covered, Fluttershy: it's not going to take any bits away from the cottage." Instead, it would be taking bits out of the national budget, which struck Fleur as being considerably more important to deplete. "So -- and I know this is going to be hard for you, but Snowflake's already shown he's willing to help you with this -- I thought we might take a day trip tomorrow. Catch the first train out of Ponyville and be in Canterlot when the shops open." The titanium would track that -- but her charge would be right next to her. "I know some very skilled designers."

"...but..." A typical protest, even if Fleur wasn't entirely sure just what Fluttershy was currently protesting. "...but..."

"Very skilled," Fleur repeated. There had been a time, early in her Canterlot career, when she'd had to fight for access to the best of them. Once her reputation had started to spread, it had shortly been followed by the much more enjoyable period where those same ponies considered the benefit of having her appear at a major gathering in one of their creations, which had quickly turned into having them fight over her.

Of course, Fluttershy's 'type' phased out of style a couple of years ago, so some of them would take one look at her tail and then pretend it, and her, don't exist. The mere thought disgusted her: all kinds of beauty existed in the world -- with much of it being evaluated by ponies who could perceive, at most, just one. But I think I know just who we can go to. And since price is no object...

The real challenge -- other than convincing Fluttershy to stay away from the cottage for what would ultimately amount to a full day -- would be getting something picked out, modified, and ready in time for the date, especially with the various temptations of Canterlot --

-- all right, Fluttershy's probably immune to the temptations of Canterlot. Or afraid of them, which in this case is just about the same thing. But Fleur still hadn't received any of her things in the mail, and if there was any chance to check on her former residence...

"I can ask him on my way home tonight," Fleur finished. "I'm sure he'd take on a few more cottage hours for you. If he isn't available, then we can go into your closet. But right now, I think your first date calls for a day trip into the capital."

"...but... my friend... she makes dresses, it's what she does and... if bits are going to be spent... she gives me so much, I hardly ever get to give anything back, she's always looking for excuses to spend on me -- Opal doesn't need half as much grooming as she gets, I tell her that, but she just keeps bringing her in..."

Opal.

The chill increased, wrapped itself around her hooves, coated Fleur's heart in ice.

I've heard that name before.

She brought it up. Of course she brought it up, because she just had to let everypony know that she was so unusual, she'd taken in a predator as a pet. She...

There had to be a joke which was too cruel for the world to play on her and Fleur, frozen within a cage of growing horror, distantly wondered exactly what that jest was.

She can't be. It would have been the only names she didn't try to drop, the thing which might have actually gained real status for her, something which could have kept going after he took his attention off her, because there wasn't a pony in the world that knew who any of them were yet...

Which was admittedly a good reason for not dropping those names: nopony would have known they were worth picking up. They'd just been told that she was staying at the palace, and...

...there's a very good reason for her to have known Celestia.

No. Not this. I've been through enough already. This has to be the line. It has to stop here...

"...if we buy in Ponyville," Fluttershy decided, "I can give her something back. A real purchase! And she always has a few things which would fit me, because of those display pieces. And she's really good at working on things in a hurry --" hesitated "-- sometimes. When it's only one or two pieces. And nothing else is going on... and we all sort of... just leave her alone to work, because if we don't, then..." The blush was deepening. "...we just let her work now. It's... easier that way."

"Your friend does all this professionally." No, Fluttershy had already said that...

"...as a designer." A brief pause. "...well, that's part of it. She designs, but she also has to sew all of her own work. She does nearly all of the dyes, and she finds the gems she uses herself. Plus she has to run the shop all by herself, because part of how she keeps her costs down is by not having anypony else work there." And a slightly longer one, as the bear cub began to release a gronking series of little snores. "...unless we have a mission. She can either ask the palace to cover a typical period of sales, or to put somepony into the shop until she comes back."

The ice felt as if it was just about binding her jaw shut, and Fleur had to force her frozen tongue into movement. "So this friend is a Bearer." The words had been casual. She hadn't had the strength to make them into anything else.

"...yes." That with a faint note of surprise, as if her charge had been mildly shocked by just how much she'd revealed.

"Who runs a shop in town. Which sells dresses." And the occasional saddlebags, which had been very highly recommend by several of the locals.

"...yes. A high-end one. It's just not as expensive as it would be in Canterlot, because she saves a lot of money by finding her own gems --"

three blue gems on each hip

"-- and she passes that along to her customers, to try and lure some of them out of Canterlot. It's taken a while, but... the mayor said she's starting to become a foundation in town, something other shops could try to build on --"

"-- Rarity," Fleur said, because the true appellation wouldn't have gone over well. "Your friend's name is Rarity."

Fluttershy blinked.

With both hope and a touch of pride, "...you've been in the shop?"

"Not yet," Fleur softly replied as she looked ahead to the shadow of a Boutique which darkly loomed over her very near future. "We've... already met."

That bitch.

As assigned terms went, it had more or less been a constant. She had just about never thought of the white unicorn in any other way, and most of the exceptions had been the times when Fleur had been working to add the status of victim. She'd used the name, of course: it was a little harder to spread gossip through the strata of Canterlot society without one. But now she needed to add a new term to the original, a permanent one, just one more bit of proof as to how determined the universe was to punish her when she'd done nothing wrong, had been setting up that particular piece of pain for years...

A poseur. Somepony who likely only possessed whatever expensive pieces she might possess through the twin arts of rummaging and haggling, at least for those things which hadn't simply fallen off a train. Just another rural mare trying to climb her way up a social ramp made of glitter, something which would collapse at the impact of the first solid hoofstep -- or kick. Fleur had known all that about her on sight -- and now there was one more thing to know.

That bitch is a Bearer.

For a moment, she expected Moon itself to laugh at her, a cosmic mirth raining down from the very sky. Fleur, the subject -- and target -- of every joke the world could play. Instead, the temperature dropped a little more, and a chill autumn wind reinforced the cold within.

How do the Elements choose? What's the criteria for becoming a Bearer? Are there any? You have to show a virtue, and somehow Magic and Honesty are two of them. Laughter is something worth having. But then there's Fluttershy, Fluttershy who can barely talk to ponies most of the time, whose contribution to a combat mission might just be curling up into a ball for a monster to trip over, and now there's that bitch! Honesty as one pony virtue and Lying for another: that's what passes for Equestrian Harmony! What's the supposed virtue for the flying ego, if that's the remaining Bearer? Self-Interest? Land Swooping, or at least Party Food Theft to pass for it in an emergency? Ability To Make Everything About Her? It can't be that last, because that bitch already has it covered!

Actually, it was easy to see how the Elements chose their Bearers. They picked their ponies based on a single supposed virtue: their ability to torment Fleur. Oh, and apparently the most powerful devices known also had the ability to see into the future, because the Nightmare's return was more than three years in the past now and those Elements had still known they had to set everything up for Fleur's sentence well in advance. Which meant the things would have been aware that her efforts would come to nothing, years would turn into ash, she would have been destined to fail, to be sent into Ponyville with no end to her sentence in sight...

(She knew she was taking things too far in her stalking rage, deliberately exaggerating the truth in order to make herself angrier still. The Elements did not exist solely to torment Fleur. At best, it was their secondary function.)

And she would be in the presence of that bitch early in the morning, because Fluttershy, faced with the teacher-suggested, almost-ordered choice of a Canterlot day trip or simply spending locally, had -- put her hoof down. It had been a remarkably soft impact and Fleur suspected there were ants who hadn't picked up on the reverberations, but a hoof had come down. If bits were going to be spent, then Fluttershy wanted her friend to receive them. It was that or go into the closet, and since Fleur herself had originally been so insistent on a new dress...

She's going to remember me. Of course that bitch would remember her. Fleur, based on a considerable quantity of evidence, believed herself to be rather difficult to forget. Did she ever put anything together about why her little ramp just about collapsed? What has Fluttershy told her about me, if that's anything at all?

She gives Fluttershy gifts. Dresses which can't be resold. Sales which would make Fluttershy's life so much easier... Fleur had been spending a lot of time in the examination room, and it had allowed her to hear some of what happened immediately beyond it. Clients came in with their companions and bits. Many of them left the same way. And that bitch was gifting Fluttershy with useless, undoubtedly ugly dresses...

(Her hooves were hitting the path with an increasing amount of impact. Dust spiraled up, dirt settled into her fur. She barely noticed, and couldn't bring herself to care.)

Gifts. She'd planned for that much, at least when it came to Caramel. But with that bitch...

Fleur was heading home under Moon. Except that she didn't have one. There was a residence which she was renting, and blankets which she curled up within. Home had been Canterlot...

...Canterlot wasn't home.

Canterlot had been a base of operations. The best place to try and secure her future. It hadn't been a home any more than her rented house was, and calling Ponyville any level of home was just a singularly unfunny joke which she'd failed to play on herself. Home was... a distant shore, one which rested on the other side of an ocean of uncrossable time.

She could gaze across the waters any time she wanted to, and so never did. And to actually venture within... she would drown.

Fleur didn't have a home. She had a prison cell where invisible walls pressed against her fur, one where the sentence could never be appealed, there was no way to overrule a judge who made her own laws, the date would fail, she had planned for the first date but every date would fail because she was dealing with Fluttershy and her tiny allotment of time would run out in a settled zone which existed for two things: as the home of the Bearers, and its much lesser-known purpose of torturing Fleur.

The sentence had potentially been for life: she'd recognized that early on. She was finally starting to realize she'd been wrong. It was for death...

A shadow loomed on her right: Moon's light partially blocked out by something which was still pretending to be a fully secure structure, just as much as it was pretending to be something other than a corpse. Fleur was sick of things which tried to present themselves as anything other than what they were...

It took less than eight seconds to enter the mill.

You Had To Figure This Wasn't Going To Go Well

I found a site for the mill.

We still have to wait for some things to arrive. Construction materials is most of that, and the road is a little too new to expect them in a hurry. In theory, the distance would make Canterlot into a day trot, but the pathway is still opening up. There haven't been enough ponies to blaze the full trail, and all the monsters know is that we're passing by regularly and they can take advantage of that. I had to pay for hauling and protective spells. Extra ponies to provide more security. It cost more than I was hoping to pay, and that's why I know we can make money here.

A new settled zone doesn't open up every day. Sometimes there's decades between them. That makes this into an opportunity.

I wrote to her, when I saw the bill, as a reminder of why I'd wanted to come: if ponies are being forced to pay that much to bring refined materials into this new settlement -- then how are they going to react when they see a local sawmill going up? We may spend moons trying to figure out just how to apportion out whatever we can make, because we won't be able to make enough to meet the initial demand.

Maybe that'll be what convinces her that I didn't make a mistake.

Our own costs are a limiting factor there. I can only pay for so much in the way of materials, and I need to leave something for a construction crew. They won't be cheap either, and that's all going to limit the initial size of the mill. I left some places in the blueprints where we could take down parts of an outer wall and expand later: it should be easier to clear some of the surrounding trees by then.

For now, it'll just fill a natural hollow in the wild zone -- because just about everything is still wild zone -- next to one of the larger rivers. The ground is pretty level to start with. That'll make it easier to get the base laid down, and the testing I did on the soil showed it would be easy to dig out a basement.

It's been weird, trotting around the area, even with ponies keeping lookout. I've never spent this much time in the wild. But we're here now, and when there's enough of us... that's when it won't be wild any more.

A new settlement. The first in decades. It's an opportunity: it can't be anything else. It was worth leaving home for, to be a part of this.

We're not the first ones here, of course. There's an orchard starting up: from what everypony says, that family was the very first one in. A few other farms have been put together, and there's a general store which can barely keep up with the tide: they seem to be having some trouble getting their own goods down the new road. The owner's a decent stallion, though. A lot of ponies in that situation would price gouge until the cows came in, not that this place is anywhere near being ready to host tenants yet. This one's making a profit, but I can tell it's margin over cost. His costs are just going to stay high for a while. Of course, if he raised them too much, then Canterlot's right over there. But that's the road again, and all the risks.

I think that's the strangest part. Canterlot.

Most settled zones aren't this close together. And when I was scouting out potential sites for the mill, it was just the wild zone. (Somepony said it's called the Everfree. I've been meaning to find out why. Who ever heard of a wild zone which had its own name?) It's trees without direction and wind without schedule. Monsters who don't care what we do as long as they can swoop in and eat us while we're doing it. I've been able to keep most of the shaking inside until I get back to the farmhouse and my rented barn bunk space. It's hard, being in the wild like this, and I don't know how ponies do it every day.

But it's not as hard as it could be.

I found this one place. Clear enough for trees, but the land was on a slant and it was too far from water to do any good. Didn't work for the mill. But it was a clear day, and when I looked, I could make out the castle. Pretty much nothing of the capital, but the towers were visible. I can see Canterlot from that patch of land. When there's been more cleared, maybe ponies will be able to see it from nearly any place in our new settled zone.

But right now, it's easiest to see it from right there.

I think that's where I'm going to put our house.

We can stand on our porch and see the palace. The first new settled zone in more than a generation, and that means there's monsters out there. The earth ponies are still working on getting the Effect down, and I mostly see pegasi during deliveries: this is wild weather. A real unicorn population is going to take a while. It might even be just us for a year or two. It means there's risks, and that we all have to be careful. Ponies can die when new settled zones are opened. But the earth ponies brought it this far, and now it's time for the next phase.

I look at the palace, and I know the Princess is watching over us. She'll watch over my wife once she gets here and when we start our family, the Princess will smile down on our kids.

Canterlot's right there.

I think we're going to be okay.

Fleur trotted out of the rented house shortly after Sun had been raised, took a breath as she looked up and down the street and in doing so, caused a pair of accidents.

The neighbors were, to some degree, still getting used to her presence: a pony like Fleur didn't move into the area every day, moon, year, or however long it had been since Joyous had entered Ponyville. (She had to find out where Joyous lived.) But sufficient exposure made it possible for some to regard her presence on a background level: yes, the local view had been improved to a level never seen before -- at least in this neighborhood -- but as they had only so much interaction with her, especially with her having to go to the cottage all the time, her post-party status seemed to be set at 'scenery'. And it was certainly possible to become used to the presence of beauty, even when said presence was fairly intermittent at best.

However, on this morning, Fleur had spent some extra time on her mane and tail before utilizing a fairly wide spread of cosmetics. (She hadn't bothered with perfume, as she'd already been using the Foal Soap long enough to make the attempt pointless.) There was a very reluctant stop to be made on that morning, and if she had to be there, then showing up the occupant was a requirement.

Fleur wasn't at her peak: she saved that for truly special occasions. But she'd deliberately elevated herself, and so two mid-shift commuters turned towards the sound of the house's door opening, then promptly commuted into each other.

Perfect.

She didn't bother to glance at them as she stepped into the street: all eight legs could be untangled with no supervision from her. Instead, she simply began to trot, giving off the appearance of being in no particular hurry. She'd agreed to meet Fluttershy at the building itself, but the appointed time wouldn't arrive for a while yet. And while Fleur hated the idea of wasting time, a more gradual approach wouldn't do that. There was no current way of knowing what the -- shop's... owner -- truly knew about her, and so she wanted a few extra minutes to plan some potential responses in advance.

"...hi." The filly's shy voice (a fairly melodic one: Fleur had noticed that) came from well behind her, far enough back that Fleur had just been starting to pick up her presence on that unique sense -- and then hearing had taken over. "Um... good morning?"

Fleur glanced back towards Sweetie, and needed a moment to find her in the stallion's shadow.

Large for a stallion. (Not as large as Snowflake, but she didn't know of a stallion who matched him.) Unusually muscular. He moved in a way which spoke of old injuries, ones where the body had healed and the mind still directed it to move carefully just in case. She'd already heard some of the neighbors speaking about Sweetie's father: a former professional athlete, and now a coach: something which meant he didn't get to spend a lot of time at home. None of those conversations had mentioned the absolute hideousness of the hat.

"Morning," the stallion placidly said, and calm eyes went over her, something which was much more evaluation than appreciation. His daughter had spoken to a pony, one he knew of -- but this was their first meeting, and so he was trying to figure her out.

She returned the favor. It didn't take long to solve his puzzle, and she was rather pleased to find nothing unpleasant within. His tastes were actually fairly standard, and fully satisfied. (There was a minor underlying level of frustration regarding how often those desires actually got to be fully satisfied, but he was monogamous and on the road a lot.) It was, in many ways, a comfort.

"Good morning," she smiled, turning around to face them. "We haven't met --"

"-- right," he broke in. "We haven't." Still looking her over, and it was so easy to see that the scrutiny came from protection. "So it's good to get it out of the way. Fleur, right?" She nodded. "Missed the party. Had a road game."

"My dad," Sweetie shyly tried, "works for --"

"I've heard," Fleur helped her. Still smiling. "So you're just swinging through on your way to the next match."

He nodded. "Sweetie said you helped her out one time."

The smile was beginning to feel somewhat fixed. If she gave him any details...

Well, she really hadn't done much. She'd told the trio to leave, and she'd been prepared to lie on their behalf: something which had never happened. Oh, and the encounter had provided his daughter with some fresh hues upon her developing puzzle, because there had been kindness in a moment of high emotion and sometimes that was all it took. But he didn't know about that, she was hardly going to tell him and besides, Fleur would never --

"Appreciate it," the stallion steadily said, with the words both soft and powerful. "I don't get to look out for her as much as I'd like. So it's good to know somepony did."

She could only read the sexual aspects of a sentient being: it meant she couldn't entirely figure anypony out through their puzzle alone. But she could see the tension moving along his rib cage. The way his left forehoof was slightly rotating, grinding against the cobblestones.

He was considerably older than she would have expected Sweetie's father to be: her guess was that the filly had been born rather late in the marriage. He had, from everything she'd heard, had an unusually long career for a hoofball player, and had likely ached his way through all of it. The hideous hat created the question of a horn (because any such barrier had to be removed before casting): the neighbors had answered it. A unicorn, one where she had no idea what he was capable of magically -- but the physical power was still there.

His puzzle was just about an everyday one, and told her there was nothing to worry about there. His body language said something else.

'Help my daughter and I'll thank you.

Hurt her and I'll end you.'

She knew he had nothing to worry about. And because he was a good stallion, he worried anyway.

"It's all right," she smiled. "It was just something --" okay, maybe not something anypony would have done "-- I could do. Where are you two headed?"

Sweetie winced. "My teacher..." she half-whispered, and stopped as the skin below white fur blazed with red-hot embarrassment.

"Cheerilee wants to see a parent," the stallion filled in. "One of us. And since I'm around, it's me."

Sweetie shrank slightly, withdrew from herself, and Fleur noted that doing so had her moving towards her father.

Good.

"I won't keep you," she told them. She had ways to stall, but she also had an appointment she didn't particularly want to keep and knew that in both cases, delaying would ultimately make it all the worse. "But if you want to talk with me, you know where I live." He nodded. "Good luck, Sweetie."

She blushed a little more. "...thank you..."

Fleur nodded, began to turn --

"And where are you off to?" the stallion politely inquired. "In case we're trotting the same way for a while."

She was already facing away from them, and so felt free to indulge in the wince.

"I have to see a --" severe editing occurred "-- mare. About a dress."

"Oh," the stallion considered. "Well, have a good time with that."

She heard him smile, and it made her trot that much faster.

Some of her final approach time was used in thinking up new names for the shop. There were several which seemed suitable, and if a pony could just get through the initial wave of protests conducted by self-appointed moral guardians who never seemed to have any true morals of their own, there was definitely a place in Canterlot for the That Bitch Boutique.

Not that the owner could make it in Canterlot.

Fleur couldn't even take full credit for that. That -- 'Rarity,' she had to use the name for a while, if mostly externally -- had been in Ponyville before Fleur had ever said a single carefully-constructed thing. So while she might possess some talent for design, it was obviously a second-rate one: somepony of true skill would have been spotted at the annual fashion Talent Search and been hired years ago. To be in Ponyville from the start indicated a 'talent' -- the quotes were internally justified -- incapable of competing with the best. A discount dress shop out in the boondocks, where those with very little taste and even less in the way of bits went to get a break on the price point, unaware that the true cost would soon be coming out of their reputations. And that was the sort of thing Fluttershy wanted to wear on her first date.

To a minor degree, it didn't strictly matter. Caramel didn't strike Fleur as the sort of stallion who paid too much attention to dresses: he was rather more concerned with what lay beneath them. But for the next date, she was going to get Fluttershy into Canterlot, take her to a real designer. Somepony of skill, reputation, and -- just as important -- a pony who would invoice the palace for Yes, They're Actually Charging By The Thread. Fleur was going to get her a real dress, send Celestia a real bill, and after the next date was over...

...I'll have to be careful about that. I'll have the original receipt, but returning something that's been worn is chancy. Do it enough times and it'll kick my reputation. Besides, just because I know how to get through the night with a dress and leave it looking like it was never touched doesn't mean Fluttershy can do it, and that isn't an easy thing to teach. We don't move the same way.

She rather naturally thought about how Fluttershy moved, then managed to get the memory of the peacock imitation out of it.

Or she could return it.

Now there was a picture: a pony who could barely muster the courage to speak with those around her, reluctantly slinking into the highest-end of Canterlot's stores to request a full refund. Fleur had to play out the scene several times before her charge's responses even became audible.

Actually, that might be good training for her. It's just a variant on the base lesson...

The shop was starting to loom large in her sight. A little too large: the place seemed to be far too oversized for a dress shop, and that was after she factored out all of the external signs which indicated the upper level was being used as an apartment.

There was a cat in one of the upper windows. They each regarded the other until both decided they'd won. And Fleur waited.

I went after a Bearer.

I didn't know I was going after one. (It felt oddly discourteous for the matter to have never been brought up.) But it's possible that this can be fixed. If she never managed to backtrack anything, then there might not be any problems at all.

However, the only way to find out was to go inside, and she wasn't going in without Fluttershy. The 'designer' was likely waiting for Fleur's charge before opening the door in any case, and should there be any -- incidents -- then Fluttershy's presence could help to moderate them.

So Fleur waited, and after a few minutes, about as close to on-time as the cottage would allow -- she'd already learned to make a rather rare allowance there -- Fluttershy came trotting up the road.

Trotting again. She knew Fluttershy could fly: she'd seen it happen. But she was starting to wonder if there was something wrong with those slightly oversized wings, because the pegasus was never in the air for long. If not for certain considerations, it would have felt as if Fleur --

"...good morning," the pegasus softly said. (She looked a little more confident than usual, was moving more easily. Of course she was. She was heading into a safe place. A shop owned by a friend.) "...were you waiting for me?" Fleur nodded. "...you could have just knocked..."

"I thought we should go in together. I want to see what you pick out before I start making any suggestions." Which was the truth. "And your friend might have some ideas for you." Likely also the truth, and possibly something Fleur would wind up moving to stop. "Besides, she doesn't --" quickly sorted out her words "-- know me all that well, and --" a quick nod towards the business hours which had been posted near the door "-- the place isn't officially open yet. She might not have unlocked everything for a pony she didn't really know."

Her charge nodded. "...I understand." She trotted forward a little more, still doing so less timidly than Fleur was accustomed to, and the escort stepped aside to let Fluttershy knock.

It was an interesting sort of knock. There wasn't a lot of visible force behind it, and yet it produced enough sound to do the job. Fleur suspected special construction in the wood.

She counted off forty heartbeats, stopped when she heard the first clicking of locks. It took another twelve to create the first assault of completely-false accent.

"Darling! And right on time! Well, as much on time as your own will allow, I know, but please do not concern yourself with the delay: we are starting early in any case, and it allowed me to complete a sketch. A date, Fluttershy --" fake eyelashes fluttered "-- your very first date, and..."

The word flow faltered, briefly evaporated.

"...it is with... well, we will be talking about that soon enough. And possibly for a rather long time. But should you still be going ahead with it --"

Perfect. She got in the way with Fancypants, she's doing the same thing here, I should have just stomped until the vibrations shook Fluttershy onto the train...

"-- you will, of course, need a dress. One which I understand is being -- paid for? By --"

Which was when the blue eyes sent their gaze beyond Fluttershy's obscuring manefall, and the unicorns looked at each other for the second time in their lives.

Fleur could only read the sexual aspects of a being, and had no need to do so here: she already knew what that puzzle looked like. But she'd also learned a little about body language, and it told her something about how much the so-called designer might have discovered about the source of certain tales.

"-- you," the mare finished. "Oh, yes. You."

The overdone tail lashed again. Several muscles stiffened or rather, stiffened more.

"How very interesting to see you. In Ponyville of all places. Well, I'm certain that something very important has brought you here. Is keeping you here. And of course I wish you success in your endeavors, especially since you must be missing your home and the sooner you succeed, the sooner you can leave."

Strictly speaking, Rarity might not have learned much. But there was anger, and that meant she suspected.

"Do come inside," the somehow-Bearer said through half-clenched teeth. "We have so much to catch up on, you and I..."

Fluttershy, a mare whom Fleur suspected didn't always have a lot of natural skill when it came to reading the room, was steadily shifting her head. Training that single visible eye on one unicorn, then the other.

"...you two -- know each other?"

Never be afraid to make an enemy you already had...

Of course, this enemy was a Bearer. Just as (currently) bad, one of Fluttershy's friends. A pony Fluttershy would trust.

I have to be very careful. And we have to make this quick. I need to stay around constantly, not give Fluttershy time alone with her in the shop.

Which wouldn't prevent a friend from dropping by the cottage.

Fleur took a breath. Smiled.

"We met once," she told her charge. "Briefly. I'm surprised Rarity even remembers."

"You make something of an impression," the Bearer declared. "To begin with, there is your appearance. And then there is your memorable concept of the ideal casual Canterlot wardrobe. It's rather uncommon to see somepony using an adult stallion as an accessory." The smile went wide, with lips pulled thin enough to crack. "Do come inside, both of you. For purposes of choosing colors, the light is somewhat better within, and I would much rather have you where I can see you..."

When it came to acting, Fleur believed herself to have some skill: after all, even with the most credulous clients, one simply couldn't gasp a few times and call it an orgasm. She'd needed to take on a number of roles during her life, and the one she was currently playing was complete innocent. Polite, exceptionally well-mannered, and allowing Rarity to do the majority of the work in burying herself.

The shop... well, if she had to admit it, she'd seen worse. The Boutique was an improvement over a number of better-known (or in this case, known at all) Canterlot establishments. The styles weren't all that bad, the color selection frequently worked, the gems weren't so much signature aspect as complete and utter overkill... on the whole, it was better than Barneigh's. Of course, Fleur could say the same thing about recovering a manure sack from the trash and when it came to some of the dyes used at Barneigh's, there was a chance for the manure sack to possess the more subtle scent.

It created a mystery. Rarity was -- 'competent': that was as far as Fleur was willing to go. But it was a competence which should have drawn notice, and the trade magazines scattered around the waiting area told Fleur that the designer kept a close eye on the industry. This wasn't somepony too naive to have even heard of the Search. She had to have been there at least once, and if her work had been anywhere near this level at the time...

Somepony would have hired her. Fleur could admit that, because taste was a variable and so some ponies had less of it. So what is she doing in Ponyville?

It was, as questions went, purely intellectual. Fleur didn't strictly care what had happened to the mare. But it was possible that Rarity had some previous experience in being the victim of rumor.

And she probably deserved it that time, too.

"I understand you're a Bearer," Fleur pleasantly said from her bench in the waiting area, watching a lightly-spiking soft blue field as it placed fabric samples and color swaths near Fluttershy's fur, pulled them away again.

"Do you?" the mare responded. "I rather appreciate that you understand something. Perhaps we can hope to treat that level of comprehension as some degree of foundation for future events."

"Which one?" It was more direct than she usually wanted to be, but she seemed to have very little to lose. "If you don't mind my asking, of course. Because you're both the first and last one I've seen -- not that I knew that at the time -- and since I don't know the Elements for the entire group, I'm afraid I can't even begin to guess at yours." She decided the script called for a merry little shrug. "We just didn't have enough time together..."

Several field-coated sewing needles began to tap themselves against a table.

"Well, you are being rather more direct than I might have expected," Rarity stated.

"Curiosity," Fleur excused herself. "It's natural. I'm sure you get it all the time, from those who recognize your role. Whatever that might happen to be." And watched the mare's jaw clench.

(Fluttershy's gaze was volleying between them, shifting back and forth like a hoofball caught in a scrum.)

"Very well," Rarity ultimately pretended to decide. "In the name of satisfying your curiosity. Now of course, you will be familiar with the six major pony virtues --"

It was a fairly natural assumption, and it was partially wrong. Fleur had come to that information later than might have been expected for most, and hadn't really considered it worth fully memorizing. She had a vague idea for a few of them, and had confirmed a small number through learning about those Bearers, but to just rattle them off --

"-- if only as distant rumor," the mare continued. "Each Element reflects one of those virtues, and chooses a pony who will do so as well. In my case, I do my best to represent, and thus bear, the virtue of Generosity."

Fleur blinked.

"Generosity." The worst part was that it hadn't been an attempt at mockery.

"I believe I just said that."

"You --" it took an effort to keep her voice steady "-- give things away." And that entitled a pony to take up an Element?

"In several manners of speaking," Rarity said, with that spiking field sorting a number of spools along the way. "It is not simply charitable donations, nor is it accommodating those unfortunates who conclude that to not grant them everything I possess would result in my being deposed. There are several means by which the virtue might manifest itself. To begin with --" and the blue eyes focused on Fleur "-- I am rather skilled at giving ponies a piece of my mind."

Apparently being careful wasn't doing any good.

So dominate.

"You have to be careful with that," Fleur observed.

"Do I?"

"Well, if you give out too many pieces, then what's left for you?"

The needles were tapping faster now.

"There's a test we could do," Fleur smiled, letting the open humor be her lie. "Tap your head against something solid. We'll see how hollow it sounds. Then we'll know just how much you have left to give."

The thinnest one snapped. Fluttershy reared up a little at the sound, and it took some time to get her fur settled back into the grain again.

"I understand you're an escort?" Rarity eventually said. "How very uncommon -- at least locally. Ponyville was actually without a single escort to its name for quite some time, forcing ponies to take the day trip -- or much more often, night -- to Canterlot and seek help from whatever might have drifted into the profession. But I'm pleased to say that for this settled zone, the occupation is once again occupied. We simply don't have that many, especially when you consider our population. And an apprentice should not be counted among their number yet."

Fleur was willing to nod on that one. There were rules which had to be followed when going for an escort's license, and one of those said that an apprentice technically wasn't. You could follow an active escort around as they went about their duties, talk to them about the profession, ask for advice and listen carefully to any answers they had to give -- but you couldn't do anything beyond talking. Any degree of actual training required signing up for classes, and some areas required a mentor. (Ideally, this would be the pony you'd been consulting.) But when it came to escorting, 'apprentice' usually just meant somepony who wasn't ready to commit yet. With a few of the problem cases, it translated directly to 'voyeur.'

"But you have not announced your presence," Rarity went on. "And I also understand that such is expected, especially when it concerns those who share your profession. To consult. Ask about those who have been known to cause problems. And of course, when it comes to competition, let them know that there is somepony about who is both quite willing and skilled in screwing ponies over."

There was an "...eep!" Both unicorns put it aside for later.

And now on top of everything else, I have to worry about what that bitch might have said to Fluttershy before today. "It's considered common courtesy to drop by," Fleur agreed. "Any client who's been enough trouble to put themselves on the master blacklist without also putting themselves in prison -- well, it gets updated frequently, but it doesn't go out every day, and ponies need to know who's on it." Although in this case, 'blacklist' was a little too formal. Some fetishes and kinks would be rejected by ninety-nine percent of all potential escorts -- but that left one pony in a hundred who was willing to take on the job. A local blacklist was frequently just warnings about what some ponies wanted to do, and the warnings themselves explained why nopony had been willing to do it.

The true list was composed of those whom no escort should ever see, and there weren't that many living names on it. Every escort knew those names. Most of them were accompanied by pictures, the rest had sketches, and all came with instructions on how to detect fur dye.

"Which would lead one to assume that you are either displaying a stunning lack of what would otherwise be, as you say, common courtesy," the designer decided, "or you are not escorting at the moment. Should I presume the second?"

"I'm here for Fluttershy," Fleur said. "That's all."

"So any screwing you might do...?"

"Would be purely recreational." The smile was beginning to feel natural. "Or if I'm lucky, it might even be the perfectly natural outgrowth of a relationship. Who knows? I might even have the fortune to run into a pony I'd considered screwing before, and could now screw just for the fun of it..."

The second needle snapped.

"Rhynorn's Flu?" Fleur innocently inquired. "If you're sick enough to lose control of your field, then you should close the shop. We still have time to get into Canterlot --"

"-- there is one thing I am sick of," the mare hissed. "A moment of your time, Fleur?"

Which meant she'd just been asked for something Rarity normally wouldn't have been worth, but in this case...

She got up, followed Rarity into what turned out to be one of the larger dressing rooms, as a virtually-spellshocked Fluttershy lightly swayed in place on the selling floor.

The curtain snapped shut behind them. Two of the rings broke.

"You --" Rarity shot at her.

"-- have been treated like refuse from the moment you saw me," Fleur intercepted. "I'm used to that. There's always ponies who think that escorts are something they can look down on, kick at without consequence. It doesn't mean I like it. So the nastier you are to me, that's as nasty as I'm going to be with you."

Those blue eyes stared at her. A sharper, darker blue than Fluttershy's, which were more of a blue-green. They would have been among the mare's best features if she could have been presumed to have any.

"I know what you did."

"Then tell me."

A long silence, too long for Fleur's taste: it was wasting time. And when it broke, she wished it had been longer still.

"I remain," Rarity stated, "in contact with Fancypants."

Somehow, she kept her knees straight, her spine properly curved. All of the reaction was locked inside, and she distantly wondered how long she could keep it there. "You're lucky. There aren't a lot of mares who get to say that --"

"-- and so I know that he thought well of you," Rarity cut her off. "Until he did not. And if there is a reason for him to turn away from you, Fleur, then why should I, as a mare who believes herself to be his friend, not do the same?"

...she doesn't know.

She doesn't have the specifics, and she didn't trace the rumors. All she knows is that he doesn't want to be near me, and thinking she's his friend, she has to reject me in order to defend him. And he would never tell her what happened. It sounded like he barely told Celestia.

I may have just won.

And her head dipped. Purple eyes briefly, artfully closed.

"...what happened with Fancypants," she softly, sadly said, "has to stay between the two of us. There's a lot of things you learn when you become an escort, Rarity -- and when it's related to the job, one of the biggest is confidentiality. I won't talk about it. I can't. You may be his friend, but I'm --" added extra regret "-- I was -- his escort. And that..."

She found herself in the rare position of being able to add some truth, and almost cherished it.

"...is one of the biggest regrets of my life. That it's was. That 'was' won't ever change. If you feel like you have to hurt me to defend him, Rarity, I understand that. I know what that's like, more than you might want to imagine." And brought her head up, made eye contact. "But I'm still going to defend myself. And right now, all we're doing is upsetting Fluttershy, when we both know she's going to have a hard enough time getting through today to begin with. So -- knowing I can't talk about it --" and now hoping that Fancypants wouldn't either, not with this one "-- can we at least have a truce? One which lasts long enough for you to see her off and wish her luck? Because I think she really needs her friends to wish her well right now. To believe in her. And all you're doing is fighting."

The mare's hind legs did not go out from under her. Buttocks failed to hit the floor, and the overdone tail didn't splay.

"We have begun to realize," Rarity said (and Fleur instantly wondered about the nature of that 'we') "that your tutelage, such as it is, likely concerns social situations. Would it be safe to say that 'dating' is included in that?"

She shifted to a previous defense. "If Fluttershy hasn't told you --"

"-- we try to meet once a week at the spa," Rarity stated. "Regardless of what may be happening in both our lives, we try. It could be argued that there are few traits which we truly share, but for what we do have in common... stress would be rather high on the list. So we talk. But not about you, what your duties are. She still refuses, with all of us. And I will use your own silence as a canvas upon which to paint my guess. This is about dating. Because now one of us is dating, and she has somehow decided that she must do the same. In many ways, I am proud of her for that. But I do not know if I trust you to bring her through this. And when the process begins with Caramel --"

"It had to be Caramel." Another truth, and she kept her tones neutral.

A simple, surprisingly strong "Why?"

"You know about him, Rarity. And if you know about him, and what's already happened between them -- then you know why."

Another silence, enough for both to hear the unsteady breathing of the shop's only customer.

Starkly, "That's how you're approaching this."

"For her first, yes. Unless everything is perfect. And I don't think it can be."

"That..." A deep breath. "...is a harsh lesson. And when it comes to the student --"

"-- she's strong enough."

Instantly, "I know she is. Her strength does not concern me. The nature of the lesson does."

More softly, "She has to learn it. And the sooner, the better. You know that's true."

"And you are only thinking about her." There was more than a little sarcasm in that.

Fleur nodded.

Another long silence, and it wasn't long enough for Fleur to think of what she could say next.

"I don't like you," Rarity finally said. "I rather doubt that I ever will. But... as you said, this day is about Fluttershy. So I accept your truce. We will make a show of true politeness. We will tell her that differences have been settled, without saying what they were. We shall mutually calm her. And then I will send Fluttershy on her way, in the perfect dress for a first date, while wishing her well."

There were many things which could have been said about the dress part, and Fleur contented herself with having thought of all of them. "Thank you."

"But I wonder," Rarity quietly finished, "when you'll think of the other aspect. Or if you already have, and simply do not care..."

Soft blue pulled the curtain aside and Generosity, having just freely given out a piece of her mind, went back to the sales floor.

Date A Dead

Fleur and... 'Rarity' (at least while in public) -- had found a rather tiny piece of common ground on which to build the extremely temporary truce: both wanted Fluttershy to be prepared for her date. And while the 'new dress' part of that requirement still only had one mare feeling that she was the best-equipped to provide it, Fleur did have to admit (if only internally) that the Ponyville-exiled designer worked quickly -- when she let herself work. There would be pauses to second-guess. Quick head shakes, further delays as the soft blue field automatically repaired whatever minor disruption that movement had caused within the mane, and then the mental backup would become visible as a series of corona flares moving for new materials. Oh, and there was also a cat intermittently clawing its way around the shop. It was haughty, visibly full of itself, completely stuck-up, and as an accidentally-spilled (for a given value of 'accident') drink had proven, had just about no substance whatsoever at the core. In that, Fleur felt it matched its pony rather well.

So she wound up spending time in watching Rarity work, and felt that time amounted to too much. But in some ways, it had been an education. She'd gotten to see the moment when the designer, who had momentarily reached a level of second-guessing which needed its very own attached exponent, had wound up with three possible designs: one coming, one going, and one being worked on -- something which had meant more than eighty objects, mismatched in size, shape, and density, moving at the same time. Movement which Rarity hadn't even been visibly concentrating on, hadn't even seemed to notice from the midst of her fret over a single stitch.

It was a casual display of a field dexterity that operated on a level of refinement which Fleur had never seen. She was convinced she was stronger than the mare, but when it came to fine control... Rarity had her, and possibly just about everypony on the continent, bested. To watch Rarity at work was an education of sorts, and most of the lesson concerned the potential weapons-grade effectiveness of sewing needles. A strong caster could easily dispel the mare's efforts -- but might have to do so in twenty directions at once.

(Being outdoors at the moment of invoking that level of temper probably wouldn't help. Cobblestone streets tended to pick up pebbles in the hollows.)

There also turned out to be a surprising second point of agreement: both mares wanted the dress to leave Fluttershy's tail on full (very, very full) display.

"...but..."

"It is a date," Rarity stated. "An occasion when one shows off their best features for --" the effort required to produce the next words was rather visible "-- the pony they are attempting to impress. And as to leave all of your best features on display would essentially have you go about in everyday nudity, I will simply attempt to enhance some of the more subtle aspects through coverage. The tail, however, will be out and about for the night. And the same will apply to your wings. I only cover them in winter, Fluttershy: the need for warmth will not be that much of a factor this evening, and we are dealing with a stallion who hardly ever glances at flanks without feathers." She frowned, squinted through the glasses she didn't seem to strictly need: Fleur suspected they were just present for magnification. "Now, recalling the need for somepony else to apply it prior to the Gala -- regarding your makeup -- "

"-- I'm doing that," Fleur smoothly cut in. "There's an assortment waiting at the cottage. I'll make sure the highlights work with the dress."

"I suppose you have experience," the designer grudgingly decided. "Of all sorts. Very well." Another squint. "Yes... I believe this will suffice. Or rather, it will suffice when I finish adjusting it, and there is no need to keep you in the Boutique while that takes place. The date begins two hours after sunset, correct? Then the delivery will be made well before that."

"...thank you," Fluttershy sincerely said. "This... helps." She stepped down off the little podium, moved a little closer to the unicorn who bore an Element which, strictly speaking, didn't need to exist.

"Any assistance I can provide," Rarity responded. A pause. "Any --"

"-- no," Fluttershy softly cut in. "It's... still no."

"I," Rarity stated, tail lashing once (and field igniting to correct the non-damage immediately), "am not particularly pleased about that."

"...you promised," Fluttershy quietly reminded her. "You... all promised."

"Yes," was the slightly harsh response. "I am not certain any of us are particularly pleased about that. And I suspect taking Rainbow at her word on this might be something of a mistake, as she has likely interpreted her own promise to mean 'Where Fluttershy can see me.' But the rest of us should be somewhat more true to our oaths."

It was an exchange which created questions, and Fleur held all of them back. They would be on their way to the cottage soon enough: anything which needed to be asked could emerge then.

"...thank you." The pegasus took a shallow breath. "...and I'll watch out for Rainbow."

"As well you should."

"...but my tail..."

"Will be groomed." The designer glanced at Fleur. "Highlighted. Presented. Expertly."

There was a faint tinge of humor in the next words, just barely distinguishable through the sudden gathering of vocal shadows. "...you know what happened the last time I went out in a dress which exposed my tail."

Rarity's head briefly dipped, and the blue eyes nearly closed.

"Yes," the designer eventually stated. "When you work out how the events were entirely your tail's fault, please let me know. I wish you the best of luck for this evening, Fluttershy. I give you my hope that everything will work out for the best. And -- this does make me happy, I truly hope you recognize that. To see you doing this... it was not so long ago that the mere attempt would have been impossible. You have come so very far."

Another glance towards Fleur. Back to Fluttershy.

"I wish for everything to work out for the best," Rarity said. "And... I hope to understand what that is. Good luck, Fluttershy."

The two Bearers nuzzled, the nuzzle meant for friends. And then Fleur led her charge out of the shop, allowing four full blocks to pass in the expected silence before bringing the first question out into the world. The qualifier presented for the flying ego had already given her a fairly good idea of the answer, but for this one, she wanted confirmation.

"What did you make them promise?"

"...not to watch. Or interfere. They understand that you're... chaperoning?" Fleur nodded: that was the correct term, and it was also the deal. She wasn't going to let Fluttershy go out into the test gallop alone. As for Caramel... he might have been seeing it as Fleur watching two of her friends connect: she had told him about the supervision personally, and there hadn't been a single protest raised.

She wouldn't play fifthhoof. There would only be direct intervention in a crisis, along with the potential for emergency advice offered within the relative sanctuary of restrooms. On the whole, she would give the two their space, allow things to proceed as naturally as they could, even while knowing that state worked out to 'not very'. But she would watch.

"...they're happy for me," Fluttershy softly said, her head dipping a little as an earth pony mare went by, coral manefall shifting to place more of her face in shadow. "...but they're worried. Because... it's me. I think they would always be worried, because it's me. But they're also worried because it's him. Mares talk, and... we're all mares. Even Twilight knows about Caramel by now, and the gossip usually has to make about ten circuits before it gets into her ears, even when it just needs one to reach the tree. I still don't understand why it's him --"

"-- you will," Fleur stopped her. "By the end of tonight, you will."

A little more trotting, with Fluttershy mostly looking at the road.

"How much do you trust Rainbow?"

"...with my life," Fluttershy softly replied. "...but not with my pantry."

It almost made Fleur smile, for she knew all about that type --

-- no. Not now. There were other things to think about.

"...if it feels like I'm looking up a lot," the pegasus went on, "there's a reason."

Fleur nodded. And there was another question which could have been asked, something which arguably should have been -- but she didn't voice it. Because there were things they didn't talk about, and that number was nearly everything -- but some of those silences came from Fleur's side of the non-conversation. She hadn't told Fluttershy exactly what had happened while within the browning grass, when something which claimed to be a friend had come to call.

There was a question Fleur could have, should have, did not ask. But she didn't voice it. She didn't even really think about it, not on a conscious level. She did everything she could in not thinking about him, because the newest of nightmares was finally starting to allow the older ones their standard showtimes. He hadn't been back, not to see her.

She didn't ask. She didn't think about it. She did nothing more than take (or escort, in the much more conventional sense) Fluttershy back to the cottage, because there was still a lot left to do. And she took some comfort in the fact that but for the potential of a willfully stray cyan ego, the other Bearers would be left out of the night.

But there was more than just Bearers in Fluttershy's life.

"What was that part about the last dress?"

"...a mission," Fluttershy softly said. "Just -- a mission."

"Tilt your head up and to the right." The yellow jaw inclined, and coral shifted again: Fleur's field brought the puff-brush up to the newly-exposed section.

She still didn't know how Fluttershy's brief modeling career had come about, loathed the pony who'd been in charge of it, and was still slightly thankful for one minor side effect. Celestia's deduction had been accurate: when it came to makeup, Fluttershy had no true idea of how to put any of it on. Admittedly, that wasn't the most uncommon state: some very sophisticated, hard-to-use (and rather quick to wear out) tools were required for earth ponies and pegasi to precisely layer the shading into their fur. Even unicorns would need to use a few for the places they couldn't easily reach -- while still dealing with the reversed image they saw in the mirror. Many ponies never achieved mastery, and more than a few simply gave up and trotted about in their birth hues, declaring that they had chosen to display their true beauty to the world. It was, Fleur supposed, a minor improvement of lie over openly admitting 'I still have no idea where the curly bit is supposed to go.'

Fluttershy didn't know how to put on makeup -- but models didn't generally do their own. Somepony else would apply it, and the model simply moved on that pony's direction. Thanks to Photo Finish, Fluttershy could follow orders, and that currently couldn't be seen as anything but a positive.

(However, her charge had insisted on grooming her own tail, in private. It had taken quite some time, and provided a steady exercise in both concentration and distraction as Fleur tried to impose a few subtle field-created adjustments.)

"...how much time do we have?" The little nervous tremor wasn't enough to let Fluttershy's fixed viewpoint seek a clock.

"About fifteen minutes," Fleur told her. "Assuming he's on time. But that's a pretty safe guess for a first date." She patted a little more powder into the fur, spread it carefully. The results had to be masterful, especially since the Foal Soap had canceled out any chance of perfume.

"...my skin itches. It always itched when somepony --"

"-- you have sensitive skin and you don't wear makeup often enough." More spreading, and her field caught a little stray powder before it could try to stain the dress. (Which actually hadn't come out all that badly: mostly pleasant teals, but with some very muted green near the fringes -- and an odd concentration of rather dense gems near the forehooves. Fleur's guess was that Rarity was expecting an eventual need to kick.) "You'd get used to it if you put it on more often."

"...it costs --"

"-- it's been paid for." And at the highest price-for-quality Fleur could locate -- which hadn't been enough. It was another reason to head into Canterlot before the next date: the invoice from a properly-planned shopping trip in the capital might do severe damage to the national air path maintenance budget. "It'll be paid for until we're done. Down, but keep tilting right."

"...you're very good at this," Fluttershy softly decided. "I used to... well, I used to go through this all the time. They were... slower. And -- more forceful."

Fleur didn't answer. Considered whether to give Fluttershy's snout a little brightening. She'd initially had a final result in mind, and it -- well, in one way, it could be said that it deliberately fell short. Fluttershy had a natural beauty. But nature could be enhanced, and so Fleur was doing just that -- but not to what she had perceived as the potential maximum. The goal was to have the eligible ponies in Fluttershy's vicinity thinking about what might happen after the date: leaving them incapable of any thought other than one (and one which didn't arise from the brain) was something best saved for special occasions.

She looked up from Fluttershy's snout, checked the reflection in the little restroom's mirror. The cottage had a lot of space and when it came to the toiletries of its mistress, offered up almost none of it. Two ponies not only occupied all of the available room, but threatened to overflow it. Added to the sacrifice of open area which had been surrendered to the newly-installed cosmetics and application tool racks, the mares were just about touching.

I can't see how it looks from that side.

Because her mane is on that side.

Sun scorch it...

Her corona brightened, just by a lumen or so, and the glow openly moved towards the long coral fall.

"...what are you --"

"-- moving your hair," Fleur told her. "I'll put it back in a few seconds. You've been shifting your mane from side to side this whole time. I have to see your whole face." And because between fitting, waiting for the dress, last-minute preparations, and the six patients who had done their best to interrupt all of it had made for a very long day, "I haven't seen all of you since I got here. Not all at once."

"...I -- just like..."

Having something to hide behind. Fleur had figured that one out early. "I'm sweeping your mane back and I'm checking to make sure the sides match. Hold still."

Energy abruptly swept up and back, spread the results across the back of the dress. And two shocked blue-green eyes blinked at her.

They looked at each other. Just for a few seconds. Time which they didn't quite have to spare, time which suddenly had a new purpose. Something... necessary.

The hesitation, the softness... they almost might have belonged to her charge. But it was Fleur's voice, her own words, and so both came into her possession. "...so there you are..."

Fluttershy was stock-still. Her rib cage moved under the dress, and it was the only thing which moved about her at all. She didn't blink. Her head didn't change orientation, and the wondrous tail never twitched. Afraid of so many things and in this case, probably also afraid of disturbing the makeup.

"I was shown a picture before I was sent here," Fleur quietly said. "I've been spending hours at the cottage, just about every day. I see you every day. And this is the first time I've seen what you look like."

And because she was looking, she spotted the first tremble --

"-- don't."

Fluttershy froze again.

"I don't know who told you there was nothing special about you, not at the start," Fleur softly continued. "I know why Photo Finish said it. Because when you demean a model, make them feel like they're something lesser, it's easier to take control. So that's why she lied. Why the others did... there could be a lot of reasons for that. But I think it was probably jealousy. I know a lot about those lies. I've heard them being said about me. I still do, Fluttershy. There are mares who hate me on sight. They don't know me, anything about me other than how I look, and they don't want to know more than that, because it might make the hate a little harder to justify. They hate me because I'm pretty. And that means they tell lies, they spread stories, maybe they even sang a few songs if they were smart enough to think of a rhyme. Because they weren't pretty, and they couldn't stand that somepony else was. That's the only motivation they have, all they'll ever need. Pettiness kicks, and hopes the bruises mar you forever."

The tip of the tail was vibrating.

"They lied," Fleur quietly told her. "I won't. You're beautiful. You've been beautiful your whole life, and you've been in denial just about as long. You started puberty early, right? At least a year ahead of nearly everypony else. I guessed that a while back. It gave them more to be jealous of, and when you start early... some break, when they're the first. Try to pretend it never happened. Or sometimes -- they try to push themselves back, undo what can't be stopped. But there are those it makes magnificient, who hold their heads high and learn how to use it. Who learn what the lies sound like, and how to block them out --"

And now the yellow ears were dipping. Being pressed against the skull, even as eyelids trembled and threatened to close.

"...stop."

Which couldn't be allowed to happen. Some of the makeup hadn't set yet, and tears would make it run.

"...just -- stop, Fleur. Just..." The vibration had spread to the wingtips. "...stop. I know you're... supposed to make me feel more confident. I know you're trying. But I have a mirror, and... I see it every day, I see myself, and --"

"-- there's a pony on the way who wants to date you!" Those words had been faster. "Who dreams of being with --"

"-- he... he wants to be with somepony who has wings, and my wings, they don't --" her breathing was accelerating, ribs moving too fast "-- they can't -- Fleur, please, just -- just stop..."

She tilted her head away, down and to the right. The mane fell back into place, blocking out half the weeping from sight.

"...stop lying..."

Fleur, unable to move, to approach, to say anything which would be believed... simply watched her cry.

Who did this to you?

Where are they now?

Are they still laughing?

She knew so many ways of making laughter stop --

"-- breathe slowly," Fleur firmly told her. "Bring your head up and back to center. Open your eyes as wide as you can. I have to fix the makeup there."

There was a long silence. Far too long, one which filled the restroom beyond capacity, threatened to burst it from inside.

"...yes."

And Fleur went back to work.

They entered the living room area to find Snowflake with his vast barrel against the floor, playing with the raccoons.

The stallion's red gaze came up, moved across Fluttershy. The white head tilted left, then right.

"You look good," he stated, with nothing but sincerity in the low, soft voice. (He was oddly soft-spoken, especially for such a large stallion, but most of his tones went deep. In many ways, his voice was his best feature, its notes almost unique among Ponyville's chorus, easy to pick out of a crowd -- and outside of the cottage, all Fleur had ever heard that singular voice say were various distant intonations on 'Yeah.') "You really do."

Fluttershy's reaction gave Fleur no comfort. They'd both heard the undertones in Snowflake's words, and Fleur had already been told how Fluttershy saw that relationship. All this did was confirm it. She still hadn't seen Snowflake's puzzle: the only times he'd been in range were at the cottage, and she was still keeping herself shut down while on the grounds. But she knew there was no attraction being expressed in the statement. Instead, a brother was trying to tell his sister that he believed in her and the sister, feeling her sibling had no concept of reality, had chosen to dismiss the subject via smile.

"...thank you," Fluttershy quietly said. "...are you sure you'll be okay for the night?"

"Angel and I are on slightly better terms these days," the stallion replied, starting to straighten up. "Slightly. Especially when he knows that going after me too much means no play dates with Genova."

Fleur allowed a subtle head tilt to ask the question for her.

"...his companion," Fluttershy clarified. "A hare. She's still pretty wild around everypony else, so she doesn't come out in public much. His home, the tent, and here. That's about it."

"And she kicks harder than Angel," Snowflake calmly said. "Which he knows. Hares are a little stronger than rabbits, overall, and she's starting to get her growth. Try not to worry too much about the cottage, Fluttershy: not more than usual. I'll hold things down until you get back."

Fleur took a step forward. "Did you bring it?"

"Yeah," the stallion reverted to form. His head tilted back towards the left saddlebag. "Here you go."

A little rummaging, and then it was offered up: Fleur's field took custody.

"...what's that?" Fluttershy asked.

"An invoice."

"...for what?"

"He's watching the cottage. Just like he would do if you were on a mission. That's a paying job. So I paid him."

"...but he volunteered. As my friend --"

"-- and I get to decide if he'll be paid for it," Fleur smoothly cut in. She glanced at the clock. "Do you want to meet Caramel outside or in here?"

"...outside," Fluttershy decided. "Right in front of the door. It's nice outside tonight."

It was and strictly speaking, it shouldn't have been this nice. Fleur had checked the weather schedule, and so knew that by the dictates of the master list, it should have been somewhat more overcast and a few degrees colder. But the waxing Moon had nothing obscuring its light, and the warmth had been subtly increased to the point where but for the fading plant life, autumn might have almost become spring.

Fleur still didn't know much about Rainbow, not as solid facts: there were any number of public stories to consider, and most of them ended in small claims lawsuits for post-crash damages. But she had learned the pegasus' occupation: the town's weather coordinator, an unusually young pony to be found in that position. And now she knew the mare wasn't beyond a little not-so-subtle tampering in order to make the night a little more comfortable for a friend.

And in her position, she can probably lose most of the complaint paperwork. Of course, if she does that too often, they'll start mailing directly to the Bureau...

"...how much time?" With Fluttershy, the trick wasn't so much in hearing her nervousness as trying to figure out exactly what she was nervous about, which could mean mathematically narrowing all the way down from the universal set. However, in this case, the cause was obvious.

"About three minutes before he's late," Fleur patiently replied. "And his being a little late does not mean he's changed his mind, or gone running into the wild zone, or found another option for the evening. His being a little late means he came across somepony he needed to speak with, or got too lost in his own grooming."

Silence for a while, with both mares looking towards the bend in the path.

"...you're good with time. I noticed that in the treatment room. When I ask you to hold something for five seconds, it's just about five seconds exactly."

Fleur said nothing. Her well-groomed ears rotated forward.

"...and it's not even your mark."

Hoofsteps? She was straining for it against the background music of the cottage's night birdsong, but it seemed as there had to be hoofsteps...

"...I think."

No, that's too much noise. If it's hoofsteps, there's more than one pony on the path --

"...I guess it's a symbolic mark?" Fluttershy not-quite-asked. "Mine is for animals -- but it's butterflies as the mark, because they were... sort of first."

-- but they're definitely coming this way. Did her friends decide to break their word? Or, put another way, Renegotiate? What's another reason why we'd get a group coming out here at this hour?

"...but I've never seen your icon," her charge went on. "I don't think anypony has --"

-- the birds sang their night alarm, and Caramel came around the bend.

He was, in fact, rather well-groomed. To Fleur's practiced eyes, it was obvious that he'd spent at least two hours in that full-body effort, and the amount of that time dedicated to considering a new manestyle had been zero seconds.

The brown earth pony picked his way up the path under unobscured Moon, using the increased light to help dodge anything which the cottage's less intelligent residents might have left behind. Glanced down at the path, up towards the mares, and repeated the trend, smiling all the while.

He wasn't particularly dressed for the occasion: Fleur had advised him not to be. A vest, and a rather small pair of saddlebags. That was it.

Caramel came up the path, approached to within half a body length, stopped.

"It's a beautiful dress," was the first awkward offering.

Fleur didn't facehoof. She almost never did: the act wasn't kind to her fur strands or grain, plus it could easily leave makeup all over the hoof. She just pondered the opening line priorities of a stallion who'd not only had three days of rehearsal to work with, but had decided to reject every last possibility offered by the list she'd left at his door.

The dress. He's attracted to her, she needs to believe it's for more than the wings, and he's starting with the dress...

Which meant Fluttershy could interpret it as a compliment offered up to that bitch, and so managed a sincere sort of "...thank you."

Caramel (a serial dater, she knew he was a serial dater and so there had been a presumption that he would have needed to be at least a little bit good at it), having just completely blown Round One, allowed his own nerves to ring the bell for the next phase.

"I brought a corsage." His head tilted back, and fumbling ensued.

It was the point where Fleur had to say something and after editing out everything she wanted to say, all which remained was the near-toneless survivor of "A corsage."

He found what he was looking for, leaned forward with it, and bumped his snout into Fluttershy's motionless right front knee. It took a muffled, near corsage-losing yelp before the little spring-clamp was attached, where it promptly did its best to both clash with and ruin the lines of the dress.

"Yes," he said, straightening up, visibly fighting the urge to rub at his nose. "Because it's a first date. A real first date." And looked directly at Fluttershy. "I don't know if there's been any dances, or formals, or -- anything. If anypony's ever given you a corsage. So I thought... I should be the first."

Fluttershy tried to raise the foreleg enough to look at it, which did clamp-induced harsh things to the dress' back drape. Fleur simply regarded the chosen flowers under Moon's glow, thought about mild aphrodisiac qualities which only existed in the more fictional parts of certain This Really Happened To Me stories in erotic magazines (which was to say, all of them) and considered that Caramel was not only pushing his post-date luck beyond the bounds of all reality, but was exceptionally bad at research.

(It wasn't as if he was trying to flood Fluttershy's systems with hormones. This particular lie had the flowers as more of a stress-relieving relaxant, completely unlike the red-petaled falsehoods to be found near the ads.)

"But you might not be able to keep it on," he awkwardly continued. "Not the whole night. You should probably snack on it while we're heading in, if you're hungry. We shouldn't bring it into the restaurant. Or the cinema. Neither of them really likes ponies bringing in outside food."

In terms of makeup disruption, a jaw drop was a much lesser offense. Fleur didn't do that either.

Dinner. And. A. Movie. Well, she'd wanted basic...

...why are there still hoofsteps on the path?

"...the cinema," Fluttershy tried.

"I already got the tickets," Caramel assured her. "We can go right in. And I made dinner reservations, too. We've even got some extra time, in case there's any delays on the road."

"...all right," her charge said. "I'm..." a glance at Fleur, then another towards the sky --

-- Fleur's left back hoof subtly slammed onto the back of the dress, pinning it to the ground.

"...ready," Fluttershy woefully concluded. "We can go now."

"Well -- not just yet," Caramel told her. "Because I..." Hooves awkwardly shuffled. "...I have a -- reputation. I know it. I think just about everypony in town knows it by now." His head dipped, came up again, and that nervous gaze briefly met Fleur's eyes. "Including you, Fleur. I know what happens when mares see me talking to somepony who's new in town. A new mare. They catch them up on all the gossip they've missed. All the truths. So I know they told you about me, and... stories get distorted, when they're passed around enough. But there's some truth at the core. They told you about me, and -- you kept talking to me. So, Fleur --"

His left forehoof scraped at the ground.

"-- thank you. For giving me a chance to be your friend. But this is a date with Fluttershy, and -- that means I have to come clean. About what happened that winter, before Ratchette and I..." His head dipped again. "...broke up. If you could even call it enough of a relationship for a real breakup. I got that device for her, as a gift to impress her. And I lied to you, right there in the street, about winning the raffle. Because I'd spent the money which should have gone to you on it, because Ratchette is pretty and sweet and shy and she barely talked to me at the start... I thought I needed to impress her, I knew she loved devices, I didn't think she'd seen that one before... I lied to you, Fluttershy. Everypony knew it, Flitter called me on it, and you're still going out with me tonight, when I never admitted it. So before we head out to dinner... this is me. Admitting it."

His chin was nearly in the grass.

"I lied. I paid for the device instead of paying you. Because I thought I could put you off for moons, and Ratchette was now. I lied. I was horrible. And... it's moons upon moons too late for saying I'm sorry, but you're going out with me and maybe... maybe that means you'll believe it. That when I say I don't want to do that to anypony else ever again, I mean it. I'm sorry. And if you're angry now... if remembering all that makes you want to call the date off... you can just go back into the cottage. I'll trot away. And we'll never talk about this again."

Fluttershy was quietly looking down at him, the one visible eye steady and still. Just -- looking.

"...this," she finally said, "is -- a chance. I'm -- taking a chance, Caramel. I guess... I'm taking one on you too. We can still go out tonight."

A lot of very slow, very heavy hoofsteps...

He looked up. Forced a smile, started to straighten.

"Thank you."

Fluttershy nodded.

"I mean it. I'm trying to do better by everypony. I'm never going to shortchange one mare in favor of another again."

Which was when the birdsong erupted for the second time.

"Instead," Caramel grinned, "I'm just going to spend on one!"

Fleur didn't facehoof. Jaw drops weren't attractive. And so all she could do was stare as six earth ponies came up the path, three to a row, carefully balancing the burden on the planks which stretched across the paired harnesses on their backs.

"It's a new fainting couch!" Caramel declared. "Davenport's best! Well -- the best I could get him to order, since it's technically not a sofa and he mostly just glared at me for a while when I asked. I had to kick a bunch of quills onto the sheet before he'd finally take my bits. Anyway, it's comfortable, the color goes with the cottage, and the one you had... well, it's pretty stained. So I thought, why not pick up a new one? After all, everypony knows I give gifts on dates, and if I did any less for you, then I'm treating you worse than the others! That's not the kind of pony I am."

Fleur and Fluttershy stood stock-still.

"And it's yours to keep, of course," Caramel added.

There were three visible eyes in front of the stallion and between them, zero blinks.

"No matter how the date works out," the stallion finished. "The receipt is between the cushions."

They all heard the cottage door open, felt the steady red gaze moving over the awkwardly-frozen tableau.

"Snowflake," Fleur managed, "would you help them get that inside?"

After a few serrating seconds, "...yeah."

The large body (somehow) flew over their heads, and Caramel looked to Fleur.

"She's pressed between good hooves," he said. "I swear. But I understand why you want to chaperone. So there's a second reservation, a couple of tables away, and a third ticket for the cinema."

Fleur gave him a well-practiced smile. "I'd like to say you won't even know I'm there," she told him, "but I won't lie to you, Caramel. I know it'll be a little different with me along. Just know I'll do my best to stay out of the way."

"Then let's go," he smiled back. "And we'll see where the night takes us."

It's taking us to dinner and a movie. She didn't think it was the most Caramel could conceive of for a first date. It was unlikely that this was the maximum which Ponyville itself could provide, although it might have been close. However, there was a fairly good chance that it was all he'd had bits left for.

But there was one more destination to reach that night, and Fleur considered them to be well on the way towards it as they trotted around the unloading process.

"...thank you?" Fluttershy awkwardly offered.

"It's just a couch."

"...but couches cost --"

"-- and seriously, once you're already paying for emergency shipping from Canterlot, the satin trim is just garnish."

They were heading for the lesson.

Red eyes watched them go. Two did so from ground level, and that gaze held some level of concern -- but eventually, the pegasus went back to assisting the hauling team. The other two, which had decided to remain as nothing more than eyes for a while in order to avoid setting off the birds again, were just hovering in the air above the sodded roof.

There was a rather worried book floating off to the side, right about where the paw would have been. It was the sort of night where assistance seemed to be required.

Eventually, the ponies went inside. And Discord allowed his body to phase in.

"And so it begins," he softly said. "Or rather, for him, begins again. The cinema, is it?" He rather appreciated movies, or at least the concept of them: it was another way to convey fiction, and there was little he cherished so much as a fresh lie. "I think I rather fancy a film tonight, don't you?"

The book hesitated.

"Some ponies say that the more movies are out there, the less ponies will read books," she said. "But some books are novelizations of films. And other films are made from books. Plus there's graphic novels. Did you know those started as rotoscoping? Somepony decided it was too expensive to pay an author for writing an adaptation as a story, so they hired ponies to just trace around the film's cels and bound the best ones in sequence. Word balloons were created to convey the dialogue. Then some ponies saw the medium and thought it could do more, so they started telling original stories with their own art --"

She became aware that Discord was staring at her.

"One of my characters is a film buff," she sheepishly told him.

"Ah."

"It's a way of saying somepony's into new things. Innovative. And maybe not completely in touch with reality."

He briefly considered the possibility of reading his assistant (or rather, having her read herself to him), and decided it was a rather odd concept. Like getting to know somepony by examining their organs. Strictly speaking, it was probably possible and if you weren't particularly good at it, the per-pony limit was once.

"Are we going to follow them?" Harem Fantasy asked.

"If that's how you wish to put it," the now-irritated voice declared, "then yes. And in your genre, when they all know about each other and battle it out... wouldn't that mean following, every now and again?"

"Well -- yes," the book admitted. "To see how the date is going. Because they're rivals, and they're afraid that if a date goes too well with one of them, that's the one which will be chosen."

"Exactly! If it goes well, then he could be chosen! And he?" The next words were a statement. "Is not good enough for her. Do you know the kind of life she leads?"

Harem Fantasy, who really hadn't been provided with all that much in the way of solid information, desperately sorted through a virtual index.

"She takes care of animals," the book tried. (Discord nodded.) "She has missions sometimes, whatever those are. And I think she probably spends a lot of time grooming her tail, because she'd kind of need to and all the characters like her need to groom their tails a lot. Which doesn't keep them from bouncing. Or makes them bouncier." Hastily, "Of course, it's a very nice tail --"

"-- the missions," Discord cut her off, "are what is in play here. Fluttershy lives a life of danger. Excitement. Chaos at nearly every turn, which actually did a rather good job at preparing her for my companionship, as when I happen to be favoring her with a visit, all turns naturally lead to chaos. Therefore, any potential mate should be capable of dealing with all of that, or else they are found to be -- inadequate. He cannot. And so he is not good enough for her."

"How do you know he can't deal with all that?" Harem Fantasy asked, precisely half a second before she realized it had been exactly the wrong question.

And Discord smiled.

"Because we are going to dinner, you and I," he softly replied. "And a movie. And then we will see how he deals with the little things in Fluttershy's life. Like a mane and tail spontaneously bursting into flame."

"That doesn't happen!" the book protested -- then, with the uncertainly of one who was not only rather new to life, but whose core knowledge was built on fiction, "...does it?"

"Clearly," Discord told her, "you're unfamiliar with life in this town. Dinner and a movie, then."

He raised his talons.

"And additionally," the draconequus informed her, "there may be something of a show..."

They vanished.

When Paying Off Karma, Please Add A 15% Tip

The abandoned mill rested quietly under Moon-shadows, doing its best to enhance the silence. It was a fairly futile effort: when it came to the sounds which could have been produced by ponies, pretty much all of the trot into Ponyville was taking place in something close to near-total quiet. Just ahead of Fleur, Fluttershy was continuing to trot forward: not always at the best speed (because whenever she tried to put her right foreleg too far forward, the corsage's clamp forced movement-slowing pressure into the back of the dress), and not quite at Caramel's side. She generally stayed about two body widths to his right: something which could normally be expected from a pegasus who was still considering whether to make her full wingspan available. It meant she maintained that distance regardless of his efforts, and the occasional attempts he made to casually brush against yellow feathers found him rebounding off freshly-available atmosphere.

But they were trotting. Fluttershy was thinking about taking to the sky, trying to get back to the cottage (and to Fleur, that thought process was rather visible), but it wasn't keeping her from heading towards the heart of the settled zone. It was progress. It also had Fleur constantly keeping an eye on those exposed wings, rating her own field strength against any push they might manage to generate and wondering how long she could hold the pegasus down. However, if that level of desperate grip were to fail, she could --

-- how long has it been?

Not since her arrival in Canterlot: she was sure of that. She was severely out of practice. But if she had to, she could. It was just a matter of focus.

But for now, they all trotted, and -- that was all there was. Hoofsteps on the road. Nopony was talking.

Fleur wasn't really surprised by that. She'd done her best to provide some lessons in the art of conversation -- but anypony who intended to spend a lot of time around Fluttershy needed to become accustomed to long periods of silence. Combined with the fact that her charge just wasn't good at small talk yet, she'd advised Fluttershy to save her efforts for the appropriate portion of the date. In this case, that would be dinner: a degree of silence could be reasonably expected during the movie and, given who was seeing it, might also be greatly enhanced.

Trotting under Moon, the only witness Fleur knew of for this first date. She really couldn't count herself. She was just there to make sure nothing went crucially wrong, provide last-minute advice should Fluttershy bolt for a restroom and somehow manage to stop there. She certainly didn't think Caramel was going to try anything untoward with her charge, not when Fleur was right there --

-- because he wants to make it seem as if he's changed.

Because he thinks I'm his friend.

Besides, there was no violence in him, no potential for assault: she never would have let him anywhere near Fluttershy if that had been the case. But it didn't mean he wouldn't have normally tried for a greater degree of contact than the failed feather-brushing. Based on his puzzle, she fully expected something to be tried at the cinema. It was just a question of how Fluttershy would respond to it.

"It's a pretty night," Caramel tried. There was something which could have passed for valiance in the attempt.

Eventually, "...yes."

"It wasn't supposed to be this nice, was it? I didn't really look at the weather schedule. Other than making sure I didn't have to bring an umbrella."

Time passed, along with a fair amount of distance.

"...I'm not sure."

"I have one of those back-mounted ones that covers the entire body," Caramel went on, with Fleur wondering if any part of him had just registered the mild desperation within his own voice. "Only it's for dating. So it has this really wide extension to the right, enough to cover one more pony. But only if they stick close."

"...oh," Fluttershy finally offered up.

"I saw one in a movie, and after that... well, I had to get one for myself," Caramel offered up as a sacrifice to the Gods Of Small Talk. "The film just made it look so romantic. Only there, it was a mare sheltering her stallion."

"...oh."

"Plus they don't tell you how the unbalanced weight just has you lurching to the right all night."

The next silence brought them all the way to the main bridge, and they crossed into Ponyville proper, with Fleur trying to stay a consistent eight body lengths behind. It brought them into conversation, and all of it belonged to other ponies.

An unexpectedly-pleasant night -- something which typically didn't happen in a nation where the weather was scheduled moons in advance -- had brought what felt like a significant percentage of the citizenry out under Moon. Couples were wandering the settled zone, perhaps on the way to their own dates, or just taking a trot for the sake of the companionship. A few children were playing in the street, kicking balls back and forth. From the direction of the town square, a single lyre played something less than lullaby, more than caress, and did so for the pleasure of but one mare.

Pegasi in the air, drifting more than flying, allowing the warm breeze to soak their feathers. Lazy flaps, for there was no real hurry to get anywhere. Winter was some time off, but that time was passing and this... this night had been a gift. A gift intended for but one pony, but something which could be appreciated by all. Soon, it would be cold, with dampness soaking into fur as snow did its best to find a home inside hooves and hearts. The world would be manipulated until it turned against its residents, for there were fools who said winter was necessary. Death had to come before renewal could truly begin. That you couldn't be warm again without first being cold.

(Fleur didn't understand that belief. If you had the power to control the weather, to make your environment, your life better, and you just made ponies suffer anyway because ponies had always suffered on schedule, and so there was clearly no need to make any of that change...)

Ponyville's population knew the cold was coming. But tonight was warm, when it should not have been. And so they were out and about, talking and playing and dating and living and, incidentally, staring. Because Fluttershy was participating in the night, was out and about under Moon with a stallion not quite at her side.

Time had passed since the party, enough for the story to fully spread to just about every ear which might have cared to rotate in the proper direction. It meant so many of those ponies paused in their own travels, looked at what wasn't exactly a couple. Looked at the pegasus in her expertly-done makeup and semi-adequate dress. A mare whose beauty had not only been enhanced, but who had finally announced to the world that the wonder was available. That she wanted somepony to appreciate her. And yes, there was currently a first contestant playing the game, it was possible that the first pony to the podium would settle in for a good long stay, but...

Fleur dropped back a little more. It was one more way of letting her charge have the spotlight, added to the muting makeup which she'd added to her own fur prior to Fluttershy's session. It placed more of the focus on the beauty who felt that attention, which shrank in on itself and trotted ever more slowly, with those wings twitching in a way which had Fleur's corona threatening to ignite into a near-instant double at the first sign of retreat.

But Fluttershy kept moving forward. And ponies watched. Admittedly, there were portions of that observation which felt protective. Pinkie had said that the others tended to treat Fluttershy as being younger than she truly was, the foal of the group. It was easy for Fleur to see that in a few of those who were out that night: a mare known to be skittish, terrified, fragile, and so she had to be protected. Some of that instinct towards guardianship had the potential to be positive, while too much would ultimately hold her charge back. Either way, it was something for Fleur to keep in mind: as the hourglass-marked stallion had demonstrated, at least some portion of the town looked after their Bearers.

Others, however... they were thinking about something else. The thing Fleur wanted them to think about.

I sent a vision among you.

Start dreaming.

Even for Ponyville, it wasn't the fanciest of restaurants. But it also wasn't Mr. Flankington's, so it had that working for it.

(It occurred to Fleur that she could have personally reserved a dinner in Canterlot. The most expensive theater seats available. Paid a scalper for admission for three into Hambletonian and just billed the palace for it. But kicking herself for not having done it was a waste of time, and so she simply made an internal note to inflict that financial injury later.)

As Caramel had promised, she had a table to herself, within viewing distance of the non-couple. The current issue was in keeping it that way, because for the one-to-ten scale of pony beauty, the majority of pony approach courage started to run out around eight -- and Fleur had deliberately lowered herself. The act had created what others might have seen as a minor paradox: the worse she looked (as long as she didn't deliberately scar herself to six or below), the more active attention she received. Ponies who would have previously seen themselves as being below her level had been steadily approaching the table, offering companionship, conversation, and a splitting of the bill. She didn't want the first two, wasn't ready to trust in the last, and needed a clear line of sight. As such, the near-constant pickup lines were beginning to get on her nerves.

They were also somewhat distracting. And while she was able to keep her focus on Fluttershy and Caramel, she completely missed the argument being conducted at the table three spaces to her left, perhaps because it was taking place between a pepper mortar and the world's ugliest salt cellar.

"I assure you, this will be subtle."

"But how? What are you going to do?"

"Prove his inadequacy. It won't take very much. Or all that long."

"...is anypony going to have their mane and tail catch fire?"

She also missed seeing the salt cellar mull that over.

"Locally," the salt cellar considered, "that would count as 'subtle'..."

Objectively, it wasn't the worst restaurant. It had some degree of foreign food available: the menu had touches of Prance in it, something which was always guaranteed to enrage one of that nation's residents due to the universal belief that no Equestrian could properly manage their food, culture, or language. There was even an experimental kudu dish available, and just about any such dinner for ponies counted as experimental when an exceptionally high kudu population for a settled zone was 'three'.

But the majority of the international offerings were donkey fare, and that made Fleur truly question why Caramel had chosen this establishment. Too many donkeys took the philosophical approach that life was suffering. Food extended life, and that meant eating, by extension, was also suffering. A good donkey dinner took about as much time to digest as a thousand-page novel and sat in the intestines for somewhat longer. The name for such cuisine was hardtack and when it came to the ultimate pained results, what emerged often felt as if it had just come out in hardcover.

Caramel was making something of a show out of looking through the menu. On the other side of that table, a rather attractive and decidedly awkward blush was huddled, awaiting that decision.

If he orders the Tumultuous Timothy, we won't reach the movie.

The waitress continued to wait. Fleur wanted that to go on for a while. She'd already had to redirect the mare three times: once because she hadn't settled on what she wanted to try yet, and twice because despite her clear interest in being on the receiving end of Fleur's tongue, the pegasus had no chance of serving herself.

"I think," Caramel finally said, "I'd like to go with the --" and then there was a burst of garble which nearly proved all of Prance right. (The waitress took up a quill between not-so-nimble lips, jotted something down on the notepad which had been attached to her collar via flexible spring.) "Fluttershy, do you want me to order for you?"

It was, Fleur considered, a fairly professional way of doing things. Give her the discretion to surrender a potential issue, while making it clear that he was willing to take up the burden. The first sign of dating expertise spotted from Caramel.

"...no," her charge finally offered. "I think... the sorghum and beet pulp loaf." The cheapest thing on the menu, and Fleur kept the groan internal: apparently they also had to have a lesson about spending other ponies' money. "Thank you."

The waitress trotted away. Unfortunately, this put her back at Fleur's table and after the unicorn had finished proving that third time did not pay for all, the silence had settled in again. It was a quiet which seemed to exist in its own bubble, with the walls reinforced by outside pressure. There were empty tables in this eatery (and one was taken up by two who weren't paying, who hadn't been recognized as potential customers or even as being alive), but quite a few were occupied -- and Fleur wasn't the only one watching the lack of activity at the center. Gossip had to spread from a source, and it seemed as if quite a bit of Ponyville wanted to know how this was going to work out.

It won't.

She watched yellow feathers vibrate, tremble. So did at least twelve other ponies.

"So," Caramel tried, "how have things been at the cottage?"

A long pause.

"...nice."

It wasn't so much that open disbelief crept into the next word as it leapt in with all four hooves scrunched together for a one-point landing. "Really?"

Several appetizers arrived.

"...nicer than usual."

"Well, it's been quiet," Caramel said. "In some ways. I mean, I was... well, I've been invoking Cadance a lot lately."

It almost made Fleur's tension visible: ponies swore by the Solar and Lunar alicorns for just about any reason they could think of -- but Cadance was just about only invoked in matters of love. It was too much to drop on a mare during a first date....

"...why?"

"In hopes that you'd still be here when the date came around." A small, honest-seeming smile. "You know how it goes, Fluttershy. You all do. Want another truth? I almost asked you out near the end of summer, after I broke up with Catty Corner -- well, after she broke up with me. I was thinking about how I could apologize to you, and -- well, that's when you all just vanished from the front of the tree. Teleported off to a mission: the first time anypony could remember that happening. So everything got put off, and while you were all away, I started talking to Earthsea..."

Her charge managed a small nod.

"But that didn't last." He sighed. "But we're not here to talk about my dating life --" another small smile "-- except for hopefully in the future tense. What was that mission, anyway? You were gone for a while, and nopony really said anything when you got back."

Silence.

"We usually get some idea of what happened," Caramel inadvisably pushed on. "Even when it's just Rainbow telling stories to some of the kids and none of the details can be trusted. But with this one --"

"-- it was just... a mission. One which started in the palace. There are things we... can't talk about, Caramel." The vibration had spread to the tail, and Fleur wondered if she could risk igniting her corona in public to fix the damage. Hidden workings weren't her strength. "Because... of the palace."

He blinked.

"You mean it's classified?"

"...you -- could put it that way," Fluttershy tried.

"Wow." He looped a forehoof through the mug's grip, took a long sip of what Fleur already knew wasn't water. "Some ponies figured that was going to happen eventually. Except for the Trio, who keep saying it's been happening all along and anything you all tell us is just what the Princess told you to say. But this time, they actually asked you to keep it quiet, and even Rainbow's going along with that..."

He tilted his head slightly to the right. Watching her face, or at least the half which was visible.

"Is it hard? Keeping secrets?"

"...yes," she softly said. "...so I'd rather not talk about it. Or around it, or anything close to it, Caramel. Please."

He visibly searched for a topic, and quickly went to what was probably everypony's backup plan for a huddled Fluttershy.

"Did I tell you what Shimmy tried to do with my light fixtures?"

Her head came up, and Fleur heard the soft giggle.

"...no! Did she -- oh no, she didn't try to treat the coil as her newest tunnel, did she? Some ferrets see anything that looks even a little like a hollow tube, and they can't help but try to go down it! Don't tell me she --"

"-- got stuck," Caramel ruefully smiled. "I knew something was wrong when the shadows started twisting. And squealing..."

It was a topic which couldn't last forever, but at least had the potential to get them onto the main course. Fleur continued to watch, absently placing her order for the least damaging (and most expensive) item she could identify along the way.

"It looks like things are going well. So that means one of the rivals is about to make a move and ruin everything."

"The rival would do well to watch for timing."

"For drama?"

"Comedy. Comedy has several requirements, and timing is one of the most crucial. But if one is going to play a joke, then it also must be played on somepony. Otherwise, where's the comedy? -- on your left, Harem."

"On my --?"

A passing waiter reared up, jammed his hoof into the mortar, ground it left and right against the peppercorns before gently tipping some of the fresh powder onto one of the field-carried dishes, moved on.

"...OW!"

"And this is why I do not allow others to dispense from me," the salt cellar smugly stated. "Now watch. Opportunity approaches..."

The pegasus waitress was heading for Fluttershy's table, with a huge domed silver platter balanced on her back -- and a unicorn in a chef's uniform trailing close behind, with horn ignited and field surrounding the dish.

That's unusual, Fleur decided. She should normally be able to slide that down her wing and onto the table. What had Caramel ordered?

The pegasus stopped, and the unicorn stallion caught up.

"A bold move!" the chef declared, and did so at the top of his lungs: the sound bounced around the little serving area, and Fluttershy's position nearly went airborne. "For a bold pony! To make such a request -- I haven't heard it in years! In fact, I'd forgotten it was even on the menu!"

"Watch closely, Harem. A pony who would be good enough for Fluttershy needs to deal with the little things..."

The chef abruptly frowned.

"I... think it's still on the menu," he said. "We did remove it after the Incident, but that happened just after the former cook graduated. So somepony must have put it back. That's what Wenchie wrote down, so you ordered it." Looked away from the bold pony, just long enough to make eye contact with most of the restaurant's patrons.

"Those of weak constitutions," he grandly announced, "should look away at this time."

Nopony did.

"I ordered --" an increasingly confused Caramel began --

-- and didn't get to finish.

"I know!" the chef cut him off. "And so I came out to serve it myself!" A honey-yellow field grew brighter, carried the platter to the table, whipped off the dome, retracted from the base and in doing so, fully exposed the contents to unfiltered air.

"BEHOLD!" the chef shouted. "Mélangés Grán Flambé!"

The first pillar of flame came about two hoofwidths short of the ceiling. It was also confined to the exact diameter of the platter, had more orange than red in it while showing absolutely no white. So it was actually rather expertly controlled while only being hot enough to finish cooking what rested within, and could have been described as nothing more than a fairly interesting visual display. Or at least, it could have been described that way by a pony who hadn't just broken for the door, which left every other now-former customer out.

Ponies raced. Ponies flew. Ponies came very close to stampeding. Dishes were abandoned. Food was spat out before the evacuation because while it was extra energy for speed, it was also just that much extra weight to carry. Everypony forgot to pay their bill, the entire group equally neglected to tip their servers, and Fleur's issues with trying to sit alone were solved for the rest of the date's dinner portion, which now had about three minutes to go.

The flame died away, became a few weak glows of heat dancing in the platter's center pile. Caramel, his entire body shaking, trembling, hooves knocking against each other, couldn't move. Fleur's corona had ignited, with the projection around Fluttershy's shifted body, ready to get her out of there. And the chef blinked twice, then looked around.

"Oh," he said with mixed shock and disinterest. "Maybe it wasn't that last cook, then --"

"-- I..."

"Are you all right, sir?"

"...I didn't order that..."

"But it's what I wrote down!" Wenchie protested. "I -- that is what you said, right? Your accent was sort of rough, but it sounded like you were saying --"

Fleur wasn't paying full attention to the argument. She was looking at Fluttershy, for her charge had also moved. But she was still in the restaurant. She just hadn't had time...

"You see? A little fire, and he freezes! What kind of potential mate can't move to protect the pony he's supposed to care for?"

"...but... but you could have burned --"

Huffily, "I distorted a few words. Nothing more. The fire was perfectly under control. Everything was under control except him. But to his rather dubious credit, that bench is still dry." A thoughtful pause. "We may want to consider that as a challenge for the next phase."

"The... next?"

The main argument raged on, with Fleur getting up to approach her charge, make sure everything was all right. So did the smaller one.

"Can't deal with a little burst of flame," the salt cellar said. "Something which will be part of Fluttershy's life for as long as the librarian insists on not paying for stamps. But there is more than that to be ready for, in her existence. Another taste, I think. After all, we still have a movie to attend."

"You ordered it!" The chef was now in an open fury, a state distinguished from the rest of a professional cook's life by absolutely nothing. "And everypony else left! I don't care if you say you didn't order it, I don't even care that you didn't eat it! You're going to pay for it!"

"-- okay," a still-reeling Caramel just barely managed, and the weaving head eventually reached a saddlebag.

The salt cellar made an effort.

The words emerged from the depths of both saddlebag and stun. "My bits are gone."

"Fiscal support," the salt cellar observed, "also being important..."

"Well, somepony has to pay!" the chef roared.

"...I didn't bring money," an instantly-worried Fluttershy stated. "...I can't pay..."

The salt cellar, who'd just effectively learned that fiscal responsibility could be transitory, winced.

"--oh, here they are," Caramel exhaled. "I guess they just fell into a corner."

"...well, it's better than having her washing dishes all night," the rather defensive salt cellar stated.

The pepper mortar considered that it looked as if the pretty unicorn had been about to pay, then decided not to mention it. The important thing was that the meal had been paid for, although that did unfortunately avert what might have been a charming sort of bonding scene through mutual labor. On one of the other pages, that aversion was what Discord wanted...

Rivals disrupted romance: it was what they were there for. But they did so in the name of gaining that romance for themselves. Discord didn't want romance, and he was still acting like a rival. It was confusing.

Or maybe he was more like a --

"Time to go," the salt cellar said. "I like to catch the previews. Additionally, I've been considering a potential innovation..."

From the outside, the cinema hadn't looked promising. For starters, it was a one-screen: the building had apparently been put together under the expectation that movies themselves would be something of a fad, and so there was no need to host more than one at a time. But the years had proven that wrong, and so the cinema hosted multiple films -- at different showtimes, leaving it as one of the few Ponyville businesses to approach full-cycle operation: there was just no other way to get the rental cost back on that many reels.

On the inside, however... that was where the velvet took over.

The benches were richly padded, mostly in dark reds and exceptionally-soft blacks: hues which would vanish when the lights went down. Every last one of them had been arranged to face towards the screen, and did so at an angle which successfully targeted the dead center of those flickering images. There were a few private boxes above the main floor (because cinemas had stolen some of their early designs from theaters), which naturally included a Princess Box or, as Fleur suspected Twilight thought of it, a The Town Librarian Will Not Be Caught Using This Box.

The screen itself was of a decent size. Fleur couldn't locate the sound-projecting devices, which was the first sign that they were fairly good ones. And some of the benches were double-occupancy: intended to host couples and those who hoped for that status. She even spotted a four-pony bench towards the front, something which suggested the settled zone hosted that rarest of unions: the group marriage. Such things were legal in Equestria, and just about as scarce as metallics: every participant had to agree to the presence of every other, and so those unions were hardly ever formed -- but when they did manifest, they tended to last.

Wall draperies: not bad. Some of the paintings in the lobby: skilled, although they appeared to all be from local artists. There were even a few framed posters. On the whole, she'd seen much worse, and it came as an additional comfort when her own bench passed both a sniff test and the rather more risky hoof contact. Cinemas which weren't cleaned frequently tended to become rather greasy to the touch.

It was, Fleur supposed, decent enough in its way. But it wasn't her. It wasn't what she had become used to in Canterlot, what she expected. What she might never have again.

Fluttershy and Caramel were two rows in front of her: easy to see with the house lights still up and a relative lack of ponies to look past. (It wasn't a full crowd for this showing, perhaps because of the subject matter.) Each had a cheap paper feedbag looped around their neck, although Fluttershy kept pushing hers with a forehoof, trying to keep it off the dress.

"Do you like popcorn?" Caramel asked.

"...yes. I just don't want to stain this." She adjusted it again. "...this is -- olive oil with the salt?" Dipped her head, nibbled, and also stained some of the makeup which Fleur had so carefully applied: one of the reasons the unicorn had chosen not to indulge -- with another being the price. (She could get the palace to pay out that levels of bits on a dress. Requesting the same fees for a group of recently-exploded seeds seemed to be unrealistic.) "It's... nice."

"You're welcome," Caramel smiled. "Do you go to the movies much?"

"...documentaries," Fluttershy eventually said. "Sometimes stories. I mostly see those with Rainbow. Twilight spends too much time trying to fix the scripts. Rainbow just kicks popcorn at the screen." Nodded towards several tiny stains. "...that's easier, at least until she gets caught."

Another long pause, which Fleur used to look around a little more. As it turned out, there was something worth seeing: a prettily-frowning pearl unicorn mare occupying the projection booth. Not quite a match for Joyous in overall appearance, but a looker in her own right -- and one who had a projectionist's mark, something which was still a fairly rare sight in the young industry. The relative scarcity meant that a mark-qualified projectionist could just about name their own salary, and those who loved profit objected accordingly. Many ponies had been hired who didn't have quite the same touch with the notoriously finicky equipment, and the luckiest cinema owners had eventually been able to replace them with those bearing the right icons -- after they finally took the salary request and compared it to the repair and replacement cost for all of those damaged reels.

The mare tinkered a bit, her corona glowing as bits of light lanced there and there. Nodded to herself, then loaded a reel.

"...what are we seeing?" Fluttershy asked. "...I didn't check the schedule, and there was a pony in front of the sign on the way in."

"Well, first there's a short subject," Caramel said. "Something about travel, I think. And then the feature is a --" his tones dropped, just enough for Fleur to realize he thought he was being subtle "-- horror movie."

"...horror?"

Oh, for... Fleur could see his plan. It was possible that everypony would be capable of spotting it, with the possible exception of Fluttershy. He was taking a pony known for her fears to see something which would scare her, and when that happened, there would be a very convenient stallion to press her shaking body against. A source of comfort.

Blatant emotional manipulation. I didn't think he had it in him. Not on this level. Admittedly, the level was rather basic, and she'd still had doubts. Something else Fluttershy and I need to talk about later: more ways to spot when somepony's trying to toy with you. I should have seen this one coming. And with Fluttershy...

...actually -- that was a little more of a question than it had been before the fire. Because Fluttershy had --

-- the house lights were starting to dim. It was the signal for previews and trailers: the full darkness would only close in when the short subject began. Fleur prepared to split her attention: most of her focus would be on Fluttershy, but she was slightly curious about the upcoming cinema season. She'd been to so many of Equestria's film premieres in the capital, staying close to the flank of whoever had hired her, trotted among performers and producers, studio executives --

-- something else Celestia took from me.

I nearly paid for my own ticket.

It would have been another receipt to send in. But it was also insult. Fleur hadn't paid for a ticket in years. Not since her first movies, one of the rarest trips of all --

"-- glasses?"

She'd sensed him before she saw him. It hadn't been via her talent: the theater was too occupied for that, with Fluttershy far too close. This was just the casual realization that somepony had been on the approach, and she looked up to see a dingy brown unicorn stallion with a dull grey field, a not particularly handsome specimen who mostly knew of grooming through disregarded rumor. He could have been of just about any age from bare adulthood on, and his field was offering a set of dark lenses.

Don't they keep solicitors outside?

"No thank you," Fleur politely declined. "I'm really not shopping --"

"-- they're included in the price of admission," he smiled, showing off crooked teeth which would have been better off in concealment or, ideally, placed along a monster's jawline. "It's a new kind of movie, something experimental. They're -- part of the show."

Well, that was interesting. Besides, Fleur wasn't the sort of pony who casually passed up on something she'd already paid for. "In that case, thank you." His field receded, hers ignited, touched the exposed portion of the lenses, brushed against his energy --

-- that's... strange.

That's a very weird feel for a unicorn.

It's like there's something -- other?

"You're quite welcome!" he beamed. "Do enjoy yourself! After all, it's so rare that something truly new comes along, isn't it?" Moved on, his field passing out lenses from the black saddlebags.

"...a horror movie," came from two rows ahead.

"It's supposed to be a good one."

A little more shakily, "...what's it called?"

Not without satisfaction, "The Beast With Five Fingers."

"...and..." The vibration was almost strong enough to reach Fleur's bench. "...what is that?"

Caramel's voice dropped again.

"I heard it's about a centaur."

"...a what?"

"They're a mythical monster. Absolutely terrifying -- well, you'll see." And with what was no longer passing for subtlety, "But if you feel like you can't look at it, just remember that I'm right --"

"-- glasses?"

"Oh. Thank you."

"Put them on, sir. Can't watch the movie without the special glasses! Or rather, you shouldn't. You'll get so much more out of it this way! Glasses for the mare?"

Fluttershy accepted them, slipped them on. The stallion continued on his way as the lights continued to go down, leaving him to finish his rounds in the semi-dark. It was something which didn't give him any issues: he could see perfectly in the dark if he wanted to (with one previous exception for his entire lifetime). He could also be a stallion if he wanted to, although typically not for very long, as being a stallion was boring. If you were a stallion, then that was the only thing you were, with no real possibility of becoming something else -- well, technically, it was possible to become a corpse, but that was even more boring.

Currently, he was a stallion for one reason: because to pass out the glasses as himself would have left him with an empty theater. Well -- empty but for a questioning Fluttershy, something he didn't care to deal with just yet. He was doing this for her, and that could be explained after the final results had been accomplished. He'd learned patience while trapped in stone, or at least something which occasionally passed for it.

He'd had an idea, for creativity often arose from chaos. Something which felt as if it would be... subtle.

The trailers played. The projectionist, the only pony who would have known something was wrong, was fully occupied with her equipment. Fleur watched, recognized those she'd met and a few whose names were likely on Celestia's potential witness list. And then the lights went all the way down.

The short subject turned out to be A Trip To Yakyakistan: Don't and was mercifully brief, although the truly merciful option would have been to never have played it at all. This was followed by the feature presentation, with both words granting it just a little too much dignity.

It was cheap. It was poorly-made. It was in black and white, because they hadn't been able to afford grey. She'd seen better acting at school plays, although the background sets were just about a match. There were many horrifying things about the production, starting with the fact that somepony had thought the film was a good idea. There was one scene which had been filmed on location in a dump and Fleur suspected it had been shot during the search for the original script. In fact, the only interesting thing about the movie was provided by the glasses, and the film hadn't even been made to take full advantage of them.

"These," Caramel declared with open wonder, "are the best special effects castings I've ever seen."

Which, as far as Fleur was concerned, just meant that he was very easily impressed.

Seriously, Fleur mused as she watched the weak, wavering image of an outstretched foreleg, one which had just barely separated from the screen. If I was doing this, I'd start the movie by kicking something right at the audience. They should be facing forward as much as possible, blasting spells into the crowd. It's as if no one making the movie considered that it would be even slightly close to three-dimensional...

However, judging by the murmurs, there were a number of ponies who at least saw possibilities in the little change which had been made to the medium. Others were too busy laughing at the script, and two were simply very late to the show.

"Pardon? Could you pull your foreleg back a little?"

She had been rather stretched out: Fleur was taller than average to start with, and comfort meant spreading out. "Sorry." She removed her hoof from the aisle and the couple slipped past, now whispering to each other.

"...didn't recognize..."

"...assistant."

...what?

Were they still talking about me? Assistant? Why would somepony be calling me an --

-- which was when what the film's creators, special effects department, illusion-casters, and sound design experts had decided a centaur was appeared on the screen, and the movie's genre officially transitioned to comedy.

Caramel, who'd been waiting for it, seized his chance. "Are you okay, Fluttershy? Do you need --"

Just barely audible, "...that's... interesting."

"Huh?"

"...which part do you think his stomach is in?" Fluttershy whispered. "The vertical torso, or the horizontal? Well... he could have multiple stomachs. Like cattle. But starting from his mouth... that's a really long digestive tract. And look at his belly! With his size, the corresponding amount of intestines he'd need to have, and the way he moves..."

She thought it over.

"...bowel torsion," she softly decided. "That's why he's the last of his kind. They all died from bowel torsion."

Which was when Fleur found herself fighting the urge to laugh.

"Bowel torsion," Caramel hollowly repeated, still trying to deal with the complete lack of pegasus which wasn't pressed against his flank.

"...it can be very serious."

Igniting her horn in a crowded theater was rude, and so an elegantly-hooficured foreleg was jammed against her mouth.

"...I think he must have breathing problems, too," Fluttershy sadly decided. "Like a pug. The nose is just too jammed up against the face. Poor, poor centaur..."

She was starting to taste her own fur.

Caramel openly stared at his companion, who was now busy diagnosing knee issues. Leaned to that side at the exact moment she leaned away from him, probably to better diagnose a hoof condition brought on by ill-fitting rubber suits. Fleur spotted him taking a disgusted look at his own flank, then decided he was probably regretting his own lack of wings: one of the advantages pegasi had in dating was the ability to pretend they were stretching and wind up with a limb draped over somepony's back.

He looked down at his paper feedbag, and Fleur briefly thought about a minotaur couple she'd seen once, reaching into the same container at the same time. It had been vaguely interesting, come across as slightly romantic and for ponies, was completely impossible without benefit of popcorn trough.

His ears twitched. It might have been an expression of frustration, or at least a desire for ear contact. There was every chance that at this point, he would have considered ear contact to be the highlight of the evening.

"...no wonder he's so mad," Fluttershy whispered. "Joint pain does that. Oh, and he's going to charge right at them. It's the worst thing he could possibly do in his condition..."

What had been envisioned as a centaur and emerged as a poorly-moving bundle of prospective medical issues turned to face the screen. Fleur's lenses provided a bit of outstretch on the one arm, along with a hint of depth for a nasal stub which couldn't have very much of it.

Caramel, whom Discord had been providing with a somewhat more enhanced image for the entire duration, got the full production.

The centaur charged, and did so directly at him. The entire body came off the screen, gained color and dimensionality and mass, hooves pounded through the air as the stallion pulled back, it was growing in size with every step and it was snorting and he felt the hot breath against his fur and it was almost on top of him and it roared something which sounded almost like his name and it did so only within the lens, with nopony else able to see the bale-tons of monster which had broken into reality and come for his life...

It meant nopony understood why he screamed. Broke from the bench, went over two aisles going backwards, stepped on two ponies and into one feedbag before rushing out of the theater, his left hind leg trailing kernels and broken dreams.

But for those who were recovering from the escape, everypony watched him go. This included Fleur, who'd just barely dodged, and she finally turned around as the house lights came up, the cinema trying to locate the source of upset. The projectionist inspected the reels, the bulk of the audience eventually wound up examining the now-frozen flickering image, and the unicorn and pegasus mares simply looked at each other.

"...what happened?"

"I don't know," Fleur readily admitted. "Do you want to follow him?"

"...yes."

They both got up, headed for the exit. And from his place in the rafters, Discord watched.

"Can't handle a little monster attack," he softly snorted. "And it wasn't even a real monster." He waved up a list, made a check mark on it, and resolved to never tell the librarian before turning to the book on his right. "Popcorn, Harem?"

"I don't have a mouth."

"That's fair."

They found him just outside the cinema, lenses discarded, cooling off in the rain.

It was an interesting sort of rain. It was exceptionally cold, especially given the overall warmth in the air. It swirled around him. It was also only on his side of the otherwise-empty street.

"...Rainbow," Fluttershy softly stated, and then moved forward before saying "...Caramel?"

He looked up. Water ran down his face, and the crest of his mane sagged.

"...great special effects," he quietly said. "Really... great. It'll be the next big thing. Did -- did anypony else leave? Use any of the other exits, or was I -- no, it was -- just me, wasn't it? I was the only one who got scared. Everypony else just sat there through that. Everypony but..."

He slowly shook his head. Water ran into his ears.

"I'm sorry, Fluttershy. I'm..."

The little saddlebags sagged against his sides.

"...it doesn't matter," he softly finished. "Everypony saw that. Nopony's going to forget it. I'll... I'll take you home."

The trio began to head towards the bridge, and did so in silence. The cloud made an initial move as if to follow, but then thought better of it. After all, there was still supposed to be some subtlety in play.

The pattern had changed. On the way in, it had been Fluttershy and Caramel, with Fleur trailing. Now it was the mares in the lead, with the stallion squishing his way down the path. It had been like that for some time. Traveling in silence. But if you were around Fluttershy for a while, you got used to long periods of quiet.

It couldn't last, though. The mill appeared, was passed. The cottage was getting close.

"How do you feel?" Fleur had pitched her voice carefully: Fluttershy could hear her, Caramel would not.

"...I don't know."

"You should be proud of yourself," Fleur told her. "I'm proud of you. You got all the way through it. You didn't bolt. You didn't make an excuse to go home. You had a date."

"...but it wasn't a good one."

The lesson was getting close.

"...do things go wrong like that a lot?" Fluttershy quietly asked. "It felt like things just -- didn't work."

"Things can go wrong on dates," Fleur admitted. "But when it's a good connection, you laugh them off on the spot, or laugh at them later. You use them to become closer, because you went through something together."

"...I don't feel like..." A deep breath: the dress shifted, and the corsage's cheap clamp finally fell away. "...that was -- together. It's more like I was just there..."

On the absolute verge now. The edge of the nest. Fly or fall.

"Are you willing to date again?"

Twenty hoofsteps.

"...yes."

"Do you want to date Caramel again?"

"...he... he's trying to be better, but he hasn't changed enough. That couch..."

More firmly, "Fluttershy," and her charge looked at her. "It's a yes or no question. There are two possible answers. One is yes, the other is no. We can talk about the reasons for the decision later. Right now, I just want you to make one. Twenty seconds to think, Fluttershy, twenty seconds after I ask it again and then you give me one word. Do you want to date Caramel again?"

The flame went up, and you --

-- you were moving closer.

Your wings weren't extended. You had to keep them away from the fire. So you were pushing yourself forward. Aiming for Caramel, with your forelegs out. My field was up, trying to reach you. But you... you were trying to knock him back, away from the heat.

You move towards flame.

"No."

Yes.

"So tell him."

"...I --"

"-- before we reach the cottage. Tell him now, Fluttershy."

The words had not been nice. Very few of Fleur's words ever were, and the ones which did emerge that way had often been ordered to. Fleur considered kindness to be something ponies could believe in, for most of what ponies believed was equally illusion.

It was what Celestia had told her charge about Fleur: apparently just about the only thing which had been passed along. That Fleur wasn't nice. And she decided that lack was why Fluttershy slowly turned, trotted back towards the stallion whose posture, mane, and morale had all collapsed.

"...Caramel?"

He just barely managed to look up, and mostly wound up regarding the gems near the front of the dress. A cluster designed for kicking.

"...I -- I know things weren't your fault tonight. The restaurant, the movie... especially the movie. I know about being afraid --"

His head went down again. It meant he missed the tears.

"-- but I... I still want to help Shimmy, I'll always help Shimmy if I can, but I -- for dating, I don't think we -- I don't want to do this again, not with -- not with you. Because it didn't feel like things happened together It's... I --"

She broke.

Fleur had been waiting for it all night. The sudden flare of wings, the desperate push away from the ground, the desperate dash for the cottage. She didn't even turn her head to watch as the pegasus sped away, heading towards whatever might pass for safety. There was no need. She just looked at Caramel, who hadn't even lifted his gaze enough to see her.

The first thing she needed to do was learn how to accept somepony's interest. But you're not right for her. You never were. You never could be.

The strength to come forward. The strength to push away.

Tonight was about rejection. And she passed.

Fleur looked at him. Kept the little shrug strictly internal, and trotted forward.

"Come on," she openly sighed. "I'll get you home." And let her cry herself out, come back in the morning to talk about everything which happened... In a way, it was better that it had been a genuinely bad date. She'd been dreading the possibility of having Caramel do well enough to stretch the breakup out to so much as a week. "You need some rest, Caramel. And a hot shower."

He sniffed a little. A rather ugly little snot bubble popped over his left nostril.

"...everypony saw me run, Fleur," he just barely managed. "From a movie."

They already knew you weren't much of a stallion. It's not like anything's going to change.

"It'll look better in the morning." I have to be out here first thing in the morning. Before anypony other than Snowflake can speak to her -- and that was right: Snowflake would be at the cottage. Well, if she was lucky, Fluttershy would isolate herself immediately after arrival and stay that way until the crying jag had ended. "It always does. After you rest, once you think -- that's when you can think about what to do next, Caramel. I've been there. And now I'm going to take you home. It'll all look better under Sun."

"You... you think so?"

No. You're not strong enough. Whatever your pain is, being with somepony is how you deal with it. And now you don't have anypony again. "Yes."

He finally got his head up. Trotted close to her, occasionally stumbled into her side.

"I'm..." He swallowed. "You know you're not my type, right?"

"I've seen how you look at pegasi," she stated. "I worked it out."

"So you know... I don't just hang around you because of how you look."

She nodded.

"I think the theater bench is still wet."

There was no answer for that one.

Another stumble. She braced herself so as not to be knocked over, wound up propping him up.

"Fleur?"

She waited.

"I'm... glad you're my friend."

And she took her designated victim home.

"One down," Discord told his research assistant. "As I said, and have now proven to satisfaction: not good enough. And the process will continue until a truly suitable future mate is found."

"So," the book tentatively asked, "what do we do now? More research? Are we waiting for her next date?"

There was creativity in chaos...

"She'll be looking, of course," Discord considered. "And so will that Fleur. Perhaps they'll find somepony. And that pony will be tested. But in the meantime..."

He did something horrible. He smiled. And then they were gone.

The horrible smile, fully satisfied with the night's efforts, lingered until close to morning.

She got up early, and did so after less sleep than she would have liked. It seemed as if the satisfaction had kept the nightmares away, but... well, it hadn't been easy, getting Caramel to bed. The partial trot back to the cottage had used enough time for the story to spread, and so some of the trip had been conducted with ponies giggling behind his passing, leg-tucked tail.

Fleur needed to make time, and so cantered more than she normally did, not giving too much thought to how it disrupted the fur grain: reaching Fluttershy was the most important thing, and she could freshen up at the cottage. Then she realized that she really was out of practice, checked the path, looked in every possible direction for witnesses, ignited her horn --

-- and a little while after she finished, she was knocking on the cottage door.

"Fluttershy?" No immediate answer. "We have to talk about last night. Break down what happened, and why it's a good thing. The sooner we start --"

Hoofsteps, approaching from the other side of the door. Heavy hoofsteps.

It opened, and the singularly unhandsome stallion, his eyes showing extra red from lack of sleep, looked directly at her.

"She's gone."

A thousand horrible possibilities rushed through Fleur's mind, tripping over each other in their rush to be the first to reach the front. She flew away she went to the other Bearers she ran she went to her birth home she couldn't take the pain I didn't teach her how to use her pain and she --

"They're all gone," Snowflake softly finished. "The mission came in fifteen minutes after she got home."

Author's Notes:

The Beast With Five Fingers is an actual horror movie from 1946. SymphonicSync suggested it might have a centaur edition.

Assist Trophy

She could...

It was the first thought to breach the silence which seemed to occupy all the space between Fleur and the cottage's temporary caretaker. None of the words were verbalized, nothing reached open air -- and yet they still filled Fleur's ears, blocked out every sound from the animals. Noises which seemed just a little more unsettled than before.

She could...

"What was the mission?" Maybe it was just diplomatic. The Bearers serving as representatives of Equestria. That made a certain amount of sense. Maybe Celestia had decided the nation needed a refreshing war and had dispatched that bitch accordingly.

Snowflake took a slow breath. "I don't know. We..." Another, with the red eyes briefly closing. "...usually don't, not when the alert comes in. Not unless it's something which affects Ponyville and everypony has to be told. The scroll came in. Twilight was a few minutes behind it, and she teleported Fluttershy out. Back to the tree: they were all going to meet up there, and -- they're gone."

And there would be no way to find out. Fleur could try to contact the palace, and the most which might happen would be an alicorn laughing directly in her face --

-- no. Celestia probably wasn't the type to directly laugh, or perhaps even smirk. She would simply turn tail and trot away. Not so much dismissal as an open display that Fleur's question hadn't even been worth hearing.

"So you don't know where she is," Fleur slowly tried to verify. "Or what she's supposed to be doing, how long she might stay there... anything."

The head shake was somewhat pained. "She took her saddlebags. The ones she keeps loaded for the things where it's going to be at least overnight. That's all I know, Fleur." That head dipped, the brush-cut mane pressed down by a weight which the thick neck could not bear. "It's all I'll know until she comes back and tells me what happened. If she's allowed to. If she can. It's a mission, and... I stayed. Twilight had Spike --"

Who?

"-- send something to my other clients: a palace hire is an automatic override for everything else I have booked." Quietly, "I hold down the cottage until Fluttershy returns. That's my job. That's the only way I can help her when she's doing this. Giving her a little less to worry about."

Just as soft, "How often does this happen?"

A longer silence this time, one weighted with memory.

"I've been in Ponyville for two years and a season," the stallion finally said. "Fluttershy's been training me for a little less than that, and I didn't become her go-to substitute until she felt I could at least try to do a few things. The ones she'll let me do. In that time, this is the nineteenth mission -- or the nineteenth which meant I had to come here. There's been a few small ones, things which had to be done in and around Ponyville or Canterlot, and some of them took less than a day. Sometimes one comes in right after the last one finishes. We had nearly two moons between them once. But... nineteen, Fleur. A few of those were just overnight. The longest was ten days."

Nineteen.

She didn't know much about what the Bearers did. They had beaten back Nightmare (somehow), recaptured Discord (and what had Fluttershy's part been in that)? She'd heard something about their participating in the reintegration of the Empire. But...

Nineteen times. In two years and a season, nineteen times when she could have --

"You know about some of what happened," she carefully asked.

The eventual nod was a reluctant one.

"Are any of them just meetings? Dignitaries who have to see the Bearers?"

As it turned out, the pegasus had at least one way in which he was very much like Fluttershy.

"Twice," he admitted, once the typical wait time for a response had finally run out. "I think the Princess tries to keep them away from that unless there's no way out of it. They're..." A somewhat briefer hesitation. "...not always good in social situations."

And with both Fluttershy and that bitch involved, the peacetime reluctance felt sensible. So she could be all right. It may be nothing more than an overnight meet-and-greet, one far enough away that they needed some travel time...

Except that one of the more persistent rumors concerning Celestia had the Solar alicorn capable of international teleports -- but then again, a pony who refused to pay for the Bearers' services probably wasn't going to provide free rides either.

"Do you get updates? Any notice about when something's over and she's coming home?"

"Sometimes." Another slow breath, and she tried not to watch the muscles shift. "Fleur -- it's a mission and I have to stay at the cottage until it's over, as much as possible. I have to try and get home long enough to bring Genova here: she'll hide from just about everypony else. But after that, I probably won't leave the grounds. I don't hear any rumors going through town because I'm not in town, and that's all they are: rumors. The ponies who come here are worried about other things, and..."

This pause was solid enough to serve as roots for the almost-family tree.

"Most of the ponies who talk to me just left town," Snowflake finally said. "The other one will make up any story about what her hero is doing, and Rainbow will save the day in every last one of them." His head dipped again. "When it comes to what I hear when they get back, I... probably know more than I should, Fleur."

The red eyes completely closed. Powerful forelegs briefly shook.

"Sometimes," he softly finished, "they tell me things I... have trouble hearing. Things I don't want to believe. But right now, all I know is that they're gone. All of them are gone. Ponies fill in at the Acres, and that's going to be extra-hard, with cider season so close. Somepony takes over at the library, if Spike --"

Again: who?

"-- went with them. A student baker at Sugarcube Corner. And me at the cottage, until Fluttershy comes back. That's just how it is. You get used to it..."

"No," Fleur quietly countered. "You don't."

His eyes opened. He looked at her, and continued to do so for some time.

"No," he eventually agreed. "You don't."

A birdsong of alarm came from behind Fleur. Somepony was coming up the path.

"It's starting early today," Snowflake said. "She didn't have any appointments scheduled for this hour. But when it's the cottage..."

Fleur nodded. Thought about the hours which now stretched ahead of her, time during which her charge wouldn't be there. That precious post-date window fully occupied by Bearers, with no chance to immediately educate, no current way to make the mare see how to use the moment...

Potentially, there could be some damage to fix when Fluttershy got back. A lot of damage.

She could...

"Then I'll leave you to it," Fleur stated. Wondered why the words hadn't echoed within the sudden hollow inside, started to turn away --

-- softly, oh so very softly, something else the near-siblings had in common, "Fleur?"

She hesitated. Glanced back.

"I..." A tiny swallow made its way down the thick throat. "Fluttershy's -- told me about what the two of you have been doing." And before she could react, "In the treatment room. She's taught me a lot, but -- it sounds like you know some things I don't. It's hard out here without her, I think you know that, and... if you're not doing anything today..."

He was the strongest stallion she'd ever seen, at least for muscular development: by their very nature, there would be (slightly) smaller earth ponies who had more raw power. Perhaps that was what let him carry Fluttershy's burdens for a while. The factor which allowed him to make the request at all.

"...I could use the help."

She blinked.

Her first instinct had her mentally pulling up her escort's rate sheet, followed by a careful, completely sarcastic internal examination of the per-hour fee. She didn't know much about Snowflake beyond his non-substitute occupation -- and that was as freelance labor-for-hire, with no regular employer and nothing even faintly resembling a steady income. (And yes, it was possible to say the same thing about an escort, but her calendar had been booked, and she'd eventually needed to add a waitlist.) He couldn't afford her.

The second instinct found her considering some of the things he'd just said.

She talks to him.

She tells him more than most ponies. Possibly more than anypony who isn't another Bearer. He knows more about her than most. He's a way to learn more about her, things her friends won't say, because he feels like he's her brother and he cares...

She tells him about the missions, at least some of the time. What would some ponies give to know about those missions? Better yet, how much would they give?

The third thought concerned time. She was about to have an undefined amount under her hooves, time during which she would essentially have to... wait. Listen for rumors on the wind while knowing they were nothing more, try to pick up any hints, the faintest signs...

And there was one more factor, at least for those she was willing to perceive. It wasn't the last one: there were aspects hidden under that, and some of those had been deliberately buried. It took a bad moment or the excavations of the nightscape to bring them to the surface, and Fleur wasn't ready to face them just yet, not under Sun. But when it came to simple, ongoing low-level revenge...

I'm supposed to be looking after Fluttershy's social welfare.

A pony who comes home to find her cottage in order is going to be a little more relaxed. She'll have one less thing to worry about and with Fluttershy, that list is just about endless to start with. One aspect taken care of makes it that much more likely that I can get her to the second date in a hurry.

It would be time spent learning.

Better yet, it would be time Celestia would pay for, at the full rate.

Let's bill this one on the invoice as -- 'emotional support.'

"You sleep on the grounds?"

He blinked. Nodded.

"I can't," she told him. "I'm going back to my house at night." She'd been told there was space at the cottage, and she also remembered being told that it was animal-occupied. "But I can stay for a while -- under one condition." And looking squarely at him, "You have to talk. At least a little. And more than 'Yeah.'" With a careful smile, "I'm spending enough hours with one near-silent pony. I'm not going to make it two."

The tectonic plates of his features shifted.

"I'm not the best talker," Snowflake admitted. "I... don't have a lot of ponies to talk to."

"What's a lot?"

He thought it over, and did so rather quickly: they could both hear the hoofsteps approaching.

"Three."

"I think," Fleur smiled, "you've already proven you're capable of going to four."

And just before the pony came around the bend, with a small, wry smile creating fresh fjords, "...yeah."

It was, Snowflake (eventually) told her, not a particularly busy morning. The first visitor had a sick skunk, and the diagnosis for the condition ultimately turned out to be 'skunk': take an animal who liked to eat everything it could find, give it a head small enough to poke into the majority of containers, and consuming something that upset its stomach was just about inevitable. The medication dispensed was a standard herbal mixture, and the task of giving it to the skunk was nosed over to the pet's owner: when it came to keeping harsh odors from adhering, the Foal Soap had limits. Skunks made for loving, highly-inquisitive companions, ones who tended to follow their pony at a distance of three hoofwidths -- and who still didn't deal well with strangers trying to stick something strange-smelling in their mouths.

After that, it was morning feedings: the cottage residents had to be taken care of, and some of the nocturnals were put to bed. Snowflake straightened wherever possible, cleaned whatever he could, took custody of a few deliveries (medical supplies and animal food, with that last in bulk). There was a patrol conducted, checking the grounds, and Fleur stayed in the cottage for that one: she didn't know the route just yet, and she was dealing with the first of the appointments.

That visit hadn't been veterinary in nature. Fluttershy scavenged her limited income from multiple sources: the majority of it was medical services, but she also offered kennel duties to ponies who were going on vacation, looking after their pets. And a pony who could just ask a nervous animal to stay calm, coo to it in its own language when it was nervous, talk it out of wriggling or biting... that was a pony who just needed some special training and a full set of brushes.

Fleur, whose training in that regard had been for the equine form, didn't have any trouble adapting, and a returning Snowflake was caught staring at the results as the happy (and heavily-tipping) owner led her now-strutting canine away.

"Wow," the stallion stated once they were alone again. "Where did you learn how to groom?"

"It's all fur in the end," Fleur shrugged. "It's a little different when you're working around paws instead of hooves, but it's still fur."

"But... Volia snaps. Fluttershy can talk her down, but I have to get the muzzle. I didn't show you where that was, and I didn't get to warn you --"

"-- she snapped," Fleur admitted. "Or at least she tried to. She showed me her teeth and I showed her my field. Most of what she did once she realized the glow wasn't going away was fume." The dog had been fast. Fleur had been faster.

Snowflake exhaled. "Good. Because I remembered who was coming in just as I was finishing up the patrol, and then I flew back."

How?

A little more shakily -- still strange to hear from such a large stallion -- "I thought you were going to get bitten."

Fleur shook her head.

With guilt flowing in, "I should have warned you. I --"

"-- no squawk, no blood, no foul. Who's next?"

"Nothing for nearly an hour," Snowflake told her. "This is usually just --"

-- and a hoof knocked on the door.

"When emergencies show up?" Fleur finished. It was, at best, half a joke, and that required some serious rounding up.

Another knock.

"No," Snowflake said -- then hesitated. "Well, yes. That's every hour. But this is usually just when the mail comes in."

The mare should have been beautiful.

Her overall form was elegant: nowhere near as sleek as the pegasus ideal, but there was a sense of flow about her. (To Fleur, it was an odd sort of flow: not so much air skimming across her body as the world itself sliding away -- but it was there.) The wings, oddly, were just about ideal. Grey fur... that was mildly strange to see in a population which tended towards brighter colors, but this shade had a rather smooth quality to it. The blonde mane and tail were nicely hued, while the mare's features were --

-- well, that was where the trouble started. At the moment the door had opened, those features had begun as something which were at least partially open. But at the second the mare had seen the stranger, they had closed themselves off. Gone solid, turned into something suitable for keeping records at the local bank. A face which said it had no interest in anything Fleur would ever say or do, unless it was an announcement and act of permanent departure.

All of that instant hatred was fully (if rather briefly) visible in the mare's left eye. The right, however...

Appearance... when working within the rumor mill, performing initially-minor acts of sabotage where the reverberations simply increased with time, ending in earthquakes that shook the social web apart -- it was something which could be worked with. But Fleur had rarely done so, because few ponies could truly help how they looked: cosmetic magic was minor, illusions hard to maintain, shapechanging effectively impossible and if you met one of the exceptions to that rule, you were supposed to alert the Guards immediately. In many ways, a pony's appearance, much like their field strength, was fixed from birth.

Fleur had been insulted for her looks, time and time again. There were those who felt that beauty directly equated to stupidity: the more of the first, the greater the second, until somepony on Fleur's level could do no more than giggle and wait for somepony to buy her things because she wasn't capable of counting her own bits. That her clearly-increased sex drive had to mean the most recent bathroom trip was either for masturbation or to seduce whoever (or whatever) she found within, as she obviously wasn't capable of going more than three hours without pretending to an orgasm. That she was uneducated, incapable of learning, and got by on nothing more than her looks -- she'd heard all of it and more. And so she might insult somepony for their choice of dress, because that was a choice. For failing to hide the extra third-bale they were carrying around their belly, because overeating was also a choice, as was failure to attempt any level of diet. For cosmetics, because you could learn to apply them and those who never got it right were the ones at fault. For mainstyles and fur grooming and so much else.

But not for their basic looks, for nopony could truly help that. The mare had no control over whatever had happened to her right eye, and so it was something Fleur generally wouldn't speak about. Wouldn't judge her for, although presenting the false appearance of such could work when the cause was sufficient and all other material had run short. The mare should have been beautiful, and... there was that drifting, roaming golden eye.

The mailmare had looked at Fleur, seen something very close to the unicorn version of pony perfection. Something she could never have. And with that, there had been hate, an instant loathing which might never fade.

Fleur understood. And she didn't hate the mare in return, not yet: there had been no true cause. The pegasus hadn't acted on that emotion, and as long as that status maintained, Fleur had no reason to do anything.

But she felt that hatred, both its familiarity and inevitability. And on a day where she had already been reminded of too much, it brought something back.

"They're staring."

"Of course they're staring. You've only been here a little while. No one knows you yet."

"But they're staring..."

"She's not home," Fleur steadily stated. "I can take the mail."

The mare didn't look at her. She nosed the lid up, mouth-dropped the slender bundle in the box. Flew away.

...right. Fleur's horn ignited, nudged open the lower hinged panel, and the envelopes slid directly into the secondary bubble. A rather casual sorting took place during the trot back into the cottage, missives shifting within the corona as a myriad of animals watched her pass.

Bill. Bill. Bill past due -- no, that's a journal subscription renewal and they're just putting that on the envelope to scare ponies. With her charge, it might even have a chance to work. Bill...

To: Fluttershy Phylia
Fauna Cottage
Ponyville, EQ 73214

From:

She looked at the sea-green envelope for a few seconds, then trotted back into the examination room.

Snowflake had a scouring pad hard-pressed under a golden forehoof, and was exerting some of that strength against an old floor stain. The stain, mostly due to the opposition's reluctance to risk sacrificing the pad, was winning.

"You were right," she told him, separating out the bills and floating them to the top of a small cabinet. "Just the mail. Do you pay her bills while she's gone?"

"The late ones," Snowflake reluctantly admitted. "When I can. The palace reimburses me."

"Nothing late in this group," Fleur told him, considering how much a basic Bearer stipend might do to eliminate some of those bills. "Three bills, a subscription renewal, and --" she sent the last letter to rest in front of his gaze "-- I think this one is a little more personal."

He looked directly at it. Slowly nodded, and watched as she receded her field enough to let him get a tooth grip.

Snowflake slowly trotted out of the examination room. It took him two minutes to return.

"On her pillow," he said.

Fleur nodded, and seized the chance.

"Tell me about her family."

It hadn't quite been a fully casual inquiry -- but then, she hadn't meant it to be.

His head almost snapped up. The red gaze bore directly into her eyes.

"Why?" The defensiveness of a protective sibling.

She held her ground. "What do you know about why I'm here?"

Silence. Visible rumination.

"I've tried asking her about it," Snowflake finally said. "She pushed it off. Over and over. She's good at not talking about things. She only told me what she told the Bearers: when she was ready. But they thought it was about social things. Opening up a little more. And last night..."

The sigh was a surprisingly small one, and still managed to shift quite a lot in the way of mass.

"...it's kind of obvious now," he continued. "It's about dating. About finding somepony. Because..."

The words trailed off, and did not quickly restart. He just shuffled some of that considerable weight from hoof to hoof. What remained of his wings trembled in an awkward vibrato.

"...we didn't have much time to talk, before the mission came in," he finally said. "But I had to try and talk, with her that upset. She's... not good at a lot of things. She doesn't like pushing ponies away, because she tried that again last year and -- overexerted." The tail was shifting now. "So last night made her remember that, and... she was having a hard time with it. I don't blame you --"

"-- and I didn't know that," she carefully broke in. They'll all have worked it out, and if they haven't, that bitch will spread the word, they may have her to themselves for days... "I don't know much of anything about her, Snowflake, because it is so hard to make her talk. I'm trying to help her, and not knowing about her life -- I could hurt her. I don't want to. And I understand that you want to protect her. I've --" a well-measured pause "-- seen how some of the ponies in town treat her. Like she has to be protected. But dating is partially about taking chances."

He nodded to that. A simple, steady nod.

"So I understand that you want to protect her privacy," Fleur went on. "And if I ask about something too personal, you can just tell me to shut up. But there's things I feel like I have to know. Things she may not tell me. That was a letter from her parents. So... tell me about her family. As much as you're comfortable with saying. Because maybe that'll let me help her."

The partial amputations slowly came to a stop.

"What do you want to know?"

And she smiled.

"Well, I didn't know she had a surname..."

It got a small, deep chuckle out of him. "She hardly ever uses it. Official forms, mostly."

"And her parents still live where she was born? That return address is her hometown?"

The crevices briefly went awkward again. "She was born in Trotter's Falls..."

Why does he look hurt?

"Her parents were traveling," he continued. "It was a conference they couldn't miss. They left as a pair and arrived as a trio. But yeah -- they're still in Stratuston, at least when they're not working."

Traveling parents. "What do they do for a living?"

"Stormbreakers. Emergency stormbreakers."

Fleur blinked. "I don't --"

"They take care of wild weather systems," Snowflake clarified. "Outside Equestria. The way Fluttershy tells it, a lot of the other nations don't want their weather controlled -- unless it's an emergency, like a hurricane coming in or going one blizzard over the line. So those governments have an agreement with the palace: if it could be a disaster, we send pegasi. Her parents are part of the emergency team."

Hurricanes... "So they're strong."

A small nod. "Very -- from what Fluttershy said. I've never seen them work."

"Have you met them?"

"Once, for about ten minutes. There was a conference in Canterlot, and they made the side trip. They were here for about two days. I was dropping something off for her: it's easier for me to haul something from town than have her pay a delivery charge. They said hello, and that was about it." Thoughtfully, "I think I might be the only one who did see them. They stayed at the cottage, and she didn't leave for as long as they were around. So as long as nopony else came by..."

"What are they like?"

He was looking directly at her again.

"They love her," the stallion said. "You don't even have to see her with them for ten minutes to see how much they love her. They've always loved her. They don't understand her, but --"

His jaw slammed shut.

Fleur kept the smile internal. There it is. You're not used to talking with other ponies -- so you don't know when to stop.

"I think," she gently said, "that last bit was going to be important."

He hated himself for having slipped: there was no effort being made to hide that self-directed loathing. But he also knew he couldn't leave it as a partial statement, and so that strength eventually forced the rest out -- at least once the huge sigh had wrapped up.

"They thought," Snowflake said, "she would be a stormbreaker, just like they were. They had every reason to think that. For some families, strength of magic is almost random. But in her line... it's in the blood. It's been there for generations. And she went to ground. It was the last thing they were expecting. From what she says, it's something they still don't understand. But they love her. If she was going to ground, they were going to make sure she got there in one piece. They've loved her every day of her life, Fleur. They don't understand her, but they support her. She told me her father watched in the examination room for hours, and he couldn't work out any of it, but it was his daughter doing it, she was happy and that made him happy. They're proud of what she's done, prouder still that she's a Bearer. Even if that --" and he had to gather strength again, when it seemed as if there should have been so much freely available "-- scares them. They knew some of her work with animals could be dangerous, and they accepted that because they accepted her mark. They go into danger every time they're on the job, and they come back, because that's their talent, both of them. They understand dealing with danger, when it's in the heart of your mark. But there isn't a mark for being a Bearer."

"It must have been like finding out she'd joined the Guards." Only without the pay.

He nodded.

Both parents alive. Both parents love her. He could have missed something, but...

She'd never really suspected the parents. In that sense, the stallion's words would have brought a degree of comfort -- except for a simple fact: she also didn't believe they'd ever recognized Fluttershy's pain. They certainly hadn't tried to teach her methods of dealing with it.

They loved her -- but they didn't understand.

"Any siblings?"

The pause had no reason to be that long.

"One," he tensely said as a golden forehoof began to grind its way through the scouring pad. "A younger brother."

She had to ask (and suspected he wanted to say it). "And the reason you bit those words in half...?"

A small curl of friction smoke was rising from the abused floor.

"None of this," Snowflake stated, "leaves the cottage."

It had emerged as a statement of fact, and done so at the same moment she'd heard the first bit of wood break. Fleur nodded.

"Fluttershy," the stallion slowly said, "was a problem birth. She shouldn't have survived. She did. And her parents loved her. They still do. But they were scared, Fleur. They thought any other foal would go through the same thing, and they might not have been as --" the pause felt odd "-- lucky twice, to be in just the right area for somepony to help. So they decided that would be it: one foal. But a few years after, they got a surprise. Then they had a miracle. No problems. No issues. He was their miracle colt, and that's how they treated him: as a miracle. And they did at least some of that with Fluttershy -- but he's the one who believed it."

Fleur's wince was partially artistic, and woefully sincere.

"There's a saying," Snowflake went on (and now his tail was starting to lash). "Something about... the world owes you a living..."

His brow started to crease with concentration, even as they both heard birdsong in the distance.

"'As a matter of fact,'" Fleur quoted, "'the world does owe you a living. But it's a lifetime job to collect.' Solomon Short." He was staring at her. "That's the one, right?" She hadn't expected to hear a pony trying to quote a griffon philosopher...

You really are a little more than you seem, aren't you?

She was briefly curious for a look at his puzzle. Her first suspicion of his dating life was a null set, but -- well, strictly speaking, she wasn't interested, not for herself. Strength only went so far in the bedroom: delicacy was far more valuable. However, when it came to what he might long for...

Slowly, he nodded. "Yeah. He only heard the first part. The world owes him a living, and everypony in the world is supposed to pay off. And he's the kind of pony who could come into a million bits next week and be broke next moon. He doesn't come to the cottage because he's not welcome here. Fluttershy told him that, after the first time -- before I moved to Ponyville, before most of the Bearers met up: she'd only been here a year. She pushed him away, and..."

She has trouble with rejecting ponies.
She rejected her brother.

Softly, "What did he do?"

"Let's just say," Snowflake quietly answered, "that if she'd come home five minutes later, the cottage would have been a lot more empty. Because the world owes him, so everything in the world belongs to him. Other ponies... just have custody of it for a while. They haven't spoken in years. I don't know if they'll ever speak again, not snout to snout. And her parents love her, and they love him, because he's their miracle. But to get them in the same room..." A deep breath. "And she loves him. She loves him because he's her brother, and she hates that she can't trust him, she hates herself for not trusting and pushing him away even after he showed her why she couldn't trust. And she told me it's not his fault, not completely. She said... he's five. Nopony's ever told him he had to be older, so he's five, and he'll be five forever until somepony forces him to grow up."

She pushed her brother away...

It took an effort to speak at anything approaching normal volume. "Do the others know?"

"I don't even think they know she has a brother," he softly snorted -- followed by "Applejack would probably say that's a tradition: the others didn't find out about Twilight's older brother for nearly two years. I was just at the cottage when he sent his letter. He didn't ask for money so much as he expected it. She -- needed somepony she could talk to after that, and I was just there, Fleur. She showed me a picture, because she kept one from his visit. Good-looking colt. It's part of how he keeps getting money. But if he ever lands on the grounds again --"

-- which was when the birds sang again, and desperate tiny hooves pounded on the cottage door.

Snowflake stopped. Spun, with broken wings flaring as he flew from the room.

The little pegasus was barely coherent, and only slightly more conscious.

She wouldn't come into the cottage. In one very real way, she couldn't. Snowflake was in the doorway, and some of that blockage was inadvertent: the stallion was just that big. The rest came from fear, and so much of it was his.

"Please! Please, you have to, I found him and he's... he's..."

He said nothing. In some ways, it felt as if he couldn't.

Fleur, who'd trotted, was having trouble seeing the filly past his bulk. She got the impression of a very light yellow coat, got a glimpse of glasses, saw that the wings were hanging at an awkward angle, feathers dripping with froth...

"He's hurt! I went to Sweetbark and she -- I had to come, she told me to come, she wouldn't even look at him..."

...which was when she smelled the blood.

She hitched herself to a little wagon.

She's too young to fly for very long. She couldn't fly, not with the burden. So she buzzed. She galloped as fast as she dared, using her wings to speed herself up. She's too young and too small and she kept it up the whole way here, because there was no other choice.

And her mark is pawprints. She found it, and she had to do something because it's her mark, because she's a filly and she cares...

"Please!" Weeping now, shedding what might be the last moisture in the little body.

"I..." It surprised Fleur, just a little: on some level, she'd been waiting for a rather pained sort of 'Yeah'. "Zipporwhill... I..."

"I know she's not here, but Sweetbark wouldn't and you're all there is..."

She was still trotting forward, a little more quickly. But on one level, it could be argued that there was no hurry. She was working with a lifetime.

"I'm supposed..." The words were almost broken, and the stallion's posture was quickly following suit. "I'm supposed... to send you to Canterlot. I -- Fluttershy told me not to, to never --"

"He won't make it! He's barely breathing now! You have to! You --"

"Snowflake."

It was a tone she'd used with Fluttershy. It was a level of authority which sometimes had to appear in the bedroom. The sound of a pony who knew what they were doing, and did so on a level their audience couldn't match. The sound of domination.

He responded more to tone than name, glanced back at her. It was enough to let her see the fear in his eyes.

"Step aside," she told him. "Let me see."

He did, with so much of that movement coming from instinct. She saw.

Groundhog.

Male.

Bite is through the abdominal wall. Bowels are probably perforated.

Barely breathing.

Already been pulled from wherever she found him to the vet, and then from there to here. She put blankets in the wagon. She tried to be gentle when she moved him.

She came all the way here with its blood in her coat.

"You're Zipporwhill," Fleur softly said as her front knees bent, bringing her that much closer to the filly's level. "That's right, isn't it?"

The weeping, snuffling little head just barely managed a nod.

"You're very brave." Looking at the wet green eyes. "Most ponies wouldn't try to touch someone that hurt. And I know you did your best not to hurt him any more. I know you want to help him. But I think..."

Body within the shadows of the cottage. Head and horn in Sun. Saying not the things the filly might want to hear, but that which had to be said. For the filly was innocent and in so many ways, innocence had to be protected.

But no matter what anypony did, innocence always died.

It could be argued that death was what it was there for.

"...you know -- he can't be." As gently as she could, "I won't lie to you, Zipporwhill. I won't tell you tales about potions that carry him to mystic meadows, where he'll be okay but can't see his friends again. He's dying. There's nothing which can stop it. All we can do is take his pain away. Do you want that?"

The filly was looking at her now, and the expression was a familiar one. There was pain, sorrow, a sudden fury at a world which didn't seem to care. But there was also the face of a child who had just been treated as an adult, and whose newest wish was to be a foal again.

"...you can't save him?"

"Nopony could." One mare to another.

"...you can... make him stop hurting?"

"If you want me to. But... it'll be the end for him. If I let him stay awake, Zipporwhill... he might live for a few hours. But he'll be in pain the whole time, pain so strong that all he can think about is the pain. If he sleeps... he'll rest. And when he rests, he'll let go."

From behind her, with so much of that pain now being carried by another. "Fleur... she told me to never..."

"This," she told the stallion, "isn't about you."

He shut up.

"What do you want me to do, Zipporwhill?" Fleur asked, as they all listened to the animal's whimpers, the little squeals. Waited.

"If you help him," the little pegasus sniffed, "he dies?"

Fleur nodded.

"...h-h-help him..."

She straightened up. Looked at Snowflake.

"Where's the herb patch?"

He didn't answer. Stood stock-still, dumbstruck. Being useless.

"You mixed the medicine for the skunk. With fresh herbs, and you left the room to gather them. You weren't gone all that long. Fluttershy's a vet, and a good vet grows their own herbs. Where is it, Snowflake?"

"It's..." He swallowed. "It's in the attic."

Easy directions, then: just keep going up. "Bring them in. Take Zipporwhill into the restroom, help her wash up, cool her down. Put the groundhog on the examination table. I'll go get what he needs."

Almost a plea now. "How do you know --"

But she was already moving, and so ignored him.

It'll be there. All of it will be there. Because you're a vet, aren't you, Fluttershy? A real vet.

(Why had Sweetbark sent the filly here? Why had the mare stretched out the animal's suffering, tortured the filly by making her hear the little cries for so much longer? Why had a perfect vet turned a patient away?)

And when you're a real vet...

There was a little sunroof in the attic, and light streamed down onto the patch of dirt. Touched dark gloss, and silently soaked in.

To the eye, the leaves were black velvet. To the touch... the same. They had a light coating of fuzz, something which made them soft enough to tickle -- assuming enough contact could be made through fur. It was easier to tickle the very young, when the coat was less coarse, allowed more sensation to pass through.

To taste, however... well, Fleur could, if she'd wanted to. She had before, when it was in this state, and it hadn't tasted like much of anything. A leaf with the feel of a peach, and none of the taste. It was slightly bitter, a little sharp, and didn't have flavor so much as it had reactions. You could eat as much of it as you liked, if you were desperate enough to consume something with no real nutritional value, which couldn't even be enjoyed. You just had to be very careful about what else you ate.

Her field moved carefully. The leaves had to be broken off at the exact base, so the plant would be more readily able to grow replacements.

And there's the red petals. Grouped close, but not too close. And the blue flowers, under glass. Glass with holes, so the air can reach it -- but holes too small for any of your animals to get in, and the dome is anchored so they can't knock it over. You know exactly what you're doing, Fluttershy.

(It had been years.)
(It had been a lifetime.)
(It hadn't been long enough to forget.)
(It never would be.)

Leaves, petals, and flowers. She reanchored the glass before she left, carried the ingredients in her corona as she trotted back down, keeping to the same path she'd followed on the way up. She'd passed what she'd felt was the door to Fluttershy's bedroom, but... this wasn't the time.

Snowflake met her on the final ramp.

"What are you doing?" He'd gotten a little strength back, with all of it in the soft-spoken low voice.

"Where is she?"

"On the new couch."

Giving it the first tear stains. "The groundhog?"

"Examination room. Fleur, what are you --"

She told him, and his ears went back.

"...what?"

Distractedly, Oh. Right. Don't clack my teeth. Try it this way...

"Putaverunt Dolore," she told him, and before he could ask, "It means 'thought pain,' Snowflake. It's a poison, one of the deadliest ones known. It takes three plants to make, and Fluttershy had all of them growing in the attic, because she has to. I'm going to mix it, and then I'll give it to the groundhog. Then it'll be over."

He was staring at her again.

"Poison," he tried, as if it was the only word there was. And at that, it was a poor substitute for 'yeah.'

"Animals die here," she told him. "All the time. What did you think she did to them? Just asked them to die, and then they decided to obey? But it has to be mixed fresh, because the concoction is only stable for about five minutes. Nothing preserves it longer than that. It has to be --"

mixed fresh every time

"-- done now."

the clacking sound, the mindless clacking

"You're mixing a poison," he tried again.

"It's painless. It'll just -- go to sleep."

Desperation, protest, perhaps both. "You said it's called thought pain..."

"That's what happens if I take it." She was getting sick of the staring. "It can't kill me. It can't kill you. It can't kill anything that thinks. It'll just make you wish you were dead."

It's a test.

They don't want to fight you, because they might lose. They can't afford to look weak. So they tell you to prove you're intelligent, to prove you aren't prey. If you're not prey, you'll drink it. And then they watch you writhe, and they laugh and laugh and they can pretend they aren't the weakest thing there. Except they still are.

They'll tell you it's the worst pain of your life, and they're wrong.

Thinking is pain.

"As long as you can think," she told him, "you'll live. And that groundhog is dying, and I think you're in the way."

She hadn't meant to be that forceful. Nowhere that dominant. But he moved, and she headed for the examination room. Alone.

There were things you never forgot, no matter how much you wished to. Time abraded memory: somepony had said that, or perhaps someone. And for this, time refused to do the one job it truly had.

You crush the leaves. You pour hot water over the petals. You grind the flowers.

You hear the clacking.

The horrible thing is hearing it.

The worst thing is hearing it stop.

Stir...

How many times have you done this, Fluttershy?

A pony ruled by her own fears, controlled by the distant laughter of others, who started every day knowing she might have to kill...

A hundred? Two hundred? More? How long ago did you come to ground? How many times...?

For Fleur, it was the third.

Little whimpers from the table. Tiny squeaks.

"I can't talk to you."

No answer to her partial lie, at least none that she could understand.

"Not in words you know," she pointlessly explained. "Not that you can hear. Not that you..."

Stopped. Took a deep breath, and told time to let her be in the now.

"Something decided you were prey," she quietly told it. "And it was right. But you don't torment prey. You make it quick. Clean. You just... end it. Maybe you were strong enough to get away from it, or it tried to play with you. Either way, it lost. It doesn't get to eat you."

Letting the brew steep, as the tiny squeals seemed to soften.

"Do you know the victory cry of prey, when it wins?" she asked the groundhog as she trotted to the table, the deep purple liquid held still within the floating vial. "'Die hungry.' Whatever tried to eat you will be hungry tonight. Maybe that means you won."

Her corona surrounded the little animal, cradled it. Tilted the vial towards its mouth.

"You won," she whispered. "You..."

She climbed up onto the new couch, moved around the fresh stain. The filly only looked up at the end of it, registering presence more than movement.

Fleur looked down at the little pegasus. Silently waited.

And then the tears were soaking into her coat.

She allowed the filly, a child with pawprints for a mark, to cry against her. To snuffle and sniff and ruin her makeup. It didn't matter. Somepony had to be there, and... this time, that was Fleur.

She hadn't gone to Fluttershy, when her charge had cried. But that was different, for Fluttershy needed to be stronger. This time, there had been a death, and...

Innocence had died.

Somepony had to mourn.

The Initial Assumption Was That She Was Purely Decorative

She had some time, and so much of it was time alone.

There had been a minor argument, one where the other party had only participated because his shock had been too deep to acknowledge the need for a simple surrender. Fleur had felt that somepony had to take Zipporwhill home, and she'd also believed it had to be Snowflake: even after her introductory party, she was still a relative stranger in town, somepony whom the majority populace didn't really know. The filly's parents might not be personally familiar with Snowflake, but they would recognize him: as with Fleur, permanently registering an impression of that form on first sight was just about automatic and in his case, they would have had a much longer time to connect it with the actual pony. He'd (rather shakily) believed that she shouldn't be left to hold down the cottage by herself, she'd quietly asked what it had to deliver which was worse than that, and he'd lost.

(It was only some time after he'd taken Zipporwhill off the grounds (trotting slowly at her side, giving the filly all the time she needed, time which might never be enough) that Fleur realized she'd never checked his puzzle. She didn't know if it had been safe. It almost sent her out the door after them, to make sure, even feeling that it wouldn't be in the stallion, it couldn't be him -- but until she assembled the image, she could never be certain. It was already what might have been the worst day of Zipporwhill's life, and she'd just... let them go.)

It left her alone within the cottage, or nearly so. Alone when it came to anything which could think, at least on the pony level. There were always animals, and with her as the lone occupant... they had been suspicious, during her original visit. Cautious. She suspected it happened with everypony, and that it was one of the reasons some might be reluctant to approach the cottage: weaker minds would be unnerved by the potential scrutiny of so many little eyes. In this case, they were watching her again. A few chipmunks followed her from room to room, and there was always a vole within viewing distance of her tail. The residents were maintaining their scrutiny, perhaps making sure she didn't go anywhere which was solely the domain of their mistress -- and it occurred to her that they just might be capable of reporting her movements, presuming Fluttershy managed to ask the right questions. It was another reason that bedroom was currently off-limits.

They watched her -- but it didn't seem to be with the same intensity as Fleur's first day on the grounds. Perhaps they were just getting used to her. And at any rate, they had very little to worry about. Fleur had time alone, and in so many homes

(there had been so many homes, so many now-sleeping clients with their puzzles solved, a chance to look for the physical evidence)

she would have used that. But her current time within the cottage had been dedicated to another purpose. She had mixed the poison for the third time, and that meant her mind, something which knew thought was pain, was ready to spend most of her waking hours (and all of the sleeping ones) bringing back the first two. Things had happened at the cottage, things which made her remember, and she didn't want to remember. She couldn't prevent the inevitable reliving of events within the nightscape: she didn't have to deal with the same thing under Sun.

So she worked. Steadily, carefully, almost mindlessly. Complex thought temporarily suffocated in the fog of menial labor. And there was so much labor to be done at the cottage, always one more task to accomplish: that was what you got when you lived around animals. A lifetime of pure busywork. One more stain to clean. Potential combatants to separate. Arguments over food which needed defusing, and the cottage residents weren't any more used to being ambushed by a field than the recently-groomed dog had been.

There were times when she was interrupted -- but that was just more work. Additional appointments manifesting from the book as fur, flesh and feathers. Ponies brought their companions in, and those ponies were rather naturally surprised to see Fleur -- but it felt as if some of them could have been more surprised. They were used to Fluttershy. Those who'd been out to the cottage at the right times accepted Snowflake's presence. Fleur taking care of everything should have been an outright shock, and one did react that way -- but another, perhaps late to the news while sleepwalking her way through the rumor mill, was only surprised that Fluttershy was on a mission. That Fleur was there in her place... didn't generate the same reaction. It didn't seem to create much of a reaction at all.

She took care of another pony's clients and in doing so, discovered that Fluttershy didn't seem to have a blacklist. There was, however, a cabinet drawer filled with unpaid bills, and one earth pony discovered that the current occupant had an insistence on payment for past visits prior to new services being rendered, especially when the last three were still awaiting settlement. (She'd held the documents in front of his face until he was effectively dominated into reading them. Getting the actual bits had required literally keeping the medicine over his head, with the field bubble bobbing just out of jumping hoof-press reach.)

The groundhog's remains had to be dealt with, and there was a procedure for that. You ate prey -- well, she didn't. She couldn't. She'd...

not now

...followed that, as far as she could. Prey which had been honorably defeated was consumed: that was the right of the victor. And there were those among Fluttershy's charges who needed meat to live. The groundhog was still capable of providing that, at least if the serving party waited at least five minutes beyond death. She'd been told that such meat was safe to consume, but... there was an aftertaste. Something which lingered. A reminder.

Prey which had won... there was another option available, an honorable one, and she'd left the cottage with the little corpse floating within the field bubble. Left via the back door for the first time, because she'd realized that there was something else Fluttershy would have regularly had to do. Fleur had never scouted that part of the grounds, and so there was a sensible place to begin looking. It also turned out to be the only place she needed to look.

Several of the resident animals followed her, continuing to watch. It surprised her, that there were herbivores willing to stay so close to the smell of death. (Air didn't move well through a field, but it did move. Enough for the surrounded to breathe, enough for scents to escape.) But perhaps they were simply used to it.

She did what was necessary, at the border of the marker stones. And when she was finished, she stood still and quiet under Sun, counting the little graves.

The first thing she did when Snowflake came back (during a quiet moment, with the most recent client departed and her going to work on that one, now slightly-burnt stain) was the silent ignition of her talent.

There were still too many animals close by, something which would discomfort her in this kind of bulk: she couldn't use her deepest magic for long. But she didn't have to solve his puzzle: she just had to look for specific pieces, she had to know if she'd just --

--you're safe.

I thought you were.

But it was easy for somepony to believe that. Fleur was the only pony in the world who could know. And she'd let him leave the grounds...

...it's all right. I didn't make a mistake. He's safe.

She's safe.

The full solution would have to wait for later: she had just enough time to see that she'd been worried over nothing (at least when it came to him), to pick up on what she considered to be a rather natural fondness for physical power, and to detect that some of the shades felt as if they'd recently brightened. And then she shut down her talent again, because she really didn't need to know what several dozen squirrels looked for in the way of strongly-shading tails.

She'd worked, and she'd used that as a way to avoid thought. But now it was time to think. It might have even been time for some degree of pain, because pain had many uses, once you'd learned how to forge it. Her nightscapes would contain memory, memory was pain, and with so much pain available...

"How is she?"

He took a slow, deep breath.

"With her mother. She's still shaken, but... she's with her mother. That's the important thing."

Assuming the parent was competent. I might have to go by that house...

"I'm sorry I was gone so long," he continued. "They're all the way on the other side of the settled zone, and Zipporwhill... I couldn't try to hurry her." A more awkward pause. "I also stopped to pick up Genova. She's already scampering around the living room."

"It's all right." She'd expected him to.

He managed to make eye contact, something which was done on a more-or-less direct line. He was huge -- but so much of that was bulk: in height, he was just on the tall side, and so was she. He made eye contact -- but he didn't manage to hold it for long.

Softly, "She told me to never kill."

His head dipped. The single earring seemed to sag.

"That if it looked fatal, I just had to -- send them to Canterlot. I think she knew there was always a chance for something like today, where there wasn't time. I guess she was just hoping I'd be lucky. Stay lucky. So she didn't teach me about..."

Powerful legs bent under unbearable weight.

"To Canterlot," Fleur steadily repeated.

He managed a nod.

You're going to ask me about how I knew how to mix it, if I give you long enough. But I think I can put you off for a while, because you're not used to talking. And you're not the worst thing... but you're also not a killer. Not for something like this. I watched you work: you're not the worst substitute.

But you could never be a real vet.

You don't want to talk about death. Think about death. Deal with death. And Fluttershy does that every day.

When I was a filly --

--no.

She could push him off indefinitely, if it came down to that, and Fluttershy -- didn't ask many questions. For now, there was something she wanted to know. Something which suddenly seemed rather overdue.

"To Canterlot," Fleur said again, keeping her tones steady. "But not to Ponyville." And carefully, artfully, she lowered her own body, all the way to the floor, making sure to avoid stains and blackened patches. Looked up at the damp red eyes, giving the stallion the illusion of control. That he was gazing down at a mare who was confused, helpless, and only wanting answers.

The first aspect had something true within it, even if that was rapidly being frayed by the force of rising suspicion. The second was purest lie. The third was for now, and whether he registered what was happening or not, it made her next words into an order. One which he obeyed.

"Tell me about Sweetbark."

and then the sound stopped

She was still in front of the bathroom mirror.

It had been hours before she'd left the cottage: long enough that when she finally reached the one place she'd needed to go, it had rather predictably been closed. And then when she'd gotten to her rented bedroom, tried to collapse under the blankets after navigating the treacherous ramp, tried to sleep... she hadn't. Which had eventually been followed by something worse: she had.

It meant she was still in front of the mirror, with the mug of wake-up juice (just about empty) balanced on the edge of the sink. Still applying cosmetics as Sun began to think about coming over the horizon, carefully elevating herself to a position which didn't quite approach its orbit, but felt free to soar a little higher at any time.

She'd told Snowflake that she wouldn't be arriving quite so early: she had somewhere to go first. She had to be at her best mentally, and thus the wake-up juice: as a substitute for sleep, it was only effective if you didn't count on it too often or for very long, and so Fleur tended to ration out her usual small supply. (There were ponies who just about used it as a substitute for water and after drinking it with that kind of frequency, found it had acquired exactly the same strength.) But physically... she'd been given a rough idea of what her target looked like, and that had been it: a rough idea. Snowflake wasn't that poor a speaker, probably nowhere near as bad as he feared he was -- but a certain type of male asked to describe mares in front of a female would often neglect details like beauty, generally from fear of making the listener feel they were being compared. It spoke well of his intelligence, knowing enough to avoid the trap, and it had given her just about nothing to work with.

Fleur was enhancing her appearance because no matter what this mare truly looked like, Fleur was going to look better. And without a true measure to work against, that meant going just about all the way up.

One more layer on the eyelashes...

She had to hunch down a little for that. Taller than average, and the mirror hadn't been placed for her height.

trying to reach the mirror

Stop it, Fleur. Just... stop. The dreams were bad enough.

Dreams she hadn't been able to escape. Locked into the nightscape to the very end.

Multiple endings.

I could try to learn that spell again.

It wasn't exactly her first time to that thought. She'd tried so many times... but in many ways, a unicorn's ability to learn workings was directly connected to who that unicorn was. You couldn't master a spell unless you could feel not only a personal connection to it, but had belief in it. Somepony bored by math would never pick up a working that did sums for them, because they were bored by math and so those spells were also boring. And in Fleur's case...

I can't teleport because you can't escape reality.

I can't stop dreams because you can't escape your life.

You could run from it. You could go to where nopony knew about it. You could change it. But you couldn't alter the past. Time had locked events into amber, and the dreams sent her with all limbs pushing through earth gone to liquid, left her to drown in memory until chaos chose to set her free. Nopony could escape their pain, any more than it could be cured. They could only learn how to use it.

A few more highlights in my tail, near the base. The schedule says overcast and colder. More emphasis because there's less natural light.

You took pain, and you forged it...

Too close to the mark: that evaporated. Because other than clothing, nothing concealed any aspect of a mark. She blamed the slip on her lack of sleep, took another sip of juice and redid the general area.

"Turn your pain into a weapon."

I have my prey.

Time to scout.

Normally, she would have measured her results by accidents caused, and that was still a viable means of judging just how much impact she was having on some of the passersby: a little more than what was caused by the soon-to-be-inevitable wall. But it wasn't as reliable as usual, any more than it had been during the last part of the trot back on the previous day, after she'd crossed the bridge. There were ponies who were looking at her, because some ponies always looked.

And there were those who were looking inside. Looking at personal visions of things they couldn't truly see. Ponies who were... waiting.

She'd had a thought when Snowflake had told her about the mission. She'd had it several times and at some point during that trot, looking at how so much of the citizenry was moving, seeing eyes focused on inner illusions, she'd formally completed it.

Fluttershy is on a mission.

It didn't affect everypony. Some simply went about their day, while others took one too-long look at her and even more simply went into gardens, generally by trying to trot through the fence. But there were those whose tails were carried too low, whose manes were slightly limp. Spines that seemed to have an invisible minotaur hand pressing against the center. Eyes which didn't see much of anything real.

The Bearers were away. And Fleur knew very little about what had happened on previous missions -- but in this case, she knew enough. Nightmare. Changelings. The Empire, and whatever had lurked behind that Barrier. Situations where the most reasonable expectation would have been multiple fatalities.

The Bearers were away, and so much of a settled zone focused its hearing into the dark, listening for sounds which could never truly reach them.

Waited for those sounds to stop.

She could die.

She'd had the thought. She'd seen how many others were having it, and then she'd done her best to deal with it. To work things out.

What would happen, if Fluttershy died on a mission?

Not parole.

It was exceptionally dark inner humor, weighty enough to drag any silent chuckle down into the pit. No, Celestia was unlikely to treat Fluttershy's passing as a reason to release Fleur: here's your license back because while I'm sure you were doing your best, there just isn't a pony for you to help any more and so I consider your sentence complete. That was a fantasy worth indulging exactly long enough to laugh at it. Fluttershy dying prior to the task's completion would likely put Fleur on trial for every last one of those postponed, unjustified charges.

Assuming there was a courthouse which could be used.
Assuming there was a settled zone intact enough to have a courthouse.
Assuming any judges were alive.

She looked at the most distracted-seeming of the commuters. He didn't notice her scrutiny.

How much do you know? About how bad things could really become?

There was no way to ask. She could only wonder.

Celestia thinks Fluttershy is the lone control on Discord. That's the whole reason for this assignment, in her eyes. Fluttershy has foals and then when she dies, Discord has somepony else to care about. Because if he cares at all, if he isn't just pretending to care in order to be free -- then he doesn't care about anypony else, nopony and no one. No one in the world.

There's one person in the world he might care about.

What does Discord do if she dies?

Would he mourn? The sky gone strange again, clouds turning pink, a weeping rain of chocolate milk. Every trotting pony moving in a funeral procession, whether they wished to or not. Wailing plants, a thousand rivers playing a million dirges.

Or does he lash out?

Somepony dies. The only pony you care about dies. And you're angry at the world, you don't understand, he sounded like a child some of the time in the pasture and a child just lashes out...

Temper tantrums. Pounding hooves against the old walls, until they splinter. Until it feels like your hooves might crack, and you just keep kicking because it's all you can do and since your heart already came apart, your hooves don't matter any more.

He has a temper tantrum, with a Bearer dead...

She didn't know very much about the Elements: hardly anything real. There were rumors, of course. That each one chose, somehow. And if Fluttershy died... it was possible that her Element would choose another. Doing so quickly, providing the chance to almost immediately trap chaos within stone.

Or it might take longer. Enough time for damage to be done.

Or it might not happen at all.

"A friend whose lifestyle, through necessity and destiny alike, has more than a hint of danger about it."

Another confirmation of Celestia's near-mark talent for understatement. Fluttershy could die on a mission, and yet Celestia still sent her into danger, keeps sending her over and over again. Fluttershy could meet the one animal she can't calm in time --

-- Fleur took the pain, heated it, smoothed the edge --

-- and die. She trots under a falling object at the wrong moment and she dies. She catches a disease and dies. A wing cramp at high altitude -- considered what little she'd seen of her charge's flight -- probably not that. But the world has a thousand ways to kill you every single day, and if she dies...

There was, Fleur supposed, a rather strong argument for pulling Fluttershy out of the Bearers entirely, and an even better one for placing the pegasus in a well-lit room with no sharp edges, then pushing food in thrice-daily. There was a chance that her charge would be willing to submit to such treatment, and a much better one of Discord feeling that such plush imprisonment was offensive.

You only had so much time, and then it ran out. Fluttershy's time wasn't infinite, and whatever amount existed was constantly at risk.

...maybe I wouldn't have stopped her from treating animals. That's part of her mark, and if she goes against her mark for too long... Death by stress-induced insanity remained death. But to keep her as an active part of the Bearers...

It didn't make sense. So much didn't make sense. She needed more information, and extra places to acquire it from. Sources. Ponies.

Also, Fleur was starting to feel as if she'd been asked to single-hoofedly save the world. And at that, she now felt severely underpaid.

Which is also apparently habit for Celestia.

Save the world. Through getting what might be its most socially-awkward occupant happily married off and pregnant.

Don't flatter yourself, Fleur. She always had ponies willing to do that for her: internally, perspective was best. It might not be that bad. Discord could just -- deal with it... That one fell apart rather quickly. Or there could be a new Bearer quickly enough to act. Somewhat more likely, but when Fleur had originally raised the issue of putting the draconequus back in stone...

She didn't know if she was saving the world. She just knew it was at risk every day. Anypony's time could always run out at any moment. Everyone's. Anyone's. But in some aspects, that was the way it had always been and so in that sense, nothing had changed. The task was the task, and today's portion of it might also be filed under 'emotional support,' if only because the palace's accounting department might ask questions when it saw 'revenge'.

You made me remember.

Pain was many things. Prey was generally one.

Pain could be a weapon...

She got there early. There had been no issues in finding the building: the failed attempt on the previous day meant it was her second trip and in any case, it was well-marked on the map.

It was a fairly standard structure, at least from the outside: quite a bit of central Ponyville conformed to a given architectural style. The central distinguishing factors were a well-maintained garden, one which received frequent fertilizer -- but with some of the grass showing signs of urine burn. There was the sign, of course. And the outer colors were just a little brighter than those on the buildings nearby.

There was nopony waiting in line. No emergencies trying to inflict themselves outside of scheduled hours. Fleur settled in near the door and waited. After a while, she became bored enough to start formally learning the area.

Device repair shop over there.

Not that she had many devices. Not that she had any right now...

My things should have gotten here already. If this mission goes on for more than another day or two, I have to get into Canterlot --

-- pony on the approach. New puzzle. Mare --

"Well, look at you!" The tone was slightly amazed: a pony who hadn't expected to find a work of art on their doorstep and wanted to spend a few seconds in celebrating the fact. It also came from a strictly-verbal height: the mare was shorter than Fleur, ground-bound, and had still found a way to loft her words so that every syllable came across as talking down. "I'd heard the stories, of course, but to actually see you...!"

The mare came closer still. Began to trot in a small circle, taking in Fleur from every angle.

"So beautiful! All attention to form and none to function!" One last look at the tail, and then she stopped in front of Fleur, beaming. "So you must be Fleur. I certainly can't imagine you being anypony else. Well, I thought I'd see you eventually, because it's not as if anypony could ever miss you. I just didn't get to attend the party. I usually don't, unless I hear somepony has a pet. And I have working hours, of course."

I read your sign. You don't have many of them.

With a kind smile, "But I'm sure there's some reason you've come by, and I'm equally certain you'll be able to tell me what it is. Eventually. I mean, once we're inside: no need to discuss things in the street!"

Fleur said nothing, and that act was deliberate. She just smiled back, an expression so vacant as to leave a Space For Rent sign hanging from the back of her own head.

You think I'm stupid. You took one look at me and decided I'm an idiot. And you're being condescending, but you're so condescending that I'm not even sure you know you're doing it.

I'll wear your assigned mask for a little while, because I'll get a few seconds when I drop it.

"You did come by for a reason?" the mare checked. "You're not lost, are you? Because I do know you're still new in town. And the streets take a long time to memorize. More so for some than others! So if you just happen to need directions --"

"-- it's just a small favor," Fleur smiled. "A little thing. If you'd be so kind?"

"Of course! I don't have any patients this early, we've both managed to beat my receptionist here..." Still beaming. "Just come inside and I'll see what I can do!" A tiny pause, and then the tones further lofted into that of the adult teaching a foal. "Actually -- I do need to get to my door..."

Fleur stepped aside, allowed the mare space. And then she followed Sweetbark in.

There were several kinds of evaluation in progress. Some of them were simultaneous.

Physically... when it came to the mare's appearance, Fleur wasn't impressed. An earth pony of average height and build. Yellow-brown fur, and not the best shade of it. The brown eyes were on the bright side, but the mare hadn't really done anything with the white streaks in the light blue hair: those were natural, and it was naturally a shame that they'd mostly been left to fend for themselves. However, the mane had been tied back (much more typical for a vet than Fluttershy's long coral fall), and the tail showed a partial wrap at the base, along with signs that the wrap had been there overnight. A white jacket with some pockets, and the mark...

Cat head. Dog head. And -- a duck. Indicating range? But there's no overt medical symbol in there. Not that there had to be: some marks were more symbolic than others, with Fleur's own being at the extreme of the range -- locally -- and Fluttershy's talent was indicated by butterflies.

The waiting room told her a lot. The pictures: that was the first major factor. Photos of happy ponies with their joyous companions made for the majority of the decorations. There were some clumsier images which mostly featured the animals by themselves, but the quality could be forgiven, as they were typically rendered in watercolors or crayon. Everywhere Fleur looked, it was happiness and love, glossy fur and silky feathers to go with bright eyes. The gleam of health, in dozens of images. Over and over again.

But behind them, when it came to the paint on the walls, the furniture... it was all bright colors. Too bright, the overly-energetic shades which were generally isolated within nurseries. Hues for the very young, those whose parents didn't want their foals to know there was such a thing as darkness just yet. Painting done by the adults who didn't know how not to be afraid of it and so set up a world where shadows might never intrude, so they wouldn't ever have to teach that most vital lesson. It was a waiting room which came with its own imaginary nightlight, and Fleur found herself briefly looking for a crib mobile.

And there was one other thing to look for. She'd already picked up on Sweetbark's approach with that unique sense, but now she needed to know more. She was hoping for pieces she could work with...

Fleur reached out, solved Sweetbark's puzzle and in doing so, nearly fell asleep.

Oh.

Oh, for...

It would have been unfair to describe Sweetbark as 'frigid,' and it wasn't because the more enticing term of 'arctic' was just within reach. The mare (currently single, and strictly heterosexual) had some interest in sex, in that said interest level was higher than zero. It was just that...

In a related sense, it was sometimes unfair to describe sex as 'vanilla,' because the actual flavor was a pleasurable one. Fleur wasn't sure what vanilla had done to anypony in order to become associated with plain, boring, unimaginative, repetitive interaction. But in looking at Sweetbark's puzzle, Fleur was seeing a mare for whom vanilla was a risky proposition. The intensity of Prance vanilla would have put her into full retreat at the mere possibility of such scandalous activity. This was a mare for whom, if sex could be regarded as baking a cake, felt the act of creation consisted of pouring bleached flour into a mold, leaving it on the counter, and expecting something interesting to happen. Any lack of flavor was clearly the fault of the other party, because flour was where all cakes came from and so if you couldn't make flour interesting...

Sweetbark was a mare who, if approached with even the most basic idea for true pleasure, would be discovered as having a single favored position: snout in cabinet, looking for medicine to treat the headache she didn't actually have.

"So I heard Fluttershy's on a mission!" the earth pony gushed. "Which is why you're dropping by. Not that she usually comes herself, of course. In fact, I hardly ever see her. Well, of course she's at the cottage most of the time, or visiting her friends. But she just doesn't come here."

It was the too-fast speech of a pony who was trying to prevent anypony else from entering the conversation, mostly because they still weren't sure the other party could actually talk.

"But it's good to know she's doing well!" Glanced back, smiled. "She must be, in order to afford you. I certainly never expected her to hire an assistant!"

Fleur blinked.

The cinema...

Ponies had been talking about Fleur: that was just about inevitable. And now she knew what some of them had been saying.

"Assistant," she charmingly parroted.

"Well, yes," the earth pony beamed. "I presumed that's why she took you on." She looked at Fleur's horn. "To hold things. On demand. Since you don't have a mark for being a vet. Or a proper assistant. But you can always ask a unicorn to move something! Up to a certain weight."

Fleur smiled.

"Actually..." Sweetbark continued, "what is your mark? I haven't seen that one before."

"Acies," Fleur happily replied, and did so at maximum accent.

It was the mare's turn to blink and in her case, she just kept doing it.

Awkwardly, with a hesitation which registered as the first small victory, "Ash-ce-e-es..."

"No, acies," Fleur smiled.

"I'm... not sure I've heard about..."

"Can we talk in your examination room?" Fleur beamed. "I'd love to see it."

It was somewhat more subdued: less pictures, more testimonial letters. There were also a few anatomy charts on the walls, along with the expected quantity of medical tools and devices. Fleur noted the high level of quality, and how a few of the more complicated ones were completely pristine.

The mare turned, faced Fleur directly. Looked her up and down, with most of that being up.

"So what can I do for you today?" she asked. "I know Snowflake is at the cottage." A tiny head shake. "That poor dear! He tries so hard, I know, but... well, you've seen him, of course. And his mark. Completely inappropriate. But he's all she could get, and he cares enough to try. And, of course, he does have the common sense to know where the train is. And to tell ponies when to board it. But with him in some sort of charge, sending you here, when Fluttershy never comes by, and of course he can't right now, not that he ever does... well, I'd almost have to assume it's rather serious, yes?"

There was a little worry in that last part. It mostly cowered in a corner, hoping Fleur wouldn't notice it, and all of its dreams came to naught.

"It's minor," Fleur replied. "Nothing a perfect vet couldn't manage!" And before Sweetbark could say anything, "The first time I heard about you was from Kori's companion. She was so happy with your services! And that was what she kept saying: perfect!" Added a small head tilt. "And when I came here, I didn't know anything about the Bearers, so -- I thought you had to be Magic! The magic of perfection!"

A few more blinks, added to a generous supply of freely-radiating ego.

"Oh, Kori," Sweetbark finally beamed. "Yes, she's one of my favorites. Did you see her page-turning trick? On command, every time! And sometimes on her own, at just the right time. I swear, she just watches Bluestocking's eyes and knows when her pony has finished reading. But cockatiels can be very bright."

Fleur nodded.

"Brighter than some ponies," Sweetbark added. "Still, calling me perfect... well, I'm flattered. I can diagnose a dog in a minute and a snake in a second, but perfect? It's a lovely sentiment. And to think of me, however briefly, as Magic itself... thank you, Fleur. I mean that."

"But then I met Twilight," Fleur smiled. "Have you met her?" Knowing the answer.

The other smile warped at the edges.

"Yes. Once. But she rather naturally takes her owl to her friend. I do have clients coming later, Fleur, so what do you and Snowflake need my expert help with?"

"Nigro holoserica," Fleur said, and did so perfectly.

The mare's expression collapsed.

"...what?"

"Well," Fleur continued to smile, "I had to use some yesterday. On the groundhog. The one which you sent to the cottage, being pulled along a rough path by a filly who had to listen to every little cry when the road made it hurt all the more. It's a pretty long trip, you know. I made it last night. She would have been hauling for -- well, anyway, the point is that I used some yesterday. And our supply is a little on the low side. So I thought, there's a perfect vet in town, she'll have her own herb patch, and I'll just trot over and ask her for a snipping I can plant!" Another head tilt. "That's all right, isn't it? Just a snipping? And I'd love to see your herb patch, because it just has to be a lovely one! I'm sorry if this comes across as offensive in any way, but the thought of an earth pony maintaining her very own herb patch..."

The streaked tail dipped.

"You," Sweetbark queried, with all joviality gone, "used that plant."

"Well," Fleur beamed, "clearly not by itself..."

Far too carefully, "How do you know how to do that?"

Fleur extravagantly lofted her ears.

"Words go into these," she smiled. "Then I think about what they meant. And when I need them, I just have to remember what they were. That's how learning works." And with the mask kicked into the wall, shattered against the failed armor of testimonials, she seized her chance.

Fleur's smile fell away, and she let the words strike.

"Actually," she calmly, evenly said, "I'm not sure about your herb patch. I was told you get a few of them delivered. Dried, or powdered in advance. That may just be to save time. But if I found your patch... would I find nigro holoserica there? Do you have the other two? Am I asking for what you don't have? In that case, I'll take something else instead. An explanation. Why did you send a dying animal across the agony of an eighth-gallop, towed along by a child whose nightmares may take moons to fade, instead of doing your job?"

Her volume had never changed.

The mare, whose tail would have been splayed on the floor if there had just been enough of it, couldn't manage to stare at Fleur. She was blinking far too quickly for that, with pupils expanding and contracting. Trying, and failing, to refocus on an unexpected reality.

"...who are you?"

"I think you just called me Fluttershy's assistant," Fleur softly replied. "Let's go with that for now. Do you have those plants, Sweetbark? Were you just out at the moment, and you were planning on coming to the cottage to ask Fluttershy for snippings? Or have you ever had them? Have you had them one single day since the two of you have both been in this settled zone? Because a real vet makes sure they can brew that mix, at any minute, in every hour of their working lives --"

"-- Fluttershy," the ears-back mare broke in, with the faulty wrapping on the partially-bound tail starting to work free as the lashing began, "isn't a real veterinarian. She doesn't have any formal schooling, not a single college class or diploma. She's self-taught. And unlike pony medicine, the law says she's allowed to practice without that graduation. It's a loophole of sorts, one designed to allow students some intern experience between semesters. But she hasn't had one class..."

"She has a herb patch." The tone was casual, because that made things all the worse. "A complete one. Should we compare --"

"-- but she has a little skill," Sweetbark shot back. "Enough to do a few basic things right, even with a mark for communication instead of medicine."

You focus on marks a lot...

Fleur took the chance. Sweetly, "And your mark would be for?"

Sweetbark's ears went flat against her skull.

"And with all that land," she continued, as if Fleur had said nothing at all. "The sheer number of animals, the expenses she has... she's poor, do you know that? You have to know, with the meager salary she could just barely afford to pay you without sending herself over the final cliff. She has a little skill, and I have too many prospective clients, because I'm the true veterinarian for this settled zone. I have more than I could ever possibly see. So... I pass a few along."

There was condescension in that statement, and Fleur had expected there to be. But there was also something far worse.

"Those which are safe for her, the little things she can do at her limited skill level," the mare went on. "Because I don't want to see her drop into bankruptcy. She has a hard enough time already, doesn't she? To send her clients, for the simple things, to make sure she has some level of income..."

There was pride.

"I," Sweetbark declared, "am being charitable." And sincerely smiled.

But there had been another aspect. Something Snowflake had spoken of, passing along Fluttershy's own theories. Something Fleur, who'd been listening, had just heard.

"Because nothing's simpler than killing," Fleur stated.

Sweetbark pulled back. Instinctive movement, something so close to the core that she hadn't been able to stop it.

"It's so simple," Fleur continued. "When you know what you're doing, nothing's easier than ending a life. It takes about ten minutes to learn how, when you watch and listen. From first step to last breath, and then you never forget. Remember ten minutes and you can kill over and over..."

Spoken to a pony who hadn't mastered her instincts, it triggered a quarter-hoofstep of retreat. Getting away from the fear.

"But," Fleur shrugged, "I'm sorry to say that yesterday, your attempt to be charitable -- backfired." And, having confirmed what she wanted to know, simply smiled and waited.

Finally, "...how?" Sounding very much like her charge.

"I didn't charge her," Fleur shrugged again. "It didn't seem right. It wasn't her companion, after all. It wasn't the final bill for a lifetime of love. 'The true price is paid on the back end': a vet told me that once. Food, playthings, checkups... when it's your companion, the real cost comes on the last day. This was just a groundhog she found somewhere. So this death was... free. Thank you for thinking of the cottage, though. I'm sure that with a situation which justified an invoice worth presenting to a filly, it would have been helpful. Now since you've explained what happened yesterday and I'm sure you have clients coming in, along with a receptionist to keep them in order... thank you for your time."

She turned, and calmly began to trot away.

I know you.

Fluttershy knows you. She passed it on to Snowflake. But neither of them acted on it...

"Fleur?"

The voice didn't have enough happiness in it: just whatever the mare had been able to cram in within a few seconds. It didn't cover all of the fear, hid none of the loathing, and so it made Fleur curious enough to glance back.

"It is a long trot back to the cottage," Sweetbark declared, and nodded towards a jar. "Why don't you take a treat?"

She thought as she trotted. About what she'd been told, and what she'd just experienced.

"Fluttershy thinks she's -- afraid."

"Afraid of what?"

"She has a reputation," Snowflake had explained, "for being perfect. And the way she maintains it -- is by sending away everything which might fail. If she gets a case where the animal will die, or might die -- she sends it to the cottage. When it goes wrong, Fluttershy takes the blame, and Sweetbark gets to keep being perfect. Fluttershy thinks it's reached the point where some ponies realize it, deep down: they won't go to Sweetbark if they think it's bad. But others just keep heading into town. And Fluttershy..." Several hills had moved towards each other, his features twisted with concentration. "...she said she can't know for sure, but... she doesn't think Sweetbark has ever ended an animal's life. That she's afraid of it. And as long as the cottage is there..."

Fluttershy was right.

I've seen her now. She can't. And with Fluttershy around, she doesn't have to. She deals with her pain by never experiencing it, by giving it all to somepony else...

There had been so many graves.

But Fluttershy hasn't done anything about it. Neither has Snowflake. They just... let it happen, because to them, that's the way to keep the cottage going.

The smile was brief, completely private, and utterly vicious.

That's not me.

Now. A credible story which can't be easily denied, and the ponies who'll be the first to hear it. Put that into the rumor mill, and...

She stopped. Completely stopped in the middle of the street, which meant the most-recently entranced pony nearly went into her. And after she'd reoriented following the dodge, she went into the nearest alley for a little more privacy. Examined the last pre-stop thought somewhat more closely.

Tell the story to who?

I've been focused on Fluttershy. I met some ponies at the party, but I haven't followed up with any of them. I know... Fluttershy, and she doesn't talk. I know Caramel, and there aren't a lot of ponies who talk to him. The first requirement for getting rumors going is knowing ponies who'll listen before passing them along...

And given the privacy in which to do so, Fleur winced.

I need to make some friends.

Realistically, 'Friendship Is Blackmail' Wouldn't Have Gotten Past Marketing

I wake up in the middle of the night because I'm alone.

It took a while to figure that out. I thought it was the stress of being in a place that's still at least half-wild. Knowing a storm could hit at any time, or a monster could come out of the Everfree (still have to find out why it's got a name) and crash through the barn. Or just being so far from home, that can cost some sleep. And most ponies might say I'm not alone. It's just about the opposite, because I'm hardly the only pony bunking in this barn. I took a count just now while I was working my way out, and it's up to forty. A new work crew came in a few days ago, and that means carpenters who haven't gotten to hoof-hammer their own houses. There's a lot of company in here and most nights, I'd swear unto Moon that the majority of it snores.

But when I wake up, I'm on my left side, with my legs outstretched and apart, as if there's something I was reaching for. Somepony who was supposed to be between them.

I guess I've been married long enough that I don't remember how to sleep single any more.

Maybe that's part of why I started this journal. Why I left whatever safety the barn offers to write in it some more. (Got to try and hire some of the hammer group once they wrap up what they originally came in for, and it's not going to make a great impression if I wake a few up with my trying to see and write by corona light.) It's something I can talk to.

It's been harder to get ponies to talk than I thought it would be. I think part of that is because there's so few unicorns around. I see some come and go with the deliveries, providing protective spells for the goods. But I'm the only one who's intending to move in permanently.

The earth ponies had the place to themselves for a few years, maybe long enough to feel like it was going to be theirs forever. But that's the pattern. They come in first. They always have. And I thought they enjoyed it, breaking new ground. Making a little more of Equestria safe for settlement. But with me, from a couple of them, it feels like there's some resentment. That because I wasn't here the whole time, I don't deserve to be here now. I didn't put in the work.

I'm doing my best to catch up.

Thank Sun Mrs. Smith isn't like that. I've talked to her a few times: kind of hard to live in somepony's barn and not exchange a few words when I'm dropping off the bunk rent. Good mare, even if she's a little sarcastic now and again. I asked her what she was going to do when all her boarders had their own places, and she said she was looking at us as a trial gallop for taking on tenants. Except that she was pretty sure the tenants would smell a whole lot better.

(Note to self: offer to redo gutters on farmhouse room for her, add mini-tower wherever the joists are strongest. Pretty sure I can rig up an outdoor shower that way.)

She's pregnant. Not that far along: just enough that she's starting to show. Still going around her farm every day and cooking meals for more than forty. That's probably going to be the first foal in this settled zone. She thinks it's a filly. I think she's wrong. We might have to get a bet down.

Pregnant. I think that's why I've been looking at her so much. (I may have to explain that to her husband. I know he's caught me at least once, and I don't want him getting mad.) We were getting ready to try for our first when this opportunity opened up, and I put it off in order to come here. Didn't exactly leave a happy spouse behind, but we need financial stability. Our kids are going to need that. The goal is for them to be better off than I was, and that starts here.

I think she'll see that, when she gets here. When it's safe enough for her to come.

In the meantime, I've been starting on the foundation. With my own crew so light, most of that's been just me, which really surprised Mrs. Smith when it came up. She said she's never seen a unicorn do so much physical labor, and I told her that the mark means something and in my case, a pair of hoof-hammering shoes means the pony had better be ready to do some productive kicking. I know how to get the job started. I could get it finished myself if I had to, first nail to last. But it takes too long that way. I've put the word out that I'm hiring, and then I put together some notice boards so the word would stay around after I left. Made them solid. I think they're going to hold up for a while.

But it's hard to get ponies to talk to me. I've tried cracking a few jokes, and it just gets me looked at. I don't trust myself to go drinking, not when I'm drinking against earth ponies and anything which isn't imported should have been outlawed: I haven't seen one pony with a brewer's mark and there's about two dozen past their manifests and trying for it anyway. They've had a few years of surviving together: I haven't. I'm the stranger here. They're not exactly rude, for the most part, and I've only seen the two who were angry. But even offering fair wages, even getting the base down myself so they'll know I'm here for the long haul, I feel like they're waiting for me to prove something before more of them sign on.

I keep looking up while I'm working on this. Part of that is checking for possible attacks from the sky. Most of it is looking for clouds. I'm sick of getting rained on out of nowhere. I heard somepony say there's a science called meteorology which lets you try and figure out how the weather might turn out on its own, so now all we need is a library and I'll check out a few books on it.

I thought this was going to be an adventure. Parts of it have felt that way, especially when we were scouting for the mill's site. And I remembered the books from school. So many of the old settlers kept journals, because they knew they were doing something most ponies would never experience. They wanted the ones who weren't there to understand what it felt like. They were writing to the future.

Maybe that's the other reason I'm writing this. But I'm not going to publish. Writing isn't any part of my mark. Maybe I'll wind up with a story or two, but who would want to read it? Who would look at the life of what I'm hoping is going to be a happily retired former sawmill owner with more grandfoals than he can count?

Or maybe I know that one already.

It's a long way off. Everything is. But tomorrow is going to have me back out at the site with the four ponies I've hired so far (if they all show up) and it'll all trot that much further down the road. I know where I'm going. I just have to get there.

But it's a longer trip than I thought. And all I usually get to talk to is paper.

I need to make some friends.

Friends...

She was gradually making her way through Ponyville and in theory, the journey was meant to eventually put her on the path towards the cottage. The reality of it was that she was once again on the prowl, only this time, she was the pony who wasn't entirely sure what the stalk was supposed to look like. Proper baiting also seemed to be in question and when it came to dealing with any results, there was an extant, extensive set of tools which suddenly didn't apply because making the subjects slowly (and most of the time, financially) bleed out might not be the best tactic any more.

Friends. Fleur was trying to remember how you were supposed to go about acquiring those.

Her slow trot paused, just long enough for her left hind hoof to lightly tap against the cobblestones three times. The precisely-styled tail curled in twice, covered her mark on each side before going back to its standard loft.

It could be fairly said that when it came to certain types of interaction, Fleur made friends rather easily. It was far more accurate to say that she tended to draw in those who desperately wanted to say they were her friend simply because as a term, 'conquest' was best held back until whatever you were hoping to boast about had actually taken place. With Fleur, it usually wouldn't. She could generally afford to be choosy. Sort the catch, pick only the best, and -- well, strictly speaking, it wasn't always best to kick the whole of the remainder over the side of the boat. There were those who believed it was best to show some courtesy to the links you were passing in the chain as you worked your way up, lest they use the sight of your being knocked back down as a chance to wrap themselves around your throat.

But there were other categories of friend available. For example, there were clients or rather, there were those who felt that while everypony else had to pay for Fleur's company, she was only collecting bits from them because she was required to do so: the receipt was just professional courtesy. Any number of ponies had somehow reached the conclusion that Fleur would happily spend unpaid time with them just as soon as some opened up, and a few of them had even been right: those tended to be the residences where reaching the physical evidence to back up the talent-indicated blackmail material required her to get past a few extra locks. Escorts, certain categories of dancer, models and actresses -- there were multiple occupations which relied on having their professionals project an aura of but for you, it's real, it's all real, maybe I have to force a false laugh with the rest of them but you're the one who's funny and in the majority of cases, it didn't take much effort to make that illusion cover what the other ponies had decided were orgasms.

There were also remoras. (It had taken Fleur some time to encounter the first of those, and the mere thought made her want to start grooming her fur in the middle of the street.) In the wild, there were very few predators whose kills were completely clean: those content to survive on leavings and incidental fragments could manage quite nicely on the leftovers from those who were willing to do the actual work. Within the sapients' jungle... while Fleur did what she could, the truth was that she sometimes managed to attract more than she could strictly manage in a short time, and that was what lured the remoras in. Somepony who had recently been weakened by rejection was that much easier to catch, and so a few mares had attempted to subsist on her leavings. It was hard for somepony like Fleur to avoid picking up a few: the fact that she didn't want any never seemed to register with them. Remoras would declare themselves to be not just friends, but assistants: the groomers of her social calendar, those who took care of the little things on her behalf. And once you had a sufficiency of the things swimming in your wake, you just might find that anything you truly wished to catch had already been stripped to the bone.

Remoras, however, were largely dedicated to letting the predator do all of the real work, and so had some interest in keeping that party intact until the moment a better hunter came along. In that sense, whoever they were attaching themselves to was meant to serve as a lure. It put them in direct contrast to those who had seen Fleur as bait. Kick her into the social waters, make it clear that she was weak and vulnerable and ripe for the taking -- inflicting a few small wounds to help spread the scent was just practical -- and then wait. Most of what tried to consume her would be ambushed, and if anything got through -- well, there was always more bait, wasn't there? Sometimes it even volunteered --

-- her slow trot paused, just long enough for her left hind hoof to lightly tap against the cobblestones three times. The precisely-styled tail curled in twice --

-- and then she realized what she'd been doing.

Her nightscape had never been under her control. Her body had to be. Every subtle erotic movement, every alluring smile. All crafted to perfection. For any part of her form to have been acting, even temporarily, without direct orders and full awareness --

-- stop. Just -- stop.

That's not me any more. It can't be.

Besides, even if she actually had been that desperate (and she'd used so much time, so many Celestia-negated moons in making sure she would never be that desperate again), it wouldn't have worked. Not only was she in exactly the wrong place, but the signals were years out of date. She wasn't sure anypony

anyone

knew what they meant any more, certainly not in Ponyville. It would take a long time to reach those who might remember what they used to mean and given the standard turnover rate, it was likely that very few of them were still part of that life. Or, given one of the more typical reasons for that turnover, alive at all.

Good.

She took a slow breath, was pleased by the number of ponies who hadn't been able to pretend they weren't watching it. That was a place to start --

-- except it isn't.

Her license was gone. The most ready route she'd had towards making friends had been destroyed by sunlight and fire. (Vengeance against the responsible party was, at best, still a work in progress.) It was the reason she hadn't bothered to make the courtesy introduction for whatever escorts happened to be holding down Ponyville: the meeting typically included a display of paperwork, and hers was no longer valid. She wasn't going to have any clients see her as more than a hire because she didn't have any clients, and there was no realistic way to acquire them.

Escort services were legal in Equestria: Fleur's mandatory studies had taught her that it had been a part of the nation almost from the moment there had been a nation at all. Escort law was under the dominion of the Night Court, and that legislative body had kept those services legal across centuries of challenges from generations of self-titled moral guardians: those who hated the prospect of anypony enjoying sex so much as to somehow pass that anger down through their blood. (The natural presumption was that the sex act had been performed solely for the purpose of procreating future lawsuits, and all parties involved would respond to any actual pleasure by beating their heads against something until enjoyment, and possibly consciousness, went away.) There was a precisely-crafted body of statutes guiding escort training: license requirements, updates, certifications. Everything about being a licensed escort was legal -- and so the law was less than fond of those who tried to use streetcorners as their audition sites for Amateur Hour.

Those caught once would be gently nudged towards course registration forms. Anypony caught twice had officially pushed their luck over the edge of the cliff, and plummet rates meant they got to watch it impact the prison floor a split-second before they did.

It doesn't mean I can't have sex.

This time, the hesitation was created by the drifting scent of hot sugar. It was still only coming from one side of the street, but that was something which wouldn't hold true for much longer: the fast-approaching competition now had empty display cases visible through new glass, and somepony had been carefully applying sparkling letters to the door. Fleur distractedly noted the bright colors which had been carefully layered within the shop's interior: based on decoration style alone, the owner was going for a younger clientele.

It reminded her of Sweetbark. A candy shop which expected to see most of its traffic from schoolchildren could reasonably get away with the hues, creating a world where the only pain came for those who overindulged, severely neglected their brushing, and were a little too close to their last dose of dental potion. A vet couldn't, shouldn't...

Another breath, one deep enough to both cause a minor swoon on her right and make her think about just how good a proper nougat would taste. Or a Delight. She hadn't had a correctly-prepared Delight in --

-- stop it --

-- the trot resumed.

Sex: she seldom had any trouble in finding partners, usually encountered more difficulty in getting ponies to stop offering themselves up. But while under the watchful (if, at best, semi-competent) eye of Ponyville's police department, any attempt to maintain relationships with multiple partners (outside of a group marriage, and trying to gain an invitation was currently going a little too far) would likely lead to accusations of unlicensed activity. Fleur would have a hard time proving her lack of receipts -- and even if she somehow managed to do that, Miranda Rights would be quick to conclude that what had been described as having been purely for fun (and certainly more than the police chief ever managed to have) was actually being performed with the intent of rebuilding the web. Pulling in more blackmail material. Getting ponies to give her what she wanted.

Which would have been, at best, a half-truth. Fleur wouldn't have been on the active prowl for secrets, although she would have happily filed away nearly anything which happened to present itself. She simply wished for ponies to give her what she wanted: the destruction of Sweetbark's artificial reputation. And frankly, that was something everypony should have wanted.

So if it's sex, then I get one pony. She thought about that a little more, and did so while expert eyes began to reevaluate the passing population. I'd have to finish with one. If I start actively dating, I could justify going through a few. But the police are going to watch that, too...

It was possible that she'd only been permitted to get as far as she had with Caramel because his tastes were so well-known. Everypony had been fully aware that he wasn't interested in her sexually, and so had seen fit to let her repeatedly ram her horn into a wall until the amusement value began to grow stale.

One pony.

In terms of influence, Filthy Rich was the best choice. (For using a social hub, it would have been -- she very nearly shuddered -- Pinkie. Not that trysexuals didn't have their charms, especially since Fleur was confident in her ability to steer the mare towards what she personally liked -- but she was also completely certain that any gossip about that relationship would have found its way directly to the palace.) She would need to step up her efforts in that direction -- after she took care of one other thing, because there was no way she was going to enter a state of artificial monogamy before finding out where Joyous lived.

I can probably get away with dating him, as long as I make it look like I'm just -- settling in. I should be able to fend off most of what the police can try to do, especially since they're supposed to treat me normally. But if he isn't enough...

In terms of fiscal support, he was likely enough for anypony. For destroying the life of a single unworthy so-called vet, however... that had yet to be determined, and the process of ruining that mare's existence needed to begin quickly. There was an argument to be made that it was already long overdue.

Which seemed to bring her back to the original issue.

She thought about it some more, as the temperature began its too-slow climb through the precisely regulated autumn day. Considered whether she looked as distracted as she felt, then wondered if any visible display of the emotion was coming across as unattractive. A quick check of her reflection in a handy window was enough to reassure her, along with adding the usual question about the sanity of the settled zone's residents because the more logical thing to have done with the sale was to buy the couch and get a quill free.

Making friends...

The majority of adult friendships were easy to define. You found those who wished to use you and for the most part, you pretended to let them. If it wasn't too much trouble, you might actually let them get something out of it every so often, mostly to keep stringing things along. And the whole time, you were actually using them. It was a mutually beneficial semi-parasitic relationship, for a very loose definition of 'mutually'.

It was easy to make that kind of friend, when you were an escort. As far as Fleur was concerned, the profession not only encouraged it, but had been built to take advantage of it -- at least for those intelligent enough to both perceive and seize the opportunity. But she wasn't an escort any more. Normal sex would provide some degree of the take and sort-of-give required, but she'd just realized that she was limited in the number of ponies she could visibly pursue.

The ones who tried to use me. The ones I used without their ever knowing it...

Celestia hadn't uncovered everything: Fleur was confident of that. There were things the alicorn couldn't have discovered, not when it had been so long ago and far away.

...the one who cared about --

the clacking, the mindless --

This time, she stopped moving entirely. Tossed her head once, failed to dislodge the memories, the sounds which were ringing in her ears, ponies were staring at her and of course ponies always did that, but she wasn't sure about the nature of those stares any more and the clacking was just in her head but it was also in her ears it was in her life for every moment she might continue to live at all and it was getting louder, for the first time in years it was getting louder --

-- she tossed her head again: a lighter, more controlled movement, something which simply readjusted her mane to what it should have been, and resumed her journey.

Making friends with adults. When sex isn't involved, when it can't be. When you can't use somepony too openly or quickly.
How do you do that?

She... didn't seem to remember.

Maybe it was just a variation. An updating of something older.

Think about -- making friends with children.
Making friends when I was a filly.
But I --
-- I have to get home
I always have to get home
I can't stay away for too long because the sound might

The trot had subtly accelerated, and she forced her speed to drop.

Don't run. Galloping is too public. It makes everypony wonder why you need to be moving so quickly. Just move casually, like you're in no hurry to be anywhere, like

nothing is following you

I need to work.

Work consumed time. But it also created security. And there was more than that. She had spent nearly two years of Canterlot time in work. Learning secrets. Building the web. Arranging for the future, using her limited time as best she could, time which Celestia had destroyed, but until that moment Fleur had worked almost constantly and --

-- work is what you do instead of remembering.

She had thought about it more since coming to Ponyville than she had for her entire time in Canterlot. Sweetbark had made her remember.

There was a price to pay for that.

Make some friends. Without my reputation. Without my license. Without having sex with more than five ponies.

How was she supposed to do that?

And then she figured it out.

Ponies came to the cottage. Ponies who frequently wanted to talk, to talk about anything because they falsely believed it might take their minds off what could potentially happen to their companion. And most of the time, those ponies would be faced with a near-silent yellow-winged sound absorber, something which ensured their words went no further.

But Fluttershy was on a mission. Those ponies were coming to Fleur.

There were always things to do at the cottage, and Snowflake was only capable of managing most of it. For starters, it was clear that the vast majority of social interactions needed to be left to Fleur. Besides, as small talk went, 'Yeah!' arguably qualified, but it started to get repetitive after a while.

"So you're Fluttershy's assistant?" the near-senior earth pony stallion inquired as she wrote up his receipt. (She was beginning to ask some serious questions regarding the dominance of brown fur in the local blood.) His gaze roamed across her form: no assessment of her beauty or his chances -- she'd already solved his puzzle, and no amount of makeup she could apply would ever render her into a male -- but a simple sort of roaming confusion. "How does a pony like you get into that line of work?"

She'd decided to let the impression stand, at least for a little while: it explained what she was doing at the cottage and gave her a reason to keep coming back, along with providing a possible legitimate reason for invoicing Celestia on a second salary. But she understood why the question had emerged. Mares like Fleur became models and if they were lucky enough to keep Lens Cap out of their lives, some of them even remained in the profession. Others went onto the stage: those who couldn't act to save their lives went in front of movie cameras to serve as semi-mobile set dressing. They could be found trotting alongside the flanks of the rich and powerful. Setting trends. Moving social levers. Oh, and there were times when they became escorts -- but when it came to potential occupations for the truly beautiful, 'veterinary assistant' wasn't exactly at the bottom of a typical list. The list required to accommodate the entry, fully unrolled, would have stretched into Tartarus, presumably imprisoning any chance of having it truly happen forever.

The stallion wasn't interested in her, not sexually. But he was asking about her.

Make some friends...

"It helps to be interested in animals," Fleur said, and the field-held quill continued to move along. Politely, "I'll just finish the receipt and then I'll get your change. I might need to step out for a few seconds. I don't think there's enough in the till to break this coin."

He was now looking at her mark.

"So that icon is --"

"-- I actually grew up around animals," she smoothly interrupted, and was briefly amazed by the sound of her own words. But she'd been remembering (and there would be more than Sweetbark paying for that), and when constructing a story for somepony -- well, what made you sound more credible than a touch of the truth?

A little bit of surprise. "Really?"

Mostly animals. Partially. Actually, if looked at by percentage... "Yes," she smiled. "So I was doing some things when I was fairly young." And added an expert shrug. "You know how it is. When you're in a farming family, you farm..."

He nodded and better yet, smiled back. "I'm a farmer myself," the stallion admitted. "The first thing I ever did with my parents was planting seeds..." His eyes briefly turned misty, then refocused on the present.

"A long time ago," he softly added. "A long, long time. And that's where you learned to groom dogs so well?"

"Yes." Which was a lie. There had been some grooming, but it had been with --

"So what's the first thing you ever did? Taking care of animals?"

"Feedings," she admitted.

They wanted to see if I could do it. If I could make myself get that close.

The next question was a natural one. "And what made you decide you wanted to keep doing it? For me --" misty again "-- it was the first harvest on my own field. The one my mother let me try with, just to see if I could manage by myself. Biting into a rutabaga which nopony had grown but me."

Fleur thought about it.

(She'd been remembering. She was remembering too much. The walls had been kicked, and the most recent cracks hadn't had the chance to heal. Otherwise, she never would have said anything at all, and she would tell herself that until she almost started to believe it.)

Friends make connections. And a farmer would have multiple, professional opportunities to gossip about a vet.

She didn't tell him everything. Location never became any part of it, or who had been around her at the time. She simply mentioned what she'd faced, followed by exactly what she'd done. Because that was something a friend would talk about, there was virtually no chance of having it ever get back to Canterlot and if all else failed, she'd just deny it to all parties. Escorts told stories: there were times when having interesting conversational material was a necessity. And nopony who'd known her in the capital would ever believe it was a true one, so --

"Is that what he paid with?" Snowflake asked. The pegasus softly whistled. "That's way up the scale. I know Fluttershy doesn't have that many smaller coins around. Was it an old bill?"

"Several moons of unpaid visits," Fleur replied. She wasn't really looking at him. Her gaze was focused elsewhere.

"So it added up," he exhaled. "Good. And that's a nice recovery to start with." Thoughtfully, "It feels like she's been getting more ponies settling up lately --"

"-- it didn't add up. About two-thirds."

He looked at the big coin again.

"So you found change somewhere?"

"No. He just -- left. Without taking any."

One more look for each, with neither really noticing what the other was paying attention to.

"That's a really big tip," Snowflake softly decided. "She's never gotten one on that scale before. Have you ever seen a tip like that?"

Yes. "Not for this."

She kept looking at the recently-vacated space.

All I did was tell him a story...

"The postpony's due by later," Snowflake said. "I'll ask her if she can drop off the receipt."

"So you really were at that party!" The light blue unicorn mare began to merrily laugh. "That proves it! Nopony would have known about that little slip unless they'd been in attendance! Oh, having a backup witness...!"

Fleur, who could spot somepony with aspirations of social advancement within seconds and knew that no matter how the mare had described her attendance, the only way to have had that viewing angle on The Ill-Advised Hat Collapse Of '73 was to have been watching from the kitchen entrance, faked a laugh of her own. "I think I saw the exact moment when she began to regret including the birdcage." With a smile, "Which was just before the bird finally began to enjoy it." The field-held brush worked another tangle out of the raccoon's fur.

The mare was now giggling. "Some nobles are just weird."

And you're a pony who likes to spread stories. You feel as if it's making you look more important. A natural gossip...

Make some friends.

Fleur nodded. "You wouldn't believe half of it," she semi-truthfully said: her actual estimate on the percentage was closer to twenty.

Grey eyes were beginning to sparkle. "Tell me," the mare conspiratorially whispered. "What's the weirdest thing you've ever heard about a noble?"

The brush paused in its motions.

"The weirdest thing?"

The mare eagerly nodded.

...identifies me as the pony with that picture, if Celestia doesn't know it already.
I really can't go on the witness stand right now.
Nopony would be happy about that kind of overturn in the Day Court.
She would have dismantled the gears by now...

"You know something weird," the mare softly decided. "I can see it in your eyes. You're just trying to figure out whether you should say it..."

It was more a case of knowing several hundred things and already having rejected the first sixty-two. "Something weird," Fleur smiled. "All right. But no names. Although I think a mare of your party attendance record just might be able to guess." The unicorn happily nodded. "So --"

"-- and when emergency services finally cut through the last lock," Fleur finished, "they refused to take him down until he told them just how much he'd paid for the pinwheel!"

The white rabbit silently stared at her. Stomped its right hind foot against the floor three times, then raced into the nearest cubbyhole.

"...right," Fleur sighed, and all four legs pushed her fully upright again. "So apparently that's how everything reacts to that punchline..."

That particular day had also seen the scheduled arrival of a task which, if Fleur had truly thought about it, was a perfectly natural requirement of Fluttershy's life. It was just something Snowflake really didn't enjoy doing and when she'd picked up on the first of the scents shortly after getting back from the bathroom, made the completely natural and correct guess as to what was going on -- well, it had been equally natural to volunteer. Because not only was it something to do, but Fleur considered herself to have been going through a very long series of bad days (with the current one as a particularly foul specimen), and this was something which stood a chance to improve her life.

Besides, it got Snowflake out of the cottage for a necessary patrol of the grounds. She was presuming the fresh air would eventually help him stop gagging.

She was almost happy, as she puttered about the kitchen. (Almost. She had very clear memories of the last surge of true happiness, and suspected Celestia was still indulging in the occasional snicker.) Admittedly, there were aspects of the operation which were less than satisfying. For starters, Fluttershy had been using the cheap stuff -- no, it was worse than that. There were things in the freezer (not a walk-in: barely large enough to hold the supplies, perhaps two moons away from failing to keep the temperature and something had to be done about that) which had clearly been scavenged. Yes, it was a savings, especially given the usual high local price of the ingredients, and Fleur certainly understood how to work with what was available. But for her first personal attempt in years --

-- oh, there it is. The edges of her field smoothed somewhat as the little bubble enveloped the freshly-discovered jar. 'A little marjoram covers many sins,' and in another minute, I can kick in a clove to go with that. Another bubble was just barely grasping the far end of a long celery stalk: she had to stir with something and as far as the incomplete coverage went, it was best to let the soaking begin immediately. Adjust the temperature a little there: that's boiling too fast. She really needs a better stove --

"-- excuse me?"

When Fleur looked back on the encounter, she would realize the mare's words had possessed several interesting qualities. For starters, they hadn't been spoken so much as forcibly exhaled, using speech as an extra means of pushing air away. They had also been more than a little desperate, and were just barely managing to contain roughly seven hundred percent of the usual amount of non-Fluttershy skittishness.

The pegasus (just barely within the doorway, wings vibrating as if takeoff was an option which had to be postponed second by second) was a rather trim specimen, with a nicely swooped sort of hairstyle. There were ways in which she was attractive, but none of it ever quite approached true beauty. The sort of pony who might benefit from collecting the leavings of a mare who was doing most of the work.

Make some friends...

"Oh, hello!" Fleur brightly said, and allowed the celery to stir a little faster. "I'm sorry I didn't hear you come in." (She had: the hoofsteps just hadn't registered as any level of threat.) "Do you have an appointment?" Trying to do no more than the rather tricky act of lightly chiding and looking sorry at the same time, "You know, most ponies don't come this far. But if I left you in the waiting area for a while and you felt you had to come looking --"

"-- grooming," the mare swallowed, and then looked as if she'd instantly regretted it. "My bird needs... her beak and nails trimmed..."

Actually, it was hard to tell exactly how attractive she was, especially with the way her snout kept contorting. Fleur was having an equal amount of difficulty in determining the true shade of the fur.

"I'll be out in a few minutes," Fleur pretended to apologize. "I just can't leave things at this stage."

The mare stared at her. The pots. The steadily-stirring stalk. Back to her.

"...what are you doing?"

"Cooking," Fleur unnecessarily explained. "Do you like cooking?" Because weren't friends were supposed to have common interests?

Some of the liquid was boiling. Little splatters were flying over the rim, which meant that on top of everything else, Fluttershy also needed better pots. Fortunately, fields had their privileges: Fleur was standing far enough away to keep herself clean.

"Cooking -- what?"

She needs help with her makeup. Using that shade of green on the undercoat really wasn't doing the mare any favors. "Well," Fleur educated (while feeling it should have been equally unnecessary), "we have carnivores here. They have to be fed. So I'm boiling some bones down, to get at the marrow. And that other pot is going to be simmering for about seven more hours, because it doesn't look like anypony's been extracting gelatin and that has all kinds of uses." Which was honestly the best fate she'd been able to find for the scavenged miniature monster corpses which had mostly qualified as roadkill. And when all someone could do was finish off whatever they'd found on the side of the road...

The mare swallowed a second time, and so reached the local lifetime limit on the act.

"Meat," she just barely got out.

"Cooking it properly takes care of just about anything which might have been wrong with it," Fleur shrugged. "And today, that's going to take a lot of cooking. Honestly, I don't know where half of this stuff has been. Or what it's been through." Thoughtfully, "Except for that half-rent corismatch body. That was clearly attacked by a zantray." Brightly, "But don't worry! I spotted the discoloration from the saliva and cut those parts out. It's perfectly safe."

"...for carnivores," the mare finally said, at least for what managed to emerge as words.

"It's necessary," Fleur softly stated. (The celery switched to stirring counter-clockwise.) "Everypony who has a dog. A cat. Owls, even if they mostly hunt their own. There are ponies who have to deal with meat every day, even if it's just been processed into pet food. We just have to use more of it, because there's so many animals here. It's natural."

The mare choked one last time, forced herself to breathe. "I..." And then she visibly marshaled herself, with wings and features stilling just before the smile emerged. "...I suppose it is."

Fleur nodded.

"It can't be easy," the pegasus continued. "Just being in there."

Ponies... went through Fleur's mind, and was discarded in favor of a reassuring smile.

"So what's that one with the celery sticking out of it? Is that for one of the omnivores?"

"No," Fleur (almost) happily declared as she turned her full attention to the indicated pot, which was just about ready for the clove. "That's mine." (The vocalization which emerged in response to the simple statement, with all of the other sounds subtracted out, could have worked out to something along the very rough lines of '...yours?' and so a distracted Fleur felt free to continue.) "It's griffon cuisine! Modified. I've got eggplant in here, along with some carrots and bell peppers. Soaking in the juices. And nothing absorbs like celery! When it's done..."

She didn't realize that she'd just openly licked her lips. It wouldn't have mattered. She'd already missed every other visual reaction: spotting what happened in response to that wouldn't have changed any of the upcoming stories. Things which were about to be launched at the speed of flight.

"Of course, I separate the meat out after," Fleur added. "That goes to the animals. But the vegetables -- you wouldn't believe what it does to the taste." Thoughtfully, because friends also shared experiences and she'd frankly put a few too many carrots in, "Actually, if you're curious, I'm sure I can find an extra plate --"

-- fine, Fleur internally grumbled for the sixth time. More comfort food for me. Especially as she needed a lot of comforting.

She planted her left forehoof against the cloth or rather, the topmost of the four absorbent layers she'd dropped on top of it all. Pushed harder.

And I'll scrub the spot down afterwards with the Foal Soap. That should get rid of the scent.

Fleur glumly glanced over her left shoulder, surveying the hallway.

From this section

The shrew, in what it probably thought was a rather subtle move, was approaching one of the larger floor spots.

"Don't touch that," Fleur rather pointlessly told it, just before her field lifted it away from the area. "I know where it's been." And in a dark way, it was actually somewhat impressive.

She could have at least touched down for a few seconds. To finish in one place.

Fleur hadn't even known it was possible for a pegasus to fly and vomit at the same time.

But To Be Fair, She's Severely Out Of Practice

There were times when she wondered what love looked like.

Fleur could only perceive the sexual aspects of a sapient's being, sort through endless puzzle pieces with the speed of a professional who'd seen just about every individual component before and so could spend the majority of their efforts on lining up individual edges. When it came to sex, she didn't feel she knew everything: there were pieces so scarce as to have potentially escaped her registry, along with entire species she hadn't encountered yet. (There were also aspects which she would never fail to recognize, and never wanted to understand.) She didn't know everything -- but she believed herself to know more than anypony alive.

But that was for sex. And sex wasn't love. You could try to make sex look like love and there were those who were only too happy to fall into that illusion, at least long enough for Fleur to finish her work. But in the end, love was... something else. Something rare, something special, something which never lasted because love was many things and as Celestia was probably aware (presuming that one was even capable of it), none of them included immortality.

Still... the myriad aspects of sexual attraction were treated by Fleur's talent as something very much like a puzzle. Something which could be assembled and solved, with the results framed within her internal gallery. Always ready for review at any moment, just in case she needed to use some portion of that whole. And while nothing about the results was truly visual, it still added up to something she could perceive.

So what was love?

Was it just another kind of puzzle? Did it manifest as a whole at the outset, something where no aspect had ever fractured away from another? Did it appear through slowly gaining density, or was it all at once, in a single flash? Was transmutation involved, various forms of relationship steadily gaining in power until a sudden spark changed them into something else entirely?

Perhaps Princess Cadance knew. At the very least, a talent which temporarily reinforced love had to include some way of detecting just how much strength had been present at the outset. (It seemed odd to Fleur that an alicorn-level talent, the only one known to be capable of manipulating love at all, was limited to basic reinforcement -- but then, some talents operated within fairly narrow parameters, and it was possible that nopony other than an alicorn would have possessed any magical access to the emotion.) But it wasn't as if she could have asked: no part of her Canterlot efforts had put her in the presence of any Princess until that first hated encounter, and even if she had been able to speak with what had formerly been the youngest of the alicorns... Fleur's own talent had been a carefully-maintained secret. Comparing notes was effectively impossible.

(Strictly speaking, she would have wanted to meet Cadance for more than that, but -- well, that alicorn was taken. And when it came to the other three, nothing within her was still capable of perceiving beauty within Celestia's form, Twilight was likely under constant Solar watch, and Princess Luna was -- actually rather appealing, although persistent rumors in the capital suggested a near-medical need to bring along earplugs.)

Cadance might know, where Fleur did (could) not. But if love had its own image, something which could be perceived... then Fleur was certain about one thing: her current stalkers were displaying nothing more than an empty frame.

"Stop following me."

They ignored this, and did so in bulk. Dozens of claws skittered across the cottage floor, and that one still-loathed parrot was now flying a little too close to her mane.

"I'll do it in a little while," she told them, still leading the procession through the cottage. (Fleur knew they couldn't understand her words. She still felt that most of them should have been able to pick up on her tone, and now they were ignoring that too.) "Snowflake told me what the schedule is supposed to be."

Three small puppies whined, and did so as a chorus. Fleur sighed.

"Look," she pointlessly explained, "some of it has to cool down. You'll burn your tongues."

A trio of wet noses nudged against her hind ankles. Several squirrels chittered at her.

"That's not going to work," she crossly declared. "No one's getting anything until the clock says so. Noses don't work. Tails don't work. And when it comes to begging for something while your eyes go wide, I'm an escort. You can't do anything that a hundred ponies haven't failed at, and they had words. Besides, I'm working." She glanced at the newest crack in the wall, and the field-held quill jotted down a few notes. "And I'm not going into her bedroom, so you don't have to worry about that."

Actually... that did have to be checked. There were several reasons to invoice the palace for cottage repairs, and one of the more significant was because 'emotional support' seemed to cover a lot of billable ground. The less Fluttershy had to worry about, the more she would be able to concentrate on dating. A residence which was forever looking for new ways of falling apart was something to worry about, and so Fleur was surveying every square hoofwidth she could reach, searching for problems which could be professionally repaired.

Her primary concern was based in temperature. Autumn was passing, winter couldn't (or rather, given pegasus capabilities, wouldn't) be stopped, and the roof sod only insulated the attic. Fleur was slowly trotting along the cottage's many corridors, concentrating on a more conventional sense while the lightest air currents ruffled her fur. It meant the various animal passages honeycombed into the walls occasionally gave her some trouble, but she was finding enough real problems to compile a fairly extensive list. Seal the gaps, make it all the easier for the cottage to hold a given level of heat (and pegasus ground residences usually didn't seem to have this many thermal problems), then force that much more out of the treasury. But it wouldn't do any real good until the sealing was complete, and a single crack within Fluttershy's bedroom...

When she gets back.

(If her charge returned.)

I'll explain what's going on, and then we'll check her bedroom. There shouldn't be a repairpony in there without her knowing about it anyway.

A cat's tail majestically rubbed against her left foreleg. The white rabbit got in front of her just long enough to be registered, rapidly tapped his right hind paw against the floor six times, and ran for it again. Several birds sang, and did so only for her. She had no idea what the platypus was trying to accomplish.

She didn't know what love looked like. She fully understood that this wasn't it.

"Congratulations," Fleur dryly told the traveling menagerie. "You've figured out that I feed you."

More time passing. Time during which the palace sent her no updates on the mission, and that seemed to be a new form of Celestial cruelty. Fluttershy was Fleur's charge, and Fleur had no idea what her charge was doing. Or... what might be happening to her. None at all.

The daily tasks required by the cottage consumed time, and did so in a way where Fleur seldom felt the wounds, at least not for the tiny ones which gobbled up seconds: she generally realized what the totals were when she glanced back at the end of the day and found a huge gap of hours bitten out of her flank. There was always cleaning to do, more food to prepare, grounds to inspect and herbs to maintain (she hired an earth pony to work in the attic for a few hours, just in case), plus there was grooming and Fluttershy offered kennel services and there was a never-ending parade of the sick, at least as far as 'parade' could apply for those who could barely limp along.

Injured beavers. Hurt dogs. But no birds: so far, not a single wounded avian had come in, so

the clacking, the mindless clacking

at least there was that.

She was getting used to working with Snowflake, and the hours spent with him in the cottage also allowed her to discover more of his conversational boundaries. He was willing to discuss many of the more mundane aspects of Fluttershy's life: just about anything involving the cottage would get a response from him, he was always up to explaining some aspect for the business side of the operation, and the huge pegasus would never hesitate to pull out anything regarding a client. But when it came to the details of being a Bearer... missions were personal, private, or classified. It was frustrating, because she was starting to feel as if that was information she needed. Overhearing a simple exchange between Fluttershy and... 'Rarity'... had been enough to tell Fleur that missions could come with their own traumas, and if any of that got in the way...

It was something she could think about, during the endless labors which kept her from thinking about so much else. It confined the nightmares to the place they belonged. The world she couldn't control.

Of course, there were other things she wasn't thinking about. She never really wondered about why he hadn't appeared at the cottage, at least not for long: she presumed Discord had his own ways of knowing how the mission was going, and -- had already spent too much time in considering what might happen if it all went wrong. But for him not to have any interest in how cottage matters were operating under Fleur's partial custody -- well, in the best case, she simply wasn't permitting enough chaos for him to be interested and when viewed that way, it was both safety and a compliment.

(She never asked Snowflake if the draconequus had ever checked in on him. It might not have changed anything. It might have altered everything. And still, in so many ways, every branch path she saw when looking back always led her to the bridge.)

Clients came. Clients left. Some animals could be released immediately: others had to stay for a while. Every so often, herbs would need to be mixed.

and then the sound stopped

A few animals arrived on their own: stragglers coming in from what Fleur presumed were the outskirts of the property. Another displayed the kind of scar on its right foreleg which could only be created by careful stitching of the original wound, and so had presumably remembered what it was supposed to do about the angry peck wounds to its forehead. And sometimes, a pony would arrive without an animal.

For the most part, they didn't know her. The rumor mill was still hard at work, but the damaged pieces of truth took time to spread. The concept of Fluttershy has an assistant had yet to fully saturate the settled zone, and so her presence still surprised the majority of ponies: they had been expecting Snowflake, and... when it came to similarity in appearance, both coats were white. It was something which still had a few of the stupider ones launch a full syllable of the wrong greeting before reality managed to intrude.

Most hadn't been aware of her presence before arrival. But a few knew she was there. And one...

"Sorry," Fleur softly offered as the vials were floated over the top of the examination table, carefully moving towards the stallion's open saddlebags. "I know that took a while, but... I've never mixed that before." And the results of her efforts allowed most of the sigh to be real. "It was trickier than I thought it would be. So there's no charge for the ingredients I wasted on the first two attempts, because... that's on me. But this one's right."

Caramel silently nodded. The movement exposed a little more of his mane, and so there was a moment when Fleur almost believed he'd been trying something new -- but any pressing-down along the crest had been produced by internal weight.

For Fleur's original plan, his part was over. He had failed, exactly on schedule, and so the rejection had been true. When it came to Fluttershy, the only thing he could do was pay his bills on time. And so, as far as Fleur normally would have been concerned --

-- but very little about Ponyville was normal.

Caramel was a pony whose reputation preceded him by hundreds of body lengths, somepony without contacts or connections or anything she could use -- but of all the ponies in the settled zone, he was the only one who thought Fleur was his friend.

It made her reluctant to fully discard him, especially since her attempts to proceed with finding backup plans had mostly led to extra cleaning.

(The comfort food hadn't been everything she'd hoped for, and she'd quickly blamed the results on the poor quality of the base ingredients. If she could just reach Canterlot...)

"How are you doing?" she gently asked. "I would have come by to check on you, but..." And added another sigh to that. "...it's the cottage. I think you can guess what it's like, when Fluttershy's away. I've been getting here early, I leave too late, our work hours overlap to start with and by the time I get back to Ponyville..." Falling asleep had been easy. Staying that way was another problem entirely.

"...not so good," Caramel eventually said, with dipped head now joined by lowered ears. "But I've had to live things down before, Fleur. You know I've had a lot of relationships, at least for a moon or three each. When they end... well, I've never seen anypony with that many lamps in their home to kick. But in the stories..." which triggered the ghost of a smile, all the more notable for being dead "...every last one of them hits the back of my head. It'll die down after a while." And added a tiny shrug. "It's one of the good things about living in this town. Just wait long enough, and it'll give everypony something new to talk about."

"Is it causing any problems at work?" Because that was something a friend would ask.

"A few snickers," the weary stallion admitted. "And... somepony said the cinema's owner isn't happy with me."

He had already been humiliated. (He had also been weak, he'd been weaker than anypony at the movie, the link in the chain which you didn't so much leap over as grind your hoof upon as you crossed...) There was no way of bringing the events up which wouldn't cause him to relive them. But in a way, that made everything safe to say.

"If it's about the cleaning bills --"

The ghost died. "No. There's been..." The long pause was meant to let him gather strength, and he didn't find enough of it. "...fillies and colts who've snuck into shows before. Every theater has that problem. He just heard about how I -- reacted. And then he decided to base his entire advertising campaign around it. Come see The Beast With Five Fingers, the most frightening movie anypony's ever seen. He even bumped some other reels to give it extra showtimes, and Bayleaf said he was originally thinking about holding it over through Nightmare Night."

Which was all too close now. Fleur had spent the last two in Canterlot: the first had mostly been used for puzzling out the holiday, while the second had found her trying to locate disguises which hid her nature while allowing her beauty to shine through. It had been something of a challenge.

"But nopony else reacted the way I did," Caramel quietly finished. "They mostly just laugh." The brown shoulders barely shifted. "Maybe I just have a phobia about centaurs. The only pony in the world who can say that, and I didn't know until I saw one charging at me."

"You're lucky." And much to her own surprise, she managed to put a little smile at the end of it.

"...lucky," he tonelessly echoed and deep within the lack of music, she felt a perceived friendship beginning to break --

"I'm afraid of overshadows. That can happen just about every day. When are you ever going to see a real centaur?"

He blinked.

"Overshadows?" There was a tone present now: abject confusion. "You're afraid of the dark? You've been fine every time I've seen you under Moon, even when it's been overcast --"

"-- it's not that," Fleur quietly said. "It's more like... having something looming over me. Something I can't fight, where all anypony can do is run. It's..."

...what am I saying?
Why did I just say...?

"That's happened?" And now that tone was changing. "You've had --"

It had been too much for him to dismiss, more than Fleur could casually excuse. It meant the only way out was forward. Weaving a precise trail through the narrow space between truth and lie.

"-- it's a phobia," she softly cut in. "It doesn't have to be based in anything real. And I was taught ways to resist it, a long time ago. But it's there, Caramel. It's always going to be there. Waiting. I feel like I can fight most things. But there's always going to be something nopony can stand against, looming, and when that happens, when I start to feel like there's no chance... that's an overshadow. When running is all that's left, and you don't even know if you can get away. When you... lose yourself --"

-- her body knew exactly how to react, and did so automatically. Her head moved slightly forward, tilted a little to the right in order to ensure her horn (only at a partial corona, but it was best to be safe) contacted nothing more than air. Foreknees bent a little, because she was taller. Eyes half-closed, but only half: there was a certain need to see if he was going to do anything else. And the vials, which had been moving so very slowly as every word subtracted speed, simply stopped in positions of safety.

Her body reacted properly, because it had been trained to do so. It meant he had no idea of what was happening within her mind as he maintained the contact of the little nuzzle. The nuzzle which was supposedly meant for friends.

(It was a rather soft touch, and there was nothing unpleasant about the grain of his fur. She supposed he had to be good at something.)

"That's why we have heroes," Caramel steadily told her. "The ones who don't run. So the rest of us can."

She would have won.

Her own breath seemed to be shaking within her ribs, and so she pulled back.

"Fluttershy included," Fleur said. She'd managed to get some humor into it.

"She's scared," Caramel stated, with the words surprisingly even. "Everypony knows that. She runs from almost everything. And it's part of how we know how bad something is. The worst things are the ones she doesn't run from."

She would have won.

"Like death," Fleur quietly observed. "She faces it. When other ponies won't."

He silently nodded.

"There's more to being attracted to Fluttershy than just her wings," Caramel dryly told her. "Or even her tail. She's something special, when she has to be."

She finished placing Shimmy's medicine into the padded saddlebags, because doing so served as the first step in changing the subject.

"I've been meaning to ask you," Fleur told him, her corona now projecting towards a clean scrap of towel: the examination table needed a wipedown. "Why Fluttershy? For the medicine, I mean." Other than the fact that you were able to get away without paying for so many moons. "With Shimmy's condition... from what I've heard, most ponies would have gone to Sweetbark."

His features abruptly tightened. Fur stood up along his spine, and the brown hue retreated into private shadows.

"I did."

All right. Let's see what his version of the story is. "And she couldn't see you?"

"She saw us exactly long enough to send us out the door." The words were closer to hiss than speech, for there was one relationship in Caramel's life which had always held true, and the well-protected vials were the only way to ensure it went on for another week. "You know what Sweetbark's good at, Fleur? Health. Her waiting room was full of the healthiest pets I'd ever seen. I thought it was a good sign. With everything Shimmy had been going through, knowing that... it was getting worse -- seeing all of those happy animals playing with their ponies while they waited... it made me feel like we had a chance. Like everything was going to be okay. But then she came out, she looked at Shimmy, and our appointment window slammed shut on my snout. The receptionist couldn't find the booking she'd verified forty minutes earlier, the next one was suddenly moons away, and she told us that if we wanted to be seen, we'd have to go elsewhere."

His hard-planted forehooves were rotating slightly, seemingly without his awareness. Grinding against the floor, and earth pony strength didn't require a build like Snowflake's to do some damage to the wood.

As softly as she could make the word while still keeping it audible, "Why?"

"Because Shimmy can't be cured." The first splinter broke away from the edge of the new dent. "Because the medicine is so hard to make. She's good at health, Fleur. She knows which animals are healthy, and she can diagnose when someone's going to be a week away from dying. Forever. And that's the best case, the best it can ever be for Shimmy. One mistake, one week. So she kicked us out. There's stories like that all over the settled zone, I'm sure of it. The worst wounds, the illnesses which don't get cleared up after six herbs and a little extra water during the day." With open bitterness, "The ponies who go to Sweetbark say she's perfect, and I'm pretty sure she stays that way by only seeing animals who don't really have anything wrong with them."

"But that can't last," Fleur immediately argued. "That's luck as much as anything else. Nopony can stay that lucky --"

"-- so she's lucky," Caramel angrily declared, and the lashing tail knocked two spools to the floor. "And you know the worst part, Fleur? I can't even wish anything else on her, because that means hoping for somepony's companion to get hurt. I have to hope she stays lucky because that way, none of her clients have to mourn anything other than a natural death." The last words emerged through gritted teeth. "Assuming she can even deal with that --"

-- and stopped, as he closed his eyes and took a deep, slow breath. Three more just like it followed, and his tail eventually returned to a resting position.

"I'll get the spools," the stallion quietly offered.

"I already did," Fleur replied as her field deposited them in place. "It's okay."

His lips quirked. "Maybe we should change the subject."

Especially since you're just echoing the others. Those who had been rejected by Sweetbark were willing to discuss it -- but the ones who still believed in the vet never came to the cottage, and the ponies who had tried talking to them about it elsewhere had found true believers unwilling to trust in the words of those without faith. "Probably," Fleur wryly agreed. "So back to the basics. How's work?"

Caramel sighed. "Tense. That new shop may not be open before Nightmare Night, but there's no way it isn't ready by Hearth's Warming. That's one of our biggest sales times for custom orders, and any degree of undercutting..." He slowly shook his head. "As much as she grumbles, Bon-Bon's never really minded Barnyard Bargains, because that's mass-produced bulk items: things where the time she'd need for small batches doesn't make sense when she compares them to the profit margin. And it helps to have Mr. Rich buy his own deluxe pieces from her. But specialty items keep the shop alive, and the profit margin still isn't great. Lose too many orders..."

He trailed off. Fleur polished the examination table, and thought about the approaching dominance war.

"How much trouble would she be in?"

"It depends on whether the new place catches on," Caramel sincerely replied. "It's not like we've had the chance to sample his work, and he's going after a younger market than we do -- well, than Bon-Bon did." This breath was swallow. "She's been aiming a little more down in years lately. It's natural. It's..."'

Stopped again, and his head came up.

"It's not fair," he clearly said. "Not to have this happen now. He's not even in another part of town, he's right across the street. And they've got a filly on the way. Their first foal by next spring, and this has to happen now. It's not fair to them."

"Life doesn't care about fairness." Words learned by rote, something which could emerge without thought, and so she didn't consider their potential impact until after they'd already escaped --

-- but Caramel just wearily smiled, with no true mirth at all.

"Tell that to their child."

Innocence always dies.

A foal wouldn't truly understand, not for years to come. A foal simply heard the pain without understanding where it came from, and -- waited to see if it would stop.

But the world didn't care about pain any more than it tried to enforce any concept of fairness. It simply created a place for struggle. Some lived. Others didn't.

And in the end, time always ran out.

Moon was lowered. Sun was raised.

The new couch was seeing some use. Fleur occasionally collapsed onto it for an hour before trying to head back to her rental, and mostly used her prone position to contemplate just how hard it was to get tear stains out of satin.

Bills were paid, and Fleur added those expenses to the frequent invoices.

The shrew began to follow her around.

In what turned out to be the highlight of Fluttershy's absence, a pony who was at least five days behind on the news approached the cottage not with work or bits, but an intent to ask the usual occupant out: something she entrusted Fleur with passing on while the unicorn taking the message asked a few subtle questions and made plans to sniff out the mare's exact economic and social status (although being so far out of the gossip loop served as penalty for the first missed hurdle).

She didn't see it as a good sign, because to do so invoked a rare degree of understatement regarding the positive. It was the best thing to happen since her durance had begun. The herd was shifting its perception of her charge: Fluttershy was now seen as available, and the return to Ponyville would be followed by more queries. A coral-shrouded social calendar had finally opened, and that meant it was Fleur's responsibility to make sure it was filled properly. In fact, all things considered...

The next potential activity would potentially help Fluttershy. It would definitely aid Fleur, and that meant it had priority. As soon as Fluttershy got back --

if she

Moon was brought down. Sun was raised up. The cycle continued and so Fleur was almost certain her charge was safe, for both events continued to occur in their usual order.

She waited. It was all she could do. A now-familiar lack of volume would be just barely heard within the cottage, or...

She moves towards flame.

It was a sign of bravery. A level of courage which that name never should have allowed.
It was also a way to die.

She heard the door open, even from the chill dispensary. (It was perhaps too dignified a term for a closet which had every wall lined with narrow shelves, spaced to allow a pony's snout easy access to the little glass bottles. It was the place where things which would keep without special conditions were stored, and Fleur had still found a need to sort out those approaching their effective expiration dates while researching replacement costs. It was also where she'd found another crack.) She had become all too attuned to the sound of that door opening, because she had no real need to lock it. As far as Fleur was concerned, the security measures required for the cottage came from the occupants.

It was probably going to be another emergency. There was a chance that it was just Snowflake, who was out on the grounds: the kennels needed cleaning and it was a job she was perfectly content to let him take. But then she heard a rush of wings, multiple scrabbling claws racing across the floor towards the door, her instincts shifted to intruder, she ran out of the dispensary and her trailing field bubble brought a few bottles with her in case ammunition was needed --

"...it's all right!" Which was followed by the softest of giggles, something which was nearly broken by the little gasp. "No, it's okay! I'm home, you can just... all right, you can't all lick my face at once, you know that, someone has to go to the back and... not my back, Angel: not right now..."

Anypony would have picked up on the open delight, the joy at simply having come home. Fleur's hearing centered on something else.

It's been hours now. Hours of trying to continue her travels in the dark. Going forward is something which can be done, because... there's nothing else she can do.

Every so often, something passes overhead, or on the road which cuts through the forest, guarded by trees and reinforced by spells which do their best to keep the nightmares within: something which has, in so many ways, already failed. There's always enough warning for her to get out of the way in time, because just about every last one of those travelers is screaming.

She is moving through the dark, and doing so when so many others aren't moving at all. Some are huddled in their homes, while others take to the roads because those they love are elsewhere and this is the time to find them. The only time, the last chance, so they rush forward at the best speed they can manage. They commit everything they have to that, because they only have to last long enough to reach their own charges and after that...

...after that, it won't matter any more.

She is moving through the dark. Traveling under Moon, when Sun should have been raised hours ago. Forcing herself to go forward in a world approaching its death, and doing so at a standard pace. There is nowhere she can run, nowhere anyone can run, not when the overshadowing is complete. And so she might as well continue her journey, to see how far she can get before all heat drains away, before every plant dies and the rivers freeze and her blood goes solid within an ice-coated corpse.

No loved ones to find. (She has never truly believed that they await her, and recognizes that the issue will be settled soon enough.) Nothing she can do to change anything, because... there's nothing to be done.

She has no way of knowing what truly happened. Just about every sapient within a night without end can only guess, and hers echoes that of the majority.

The Princess is dead.

It's the only possible answer. Sun has been late before: a few seconds might mean somepony meeting Equestria's ruler in a corridor at just the wrong moment, a minute represents a quick conference, and three generally has that one individual who lives in every neighborhood internally justifying the existence of their well-stocked basement. But she can't remember anything over five minutes. Five minutes is a joke: clearly somepony slept in today, a thousand years of responsibility and this is when she decides to skive off. Five minutes of delay is incredibly rare, but it's something the world can understand.

It's been hours.

Immortality was a lie. The Princess is dead. The cycle has ended, and so the world dies with her.

She distantly wonders how it happened. History contains wars against Equestria, and some of those were led by monsters who wore the skin of leadership. The ones who truly didn't care if everyone died as long as they were the ones to trigger global extinction, or just believed they had a way to take over the cycle when there was only one way of being proven right. So it could have been a first strike, one where she didn't know there was any war starting at all because she's been on the road. Assassination seems like a possibility. Or... accident. The whole world tripped on a flowerpot and broke its neck. It would almost be funny if not for all the screaming.

There's nothing she can do. Canterlot is gallops and gallops away, a distance she will never be able to cross before the end. She's between towns, which means none can offer her comfort and... she wouldn't accept that now. She hasn't been able to believe in such things for some time, and not even the end of the world can change that. And when it comes to offering comfort to others...

They rush past her, screaming. Some scream out names, trying to find those they love before it all ends. But for the most part, they just scream.

She will be dead soon enough, and the same will apply to an entire planet. But she intends to outlast a number, simply through remembering her lessons. Even to the last, and perhaps especially to the last. That simply going forward can represent some form of victory.

She's frightened, in the face of death. She can almost smell the stink of her own fear rising from her shadowed fur. And she can hear the predators in the woods on the side of the road, those who hunt at night. They should have been too tired to prowl, they should have rested, but... their instincts drive them on, because Sun is gone and so they must continue their hunt. She wonders if they're capable of realizing that the hunt will never end, that with the most vital thing having failed, the protection of the road should be tested because perhaps that will fail too and if not... they'll be dead soon enough anyway.

Half the world will freeze. Half will burn. All will die.

She's frightened. But her hooves shuffle forward, because she has her lessons. They won't protect her from death. But as long as she remains alert, focused, as long as she can still think... then she might meet her end as something other than prey.

The world dies, and takes everyone with it. But when it comes to her, she intends to let it die hungry.

It's not a plan. It's something to do, and so she pushes forward, claiming a small victory with every extra breath --

-- she's looking down when it happens, and so she doesn't initially realize what's going on. For a moment, she just thinks her eyes have adjusted to a new level of night vision, something they've never accomplished before just because she's never spent this much time within the dark, and that's why the road is a little easier to make out --

-- one of the pebbles is quartz. Dulled by centuries of dirt, nowhere near the polish of false jewelry, and there's still enough left to allow a single glint at the moment the light touches it.

And then Sun is raised.

It's not complete, not all at once. Sun is moving somewhat faster than normal, as if trying to make up for lost time -- but it's not all that much of a difference, and so nothing rushes through the sky. The glint simply makes her look up, turn to see the sky lightening as Sun approaches, blacks and deep blues going pale, red and orange and pink join the procession, and in time it's another kind of blue, the blue of life and the cycle renewed. A promise kept.

She stands there as her fur is illuminated into white, watching for as long as she can. (She almost injures herself in doing so, for Sun remains Sun and so none can look for too long.) She can still hear screams off in the distance as light turns the road's borders back into trees and weary predators slump off to their dens. But they're different screams now, the screams of celebration --

-- almost.

There's something else within those sounds, and she feels the twinned emotions within herself as she stands under new Sun. Joy (so rare, something which almost required this to even temporarily restore within her). Terror.

The first is because it ended.
The second is because something went so crucially wrong as to let it happen at all.
If it happened once...

...and then she came around the corner, cleared the hallway, and the first thing Fleur saw was the scrum.

There were probably better ways to have described it, but that was what her mind provided: a hoofball pile made up of dozens of little bodies, all fighting to be the ones who reached Fluttershy first. The pegasus was laughing as those she cared for moved across her, rubbed against legs and wings and face, and that was the joy. Because she was home, because the mission was over and their mistress had returned home at last.

There were those among the animals with very little sense of time, for whom now was just about eternal and any true amount of absence equated to forever. From them, the greeting came as if it welcomed somepony back from the dead, and that too was the joy.

But Fleur was listening to something else, as the happy swarm surrounded its heart. The little gasps which arose when contact was made. She saw the winces as claws moved across the pegasus' back, glimpsed saddlebags which had partial rents in their sides, something which seemed to have been created by blades, spotted the discoloration to fur which had been produced by underlying bruises...

There was joy, and perhaps all of that belonged to the animals. But the price of sapience was fear.

"You need treatment," were the first words to emerge, and the startled jerk of the yellow head told Fleur that until the moment she'd spoken, Fluttershy hadn't known she was there at all.

The words confirmed it.

"...you're here?" the pegasus softly said. "You're -- why are you --"

"-- Snowflake asked for help." She took two steps forward. "Did you see a doctor before you came back?" Or was that something else Celestia couldn't be bothered to authorize?

"...it's just some bruises," the pegasus softly protested as birds landed along mostly-folded wings: she winced again. "I have liniment. And mchanga for the pain. It's nothing --"

"-- I'll say when it's nothing!" She almost completely missed the little gasp in the sound of her own hoofsteps quickly moving across the wood, lost a few subtleties of the startled expression in the light from her horn as her field projected over and over again. "Clear off! Move away from her or I'll move you!" And they couldn't understand her, but they saw the bubbles carrying their smaller fellows to cubbyholes and furnishings and a fainting couch which had just found a new purpose, some were startled and others were beginning to glare at her, she felt a shrew's angry claws beginning to scramble up her right hind leg... "Fluttershy, tell them to give me some space! I want you on the examination table, and then we just might go to the hospital!"

If she dies...

"...it's just bruises!" The exclamation point was mostly implied: volume had remained consistent, but the one visible eye was widening. "We get bruised all the time, Fleur, we're okay, we're all okay. Even Twilight's just missing some of her mane. Again. It's usually accidents in the basement, but this time it was --"

Horror flashed across yellow features, and she stopped. So did Fleur, at least for the advance: field bubbles continued to pick off squirrels, and the largest carried away a loudly-protesting raccoon.

"What happened?" There was cold in those words, on a chill autumn morning.

"...it was a mission... we can't always talk about them, and this one... it doesn't matter if we're a little hurt, Fleur, it never matters if I'm hurt as long as we're all still alive --"

"-- it doesn't matter?" There was ice in her blood now and judging by Fluttershy's expression, the glaciers seemed to be floating into a second body. "What do you mean, 'it doesn't matter?' This is your life!"

"...we're alive..."

It was like explaining Sun to a foal. "You're hurt. Your being hurt matters."

In a way, the trembling was helping Fleur: at the very least, a few of the smallest animals were being dislodged. "...it's just... just bruises..."

"Tell me what happened on the mission." It was meant to come across as an order. As something dominant. "At least for what happened to cause those injuries. The wrong kinds of magic need their own treatment, and when it comes to monsters --"

"-- I can't." The shaking was accelerating. "I'm fine, I just need a day or two at home and I'll be --"

Her charge's volume had remained consistent, even as some of the animals began to form a protective barrier and others moved towards Fleur. She was aware of that, if not her own decibels steadily increasing "-- I need to know what's going on with you, I can't help you unless you let me --"

"-- being home is what helps, I just thought I was coming home, I didn't think you were going to be --"

"-- of course I'm here! Where else am I ever going to be? I'm here until the job is complete, until you're happy and I can't do anything about it, you won't even tell me why you're hurt and I have to worry about what --"

But that was when Fluttershy's head flipped back, just enough to send her mane cascading across her spine and somehow, the mere movement silenced Fleur. It took the shock in the pair of exposed blue-green eyes to make her recognize exactly what she'd been saying.

Those slightly-oversized wings flared. Animals scrambled in all directions, there was a backblast of wind and --

-- Fleur's jaw tightened.

She knew what words had just come out of her mouth. She had watched her charge flee and upset animals were focusing on her as the source of the pain, but that didn't matter because Fluttershy had just flown away and --

No.

Not this time.

She hadn't gone very far, because she didn't have to.

For Fleur, there had been enough study of her charge to recognize that flight seldom occurred, and she knew how those capable of going airborne tended to retreat from the ground-bound. They would frequently go exactly far enough to be out of reach, and then they would stay there.

In this case, the morning was cold. Overcast, with a good number of exceptionally low-lying thick clouds drifting over the cottage. A place to perch which couldn't be reached, added to one where hiding was possible, and the sounds of crying might never echo to the earth, with falling tears simply mistaken for rain. It had made guessing exceptionally simple, and as it turned out...

"I'm sorry I yelled."

The curl of weeping life blinked.

Slowly, a shapely yellow head raised itself from forelegs and vapor, stared out across the grey until the startled gaze focused on pink glow.

"I was upset," Fleur admitted. "I'm still upset. You're hurt, and -- you made it sound like that wasn't important. Like you don't think you're important." With a sigh (and a full-body bob), "And that's part of the problem. You have to believe you're worthwhile. That you have value, because value is something which somepony else can desire. It's self-esteem, and when you talk like that --"

"...how are..." Another blink. "...how are you doing that? How..."

The sigh repeated itself. Pink-encased hindquarters were hoisted a little, trying to keep them out of the billowing vapors. She hadn't been able to find a hole on the way up and liquid tended to entangle itself in field borders: it left little rivers twisting across the glow, mere fractions of a hoofwidth away from her skin. The briefest dip would make it that much worse.

There were many prices to be paid if her concentration completely collapsed, and very close to the bottom of the list would be dying with her coat utterly ruined.

"It's not easy," Fleur said, and squinted her eyes against the glow from her horn's hard-surging double corona. "Self-levitation is..."

Her body bobbed again (as Fluttershy continued to stare), and she just barely managed to keep it from turning into a full-fledged dip.

Fleur's next word was "Um," and it immediately made her feel stupid. She was just a little... distracted.

"...well," Fleur finally continued, "you have to be capable of managing your own weight. I can. But it's not easy." Which she hated admitting: letting anypony know the limits of her field strength was potentially giving them a weapon to use against her --

-- but this was Fluttershy.

"Plus you have to sort of project your field backwards," Fleur added. "That doesn't come naturally. It's a trick of thinking, and when you put together the field strength requirements with the number of ponies who can manage --"

Her hooves dropped into the vapor, and she flailed for a few seconds before lifting herself enough to free them. Fresh water crawled around the energy surrounding her hocks.

"We can do this up here," she painfully said as a flash of light behind her eyes served as the migraine's announcement for its imminent arrival. (She'd thought she was past that, but... the last time had been well before Canterlot.) "I'd rather not. I just didn't want what I said to be the last thing you heard from me today, because if I did... you might have decided they were the last words you ever wanted to hear. Fluttershy..."

Careful. It's either this or prison.

But the pegasus was looking at her, and both eyes were completely focused.

"...I was worried. I think everypony was. Ponyville changes when you're all away, because everypony is hoping you'll all come home. But with me -- my job is to worry about you. To make sure you're okay, that everything works out in a way where, in the end -- you're happy. And you came back, but you came back hurt, and you start to say things which make it sound like you feel you're not important. So even if you can't believe you matter, not even to yourself -- you matter to every animal in that cottage. You matter to me. And I have to be with you, as much as possible, until you're happy." She took a breath, blinked until her vision was partially clear: no unicorn was immune to their own corona light. "Even if I'm the one who upset you, and I'm sorry for yelling. Even if I have to follow you up --"

This time, she went in up to her knees.

"-- I haven't done this for a while," Fleur added (and now she sounded awkward, she hated sounding as if she didn't have control). "I'm not sure how long I can --"

Yellow wings flared, and then the pegasus was almost directly in front of her.

Almost directly in front --

"-- watch the horn!" It had been a yelp of panic, and it had also been fully justified: sharp contact while she was at a double corona... there would be no chance of maintaining the levitation and even if Fluttershy somehow managed to catch her in time, the backlash alone would be enough to put Fleur in the hospital. Of course, depending on how badly her charge was truly injured, there might be company --

"-- I know," the pegasus softly said. "Easy, Fleur. Easy..."

The yellow form went up a little more, rotated and went out of sight. The first indication Fleur had of Fluttershy's new position was the sudden pressure of four legs against the portion of field which had coated the white torso.

There was also warmth. Pegasi had the highest base body temperature of the three main pony races, and it gave the pressure a certain level of gentle heat.

"What are you doing?" It seemed important to ask.

"...pressure carry. In case you slip."

Which encouraged a rather natural follow-up question. "Can you --" Because a swoop and momentum bleed-off was one thing, but carrying...

"...I'm stronger than I look." And Fleur heard the smile. "You'll be okay."

The awkward pause was also audible.

"...you're not very good at this," Fluttershy added. "I know bad fliers. I'm not good. But you're horrible."

The humor registered in Fleur's ears, and did so while it was in the middle of setting off what she felt was both a rather reasonable reaction and explanation. Something which could be accomplished simultaneously by the same three words.

"I'm a unicorn."

"...yes," Fluttershy agreed after a few seconds. "...Twilight's been having the same problem. But she actually has wings. Do you do this a lot?"

Moons of memories replayed within a second of time.

"Not anymore," Fleur quietly answered. "Will you let me look at your injuries?"

"...yes. Even though the doctors already did, because you're worried. And... I accept the apology. That you're sorry you yelled." Pink light added its own tones to yellow fur. "I'm sorry you yelled too."

Fleur wondered if that had been a joke. Then she wondered if it was the right place to have that thought, and any actual discussion seemed to require ground. "So... can we go down now?"

"...yes." The pegasus' legs pressed more tightly, and did so with surprising power -- but Fleur didn't drop her corona. It was still important to have a backup plan. "I'll steer."

They began to descend through the cloud. The world went grey.

"Fluttershy?"

"...I've got you."

"I want to take you into Canterlot. In three days, after you've had some time to just -- be home. There's some things I have to do in the capital, and it'll help if you're with me. Will you come?"

Two bodies, each battered in its own way, with both still beautiful, emerged into open air.

"...yes."

"Thank you."

Animals were staring up at them from the cottage doorway. Several birds were already coming up to meet them.

"...and you have a very frightened shrew on your back."

There were easily two hundred ponies in the huge hall within the noble's ancient Canterlot house, moving under the seven crystal chandeliers while dressed in all their finery. Just about none of them had bothered to look up and of those who had, none realized that there were supposed to be six chandeliers. Nopony had spotted the book, carefully supported by curving brass arms.

"...what are we doing?" Harem Fantasy tentatively asked.

Several shards grinned.

"Scouting. Now, keep an eye --"

"I don't have eyes."

"And yet you can see," the chandelier huffily noted. "So work with me here. Start by watching the white unicorn stallion. Closely. I've heard a few things about him..."

While You Were Out...

They were talking more than they ever had, and too much of it was about the wrong things.

It took a little time before they truly had a chance to start: Snowflake came back from the kennels to find a welcome surprise unpacking those badly-damaged saddlebags, and so he was due his own greeting, plus what amounted to standing honors. (Fleur watched how the two greeted each other, how quickly the pegasi came together, and recognized that the relief which radiated from the huge white body was true. Also that the rather long nuzzle which took place between them was strictly the one meant for family, and had no chance to ever turn into anything else. And then she wound up giving them some privacy because her lack of practice had extended to the final release of her field upon touching soil again, and that meant she had to go groom the rainwater out of her coat.) Fluttershy then stopped unpacking long enough to help her near-brother get his own things together, which included rounding up Genova. A second round of affection concluded in a weary stallion carefully heading across the bridge, with a small brown head sticking up long ears between his own.

There were animals to check on and since that was being done by Fluttershy, most of it was directed at the animals themselves. Fleur only understood the few answers which came from posture alone and lost the questions when the pegasus inevitably abandoned comprehensible words, but most of the exchanges left Fluttershy relatively satisfied. The remainder produced a pair of quick chidings towards those who had used her absence as a chance to make a thorough investigation of the main cupboard, and ended with the assignment of a small dark space as future birthing area.

But then the grounds had to be inspected.

Fleur couldn't really tell her charge anything about those conditions: she'd wound up stuck in the cottage for the vast majority of her daylight hours, and when it came to things like checking on the last offerings from the little farm sections as they descended into the slumber of autumn... the central word which applied was 'unicorn.' She also still hadn't seen the full scope of Fluttershy's property, and that had meant leaving the outdoor duties to Snowflake.

So all she could do was follow Fluttershy as the kennels were examined, followed by chickens being queried about egg production. (The eggs themselves were picked up every few days, with what Fleur had considered to be a fair price left behind: it was apparently part of an agreement between cottage and bakery.) It was giving her a chance to explore a little more than she previously had, along with offering a degree of safety in the event of... someone dropping by to check on his friend. And it also allowed them to talk.

But it wasn't about the mission, or the injuries. (Fleur had thoroughly inspected the bruises, and Fluttershy's silence had utterly shut down any attempt to learn how they'd been inflicted.) She couldn't get a single word on where the Bearers had gone, and just bringing the topic around to the actual task under hoof was beginning to feel impossible. Because Fluttershy was happy to talk, more open to communication and the simple give-and-take of conversation than Fleur had ever seen from her charge --

-- but the pegasus had already decided what she wanted to talk about.

"...you didn't have to stay here so long. Not that many hours every day. Snowflake usually manages..."

"He asked for help." Billable help. "And it wasn't as if I had much else to do."

"...there's always the cinema," Fluttershy softly said, nosing the door of the smallest chicken coop shut. "Or the library." Thoughtfully, "I understand if you haven't been in the bowling alley yet. It's a little loud for me. But the spa is... nice." The one visible eye had its borders briefly tighten with consideration. "...maybe you should come. The next time I go with Rarity."

Under the one hoof, Fleur recognized that she could probably use a spa day, even one conducted under what she was expecting to be the lower standards offered by Ponyville. And under all three of the other hooves rested the fact that sharing the experience with that bitch was the best way to negate all relaxation while making any private followup (as soon as she could find somepony who would pay for it) into a spa week. "It's something the two of you do. I don't want to intrude." Although that did give Fleur a chance to turn the conversation around. "So when you were --"

"-- who changed the bindings on Greta's wing?"

And here we go again.

"I did."

"...it's a very good job."

Fleur hadn't been certain. In theory, wrapping by horn should just about always be easier than doing the same by mouth -- but there were jaws with more mandible dexterity than was possessed by certain fields, experience always played a part, and when it came to careful treatment of flight feathers... "If you say so."

And you're not asking where I learned how to do that, any more than you've asked about where I found out how to do anything. Eventually, you're going to look at the billing records for your clients, you're going to see just about the full extent of what was going on while you were on the mission, and I still don't know if you're going to ask.

It was something like waiting for the fourth horseshoe to drop, only while having the first through third still floating directly over her head.

And when you go into the attic...

They were heading towards the young giraffe or at least, its base.

"...were there more carnivores than usual? The meat supply is down --"

"I had to get rid of a few things," Fleur sighed. "I'll replace them. Fluttershy, did the others talk to you at all about the --"

"...spoilage?" With open concern, "I've been worried about that cooler..."

She managed to suppress the wince. Yes, Fluttershy was perfectly happy to talk, as long as the subject stayed on daily cottage life. Everything she'd missed, the things she had to learn about, and Fleur was guessing that if animals actually had anything approaching a thriving rumor mill, Fluttershy would happily occupy the heart of it. Their hooves were moving towards new territory while their words kept traveling in the same circuit over and over again, and it had just about reached the point where Fleur was waiting for her charge to sniff at a wet patch of tree bark and declare she was trying to catch up on the news.

Fleur knew what they had to talk about, and there were times when gentle steering was best. This was no longer one of them.

"I never got to talk to you after the date."

Silence. The shadow of a reaching long neck fell over both of them, and the few remaining green leaves were sent down an endless throat.

"...no," her charge eventually agreed. "I'm sorry, but... it's the missions, we never know when one is going to come in, we can't unless it's something which starts here. And if I miss going to Canterlot with you because of another one, I'm sorry --"

It was something she didn't want to think about just yet: having morning chill soaking into her body was bad enough without adding anything internal. "-- and because we never got to talk... I'm guessing you talked to your friends first."

A small branch snapped free overhead, was dropped by a young giraffe who saw no need to hang onto something which no longer had anything edible to use. Fluttershy easily stepped back in time.

"...yes. On the first day, while we were still traveling. And a little after."

Tartarus chain it. It had been a reasonable expectation: the vital opportunity to personally control the followup hours had been lost, and somepony else had stepped in. But until Fluttershy had spoken, there had still been the chance for the sort of action-packed mission where the only verbal exchanges came from desperate shouts, and the sole topic would have been where to dodge next.

The others had taken over the crucial period. That bitch had undoubtedly gotten a few words in, possibly stopping just short of generously nosing over the full dictionary. It meant there was probably damage to undo.

"What did they say?" She wasn't really expecting an answer. Somepony who refused to discuss any portion of the mission (she'd been hurt, she had been hurt and the rent saddlebags showed how it could have been so much worse) was probably going to place the most casual conversations behind the strongest security spells known to exist --

"...Applejack -- wasn't surprised. She said she'd been hoping it would work out from the first try, but with Caramel, she hadn't expected it to." A pause as Fluttershy leaned in, checking the giraffe's forehooves. "And she wants to meet you. She said it's been too long already."

It provided final confirmation of the last Bearer's identity and with that, Fleur had assembled the set. Her charge's next inevitable strength-gathering pause was used for placing the full sextet upon an inner stage, followed by a close examination.

Six mares. (Well, five mares and a bitch.) Six ponies who, when compared to each other, seemed to have exactly one thing in massed common, and that was the fact that Celestia regularly asked them to go out on a nation's behalf and see how many came back. It was a strange group, and she had no idea how it had come together. How it stayed that way.

"...Twilight..." The name triggered a small smile. "...mostly got stuck on the glasses. I know she's going to the cinema to get a few pairs, so she can try to figure out how they work. But that's just Twilight. Sometimes she thinks about the wrong thing first, and sometimes..." The yellow head dipped. "...she thinks about that because it keeps her from thinking about something else."

Fleur silently filed that bit of oddity away for later as she carefully adjusted her position in the dying grass.

"Pinkie was mostly just sorry. For everypony. Because it was the first time for me and she wanted it to be better, even though she's never really liked Caramel all that much and she told me she was hoping it wasn't going to be him. But she was sorry for me, and she was still sorry for him because she's Pinkie, and because of how bad it all was. Rainbow -- Caramel's been trying to date her for years. Pinkie doesn't really like Caramel, but Rainbow almost hates him. She feels like he's a pebble which she can never get out of a hoof crack. But she didn't really want to talk about the date, because I told her that she'd broken her promise with that cloud and -- she's still denying it, still after the whole mission. She kept saying she wasn't anywhere near us and it's not her fault that she was sleeping somewhere without witnesses. We mostly stopped bringing it up because she just wouldn't tell us what happened and being that mad was hurting everything. And Rarity..." The pegasus took a deep breath, straightened up again as those slightly-oversized wings shifted against her sides. "She's angry."

Fleur patiently waited for the inevitable.

"...with you," Fluttershy finished. "Rarity usually doesn't get that angry. It's... a little scary. When Rainbow's mad, we all know how she'll act. Rarity can be angry in a lot of different ways."

"So why is she angry?" The words had been patient. Calm, completely controlled. Because Fleur knew why the semi-adequate designer was reacting that way, and so the only thing which truly mattered was how her charge had taken it.

"She said..." Another breath, and the incredible tail twitched. "...that you'd picked Caramel because you thought it would probably be a bad date." A little more quickly, "Not that bad. And she never accused you of sabotaging it..."

Several leaves used the delay to alter their hues.

"...not out loud. Just mutters. I think those were most of the mutters, at least before our dresses were confiscated by security. But she said... it wasn't just about dating. It was a lesson in rejection. In turning somepony away, when you didn't want to be with them."

The lone visible eye focused on Fleur.

"...was it?"

There was a certain amount of art to the nod. It took skill to move the head in such a way as to never shift the mane at all. Fleur's expression was never allowed to change from placid neutrality, and any non-giraffe observers might have sworn that no matter what the neck had done, the horn had never altered its position.

Just above a whisper, "...why?"

"Because it was always going to happen eventually," Fleur quietly said. "Fluttershy, if it had worked out between the two of you, I would have been happy for you. I want everything to work out, because that's the only way this can end." Or rather, the only ending where Celestia got her way. "If there had been a real connection, I would have done everything I could to keep it going, as long as it was good for you. But when you're looking for somepony to spend your life with, you're probably not going to find them in the first place you search. There's books which say you can. Stories. But books lie. Films just make the lies move. Any number of ponies over one, and you would have to turn somepony away. It just happened the first time. And you got through it."

Cold air drifted between them. The young giraffe slowly moved away, because the sounds of pony speech were unimportant and there had to be more leaves somewhere.

"...Rarity said something else."

"What?"

"...that you're a better teacher than Iron Will." And then there was a tiny smile, something made all the prettier by Fleur's inability to make out what was happening on the obscured side of Fluttershy's mouth. "Since I didn't spend the whole mission telling everypony to go away."

There seemed to be only one reasonable response to that.

"...who?" The inner reaction added ...what?

"...someone I met once," Fluttershy softly failed to explain. "Rarity said -- it was a lesson I needed. But she's still angry. I think she was just about as angry about having to say it. And she wants to know if you're going to tell Caramel."

A sigh seemed appropriate. "Not for a long time. Because I was hoping..." Followed by a well-timed head shake. "He's not the best stallion, Fluttershy: a lot of mares made sure I heard about that. But he's also not the worst. I've met ponies who make him look like..."

The trailoff was deliberate. It was an ending she felt Fluttershy would respect, especially since her charge used it so much. It was also meant as a barrier against the actual memories, and it failed.

"...so have I," Fluttershy quietly said, and the visible eye briefly squeezed shut. "...the missions are good at that. But Rarity thinks he has to know."

"You had a bad date," Fleur evenly countered. "Caramel had a horror. He's not the worst stallion, Fluttershy -- and he's not one who deserves to hear this right now." And much to her own surprise, the next smile was just a little bit real. "Have you ever heard of Solomon Short?"

The answer made her own eyes widen. "...I know the name. Macintosh -- that's Applejack's brother -- has a book. I've seen him reading it. And loaning it out. He's a griffon, isn't he?"

"One of the great philosophers," Fleur answered. "And yes, a griffon. He wrote philosophy which anyone could understand, if they just let themselves think about it for a while. And one of the things he wrote was every sapient life could be summarized in six words."

After what Fleur estimated to be at least four guesses, "...which six?"

"'It wasn't funny at the time.' Give Caramel a few moons, so it'll all reach the point where things like being served a platter of fire can be funny. And then I can tell him. It's best that he hears it from me."

It was too long a pause. There were ways in which they were all too long, every hesitation consuming time which could never be regained...

"...all right. And I'll tell Rarity. To let you do it." Her charge sighed. "I told her that a lot."

Fleur blinked.

"You did?"

"...I said... you were my teacher. A teacher who'd been chosen and sent by the Princess. And if she trusted you, to make sure the lessons were the right ones... then I had to trust you a little too."

She trusts me...

There were so many things Fleur could do with that, a near-infinity of inroads which led to the other Bearers. And every last one of them had to wait until 'a little' went away.

"...will the next date be better?"

"I hope so." Which provided the precious information that Fluttershy was willing to try a next date -- along with the next opportunity. "Actually, while you were gone, a mare dropped by. Do you know anything about Merune --"

"-- so how was Mister Eggfur doing with the others? And..." with open concern "...how is everyone else doing with him? He's the first platypus we've ever had visiting. I think the others are a little... weirded out?"

Three days.

Fleur didn't consider them to be wasted. Fluttershy needed to be at her best in Canterlot (or as close as she could currently come), and that meant allowing some time to heal -- physically and mentally, for simply being home again was providing a degree of visible comfort. It also meant time in which Fleur could plan out the trip, along with making hours available for other things. There were some requirements which warranted the existence of what others falsely viewed as 'downtime,' even when Fleur remained aware that time could run out for an entire world. That was something which just about everypony seemed to have forgotten, and perhaps that deliberate forfeiture of learning was what allowed them to get up in the morning. For Fleur, the opposite held true.

The lessons continued during the wait, of course: it was time which had to be used. But there was a new source of interruptions now, and this variety was actually somewhat welcome. It seemed that the Bearers had a habit of checking on each other following missions, and it allowed Fleur to observe her charge interacting with them -- from a distance, because she had to at least pretend towards privacy. Pinkie dropped by (and was easy to overhear, if almost impossible to comprehend), as did Twilight: the latter visibly lacked the grooming skills to close the gap in her mane. Rainbow was spotted in the garden, but that visit required intervention because the rabbit had decided that if anyone was going to filch the last of the carrots, it was clearly going to be him. The argument ended in a pair of sore snouts and a yellow pegasus trying to negotiate peace between the warring factions: the actual challenge was in figuring out which one understood the least number of words.

(Fluttershy also managed to stabilize the cottage enough to risk visiting Applejack -- but Fleur missed that one, because one of the props being used to hold the whole thing up was her own horn.)

They were talking more than ever, the topic kept coming back to the cottage itself -- but there were things they weren't talking about at all. Fleur had caught Fluttershy examining the till, spotted the visible shock at the sheer number of yellowed bills which had been finally stamped as Paid, many of which were half-buried under accumulated bits -- but her charge didn't talk about it.

There was also no mention of Sweetbark. But that was something which would have had to start on Fleur's side, and she didn't want the pegasus to know what she was planning. In terms of reviewed paperwork (and Fluttershy did go over the activity logs), there was no reason for the vet to come up: a death for which the price had been paid in innocence had never been recorded in ink. But a client had needed freshly-mixed medicine, Fleur had heard Fluttershy say she'd be back in a minute, knew the attic was the next destination and Snowflake had never been told how to create Thought Pain, so the only reason for anything to be missing was...

She'd held her ground, or at least that part of the floor. And after a while, Fluttershy had come down, several green sprigs carefully held within the clean grip of the mouth guard. A single blue-green eye had focused its attention on Fleur, doing so for exactly four heartbeats. And then she'd moved towards the mortar, because medicine had to be mixed.

That had been it: a single look. No questions about why portions of the three plants had been used, or who had known how. Not a single inquiry regarding the why. There had been brief regard as a single heavy breath made its way back into the world, a drooping tail had been dragged towards the mixing equipment, and not a single word was ever said.

(There would be words, in time. Fluttershy would not be the first to hear them.)

Fleur finally had the freedom to do some long-overdue things in town, and the most necessary thankfully came up with the hoped-for results: Zipporwhill's parents were no cause for concern. But the filly was moving slowly, had her head down most of the time so as to poorly conceal the little sniffs. There was pain there -- but Fleur had no freedom to approach, and so there was no telling what that agony might be forged into.

For her own part, she was still having trouble sleeping -- or rather, remaining asleep, because her dreams were bright and vivid and contained every last thing she could ignore during the day. There was one night when Fleur got six hours of sleep in four ninety-minute increments, wound up leaving the rental under the returning semi-delusion that trotting around for a while would tire her to the point where even dreams would need a chance to rest, and the adult was just as wrong as the filly had been. But on the potentially beneficial side, she was becoming increasingly familiar with moving through Ponyville under Moon and while that had a purpose, she still resolved to visit the Tangle during the trip into Canterlot. The city's oldest section sold some sleep-aid potions which weren't technically illegal, and the fact that just about any other pharmacist reacted to a request for them with temporary deafness just spoke to both their quality and the number of ponies who went through their lives without reading a single instruction.

She could fall asleep without issue. The potions (something she'd never taken before, a last resort which now had to be close to hoof) were only a risk in that they had a good chance to keep her that way -- and might do so even if she truly needed to wake. It meant she would only take one when the lack of rest began to truly affect her, because it seemed possible that

and then the sound stopped

she would be trapped within the silence.

Screaming.

The first pieces of mail arrived at Fleur's temporary residence. (This turned out to be on the golden-eyed mare's route, and it gave her a few worries regarding professionalism from somepony whom she knew didn't like her.) Each bore the official stamp of the palace, and they all shared a theme. One contained a voucher which compensated her at the typical escort salary level, and did so for all of the hours she'd personally billed. The others held copies of various invoices, and every last one had been overwritten with what had suddenly turned into the most glorious word in the Equestrian language: Paid.

The palace was accepting her expenses. All of them. It very nearly opened the road into joy and when that portal collapsed under the weight of caution, still managed to construct a trail which led off into the deepest realms of creative accounting.

After the celebratory snack wrapped up (because getting that accomplished entitled her to a small piece of chocolate, especially since Celestia would be paying for it), she was able to do some basic research into Merune, and tentatively assigned the mare a very low-priority status: the economic situation wasn't all that promising and when it came to the puzzle... well, there were escorts who were willing to deal with that particular piece, and just about all of them eventually got sick of showering three times a day.

However, Ponyville now knew the Bearers were home, and so two other options carefully presented themselves at Fluttershy's door. Unfortunately, they did so within two minutes of each other, and the resulting argument wound up ripping one of the animal feed bags which the barely-more-intelligent of the pair had brought as his courting gift. The situation resolved itself one bear later, although not before Fleur had informed them that they could try again when they figured out how to do it as gentlecolts, and did so when she'd already permanently rejected both ponies. The feed, however (which was already within her field, being moved towards the cottage basement), was perfectly welcome to hang around for a while, and the end product of its stay would still be more useful than the stallions.

It was still a good sign. Ponies knew Fluttershy was available. Ponies were willing to try and once those who were more attuned to the settled zone decided their Bearers had recovered from the latest mission, ponies might be trying in bulk. (Fleur was silently hoping to see any future gifts of feed arrive the same way.) Ponyville was willing to act --

-- but there was more than just Ponyville.

Ponyville's morning had dawned (mostly) clear and chill, with both factors dictated by a schedule which didn't care to show mercy. The actual enforcement was left to a weather coordinator who was often accused of being allergic to sunrise, and so the last clouds were being cleared out by a fuming cyan blur while multiple commuters did something which could be considered as cheering her on, at least after you swapped the 'j' out.

A number of ponies were watching Rainbow, and Fleur would eventually learn this was fairly standard for the settled zone residents: you watched the pegasus not only to see what she was doing, but to have a better idea of just when everypony else should clear out of the way. But most of those occupying the Outbound platform were looking at the two exceptionally (and cosmetic-boosted) beautiful mares who were waiting for the train. The unicorn, who was visibly serving as both companion and bodyguard, had her horn ignited at the partial corona level: the pink field was tucking a receipt into the right saddlebag, because a trip into the capital was a billable expense. The pegasus was constantly engaged in little shifts of position, with the visible eye frequently seeking the sky. It was the reason the unicorn's left hind hoof kept hovering over the end of the incredibly full tail.

"I will catch you," Fleur whispered.

"...you're not that fast." (Receiving an actual reply made Fleur's well-trimmed right eyebrow go up, and the brush against the borders of defiance made her center the hoof's aim.) "...I'm not fast, but you're just levitating. I don't think you can keep up --"

"I can manage my own body weight," Fleur softly reminded her. "That's what self-levitation requires."

"...so?"

Technically, the next question was never supposed to be asked of any mare, not if the pony making the inquiry wanted to live long enough to hear the answer. Fleur, however, was in the position of needing to reassert a certain amount of dominance, because the current display of faint determination was showing up at exactly the wrong time.

With the smallest of smiles, in the softest possible tone, "How much do you weigh?"

Yellow ears rotated in shock. The visible eyelid twitched.

"...I -- I usually don't get on a scale, but the last time I had to, it said... um..."

Fleur watched the wince (and related creasing) set in, then considered some of the contents of her saddlebags. She could easily touch up her charge's cosmetics along the way.

"...oh," Fluttershy finished.

"If I can lift myself," the taller mare whispered, "then I can lift you. One corona grab and I can hold you long enough for the train to arrive." It would make a scene -- but as far as Fluttershy's social prospects were concerned, quite a few ponies would pay very close attention to the sight of two mares fighting. "You said you'd come with me. So we're going together."

There was a little less defiance in the next words -- but the perceptible amount still qualified as a positive number. (It was possible that the additional date requests had boosted her charge's self-esteem, and that would help in the long gallop -- but for now, it was making Fluttershy a little harder to work with. It was rather more probable that having to stand on the platform while in makeup, with ponies staring at the results, had made the pegasus a little more willing to do whatever would result in getting away.) "...you never said why you wanted me to go. Just that it would help if I was with you."

And that only took three days.

"So you finally want to know."

The defiance was still dropping. The sheer level of miffed, however, was now actually visible to the unassisted eye. Fleur was fully prepared to place all blame on the spectators.

"Fine," Fleur shrugged. "Then I'll tell you."

"...thank you."

"I didn't say where," Fleur added, and settled onto the train's padded bench.

She had chosen a window seat, and the reminder she'd recently given Fluttershy on the platform meant she had very few worries about letting her charge have one: any hasty exit would still take enough time to allow the ignition of a corona. Not that she had much choice in the matter: at this hour, just about everypony could have a bench to themselves, and it allowed her to face a still-somewhat-miffed Fluttershy across the narrow space between opposing seats.

Admittedly, given the level of appearance both mares were sporting, the challenge was going to be in not acquiring companions. Fleur, whose last major journey hadn't even ended with a proper landing, preferred to make this particular trip in peace and so was ready to carefully discourage anypony who tried the usual jump-slide-sit-Hi! -- unless the proper candidate came along. Of course, the best possible match would probably include the basic trait of knowing just how stupid that move was --

"...so what are we doing?" Fluttershy finally asked.

Fleur glanced at the window, watched the landscape jerk as the train started to move. Leaving Ponyville -- but only for a little while.

"When the Princess contacted me," Fleur eventually replied, well after the vibrations from the wheels had started to move through her fur, "I went almost directly to the palace. And after I met with her, it was straight to Ponyville."

"...so you didn't get to tell everypony where you were going?" Fluttershy naturally decided. "But you've had enough time to write them, and if you ever need to get a letter sent really quickly --" she leaned forward slightly "-- I know a way to help..."

At least somepony gets along with the mailmare. "I'm pretty sure the palace notified my clients about a direct hire and cleared my schedule that way," Fleur responded. "But that still left things I didn't get to do."

"...like what?"

Starkly, "Packing."

It was possible to watch the self-blame travel across the yellow fur, and even easier to see it settling in strand by strand.

"...oh," Fluttershy said, and her tail curled in against her body. (Given that it was Fluttershy's tail, this hid just about everything up to the neck, with some space left over.) "You... it was that fast... I didn't think... you've been in Ponyville without anything ever since you... and it's my fault, I asked for somepony and it's my fault..."

With the weather coordinator, you had to check for the signs of an impending physical crash: when it was Fluttershy, there was a constant watch for emotional impact, and Fleur quickly sent her next words to intercept. "I came as quickly as I could." A half-truth: the palace could have sent her by teleport, but it would have lacked what Fleur was now seeing as Celestia's favorite part. "And that was my choice." Lie. "The palace lets me bill them for replacement items --" true "-- and I pack pretty light to start with. But I still left some things behind. I want to make sure they're on the train back with us tonight."

"...so why do you need me?"

Because for starters, this Tartarus-sent piece of metal on my right foreleg is currently telling Celestia that I'm on my way out of Ponyville, and the direction plus speed will let her know it's by train. I'm expecting at least two Guards to be at the Canterlot station. Traveling alone is probably good for two hours of interrogation by the palace as a check on my intentions and a reminder that they can check at any time. But if they see me get off the train with you, they won't say a word. They might follow us for a while, just to make sure nothing's going on -- but in the end, they'll believe I'm doing my job.

"There's some things I want to do with you in the capital," she truthfully said. "For starters, I had to go through your meat supply while you were on the mission."

I don't know if you're going to be there when I come over the bridge.
I didn't know if you'd be here today.

"And I wound up kicking some of it out," Fleur continued. "I promised to replace that. Ponyville only has pet supply stores. Canterlot is..." She'd smiled when she'd first seen the gleaming letters in the Heart, and it had been one of her rarest specimens for that expression: the true one. "...a little different. But you know what yours like to eat, so it's still easier with you along. There's other shops I want to bring you into, because there's things you need if we're going to keep this moving forward. And there's some ponies I'm hoping you'll get the chance to meet."

"...and that's why you had me wear makeup?"

We're advertising. And you didn't sell a product with anything less than a glamour shot. "Yes."

"...what kind of things?"

"You'll see when we get there." And the palace would see the invoices a few hours later, because there was no reason not to use the local mailboxes.

I can't spend an entire nation into bankruptcy. But I can make Celestia wonder if I've figured out how.

"But we'll start with my place," Fleur added. "It won't take long. I just need to pick up a few items, and then we'll focus on you for the rest of the day. Snowflake has the cottage, Fluttershy. We're just two mares on a day trip, doing some shopping. When was the last time you had a pure day off?"

There was a long moment of rather visible thought.

"...do the missions count?"

"No."

"...being sick?"

"No."

"...a while."

"So for now," Fleur advised, "relax and enjoy the ride." Her right hind hoof subtly diverted an incoming stallion away from their seats and in doing so, gave him a freshly-assigned place on the other side of the center aisle. "We're going into my territory now. And I won't let it be too scary."

Fluttershy managed a nod. Fleur watched the view through the window, which also allowed her to continue using the reflection as a pony tracker.

The best things are safe.

She was almost sure of that. But she wouldn't allow herself to be hopeful, because Celestia had uncovered so much. If that had been discovered...

She doesn't know. She can't know. Nopony knows.

There was only one way to be certain.

Fleur could never go home. But if they were still there, she would be able to go back.

They're Called 'Stomping Grounds' For A Reason

She didn't ignore the pair of Solar guards who watched her step down from the train, because ignoring something came with a requirement she was unwilling to fulfill. You had to acknowledge that something existed before you could ignore it, and so Fleur conducted an entirely natural trot past what was, to her, completely empty space. But to be fair, a total vacuum would have had an easier time pretending it had every natural right to be there, along with potentially possessing a somewhat lower level of suckage.

Fleur couldn't be bothered to notice them -- but for the commuters, they were practically impossible to miss. They had been dispatched in full armor, and for Guards who were clearly dressed for their shift to be this far away from the palace -- it wasn't quite normal, and Fleur suspected that most of the glances which went over the helmets were searching for a very large white form. (It did beg the additional question of just what Celestia would need with a train, but it was likely that just about nopony had gotten that far yet.) But the golden hues of that dubious protection served as a natural magnet for just about every other sight line, and so it also kept the vast majority from noticing the other two Guards. That pair was non-casually leaning against one of the vaulting platform walls, occasionally inspecting one of the framed posters advertising some of the latest stage productions on Saratoga Way, and moving in a manner which said that no matter what their exposed fur might be trying to claim, there was a certain breed who never really took the armor off.

All four of them had started to shift in Fleur's direction at the moment her forehooves had touched the platform -- but then a single trailing blue-green eye had timidly risked a peek at those waiting for the disembarking to finish, and the presence of her charge had set Celestia's agents back to pretending they had another reason to be there.

When it came to the Guards, Fluttershy was her very visible excuse for being in Canterlot, along with serving as another kind of armor. But with everypony else... two extremely attractive (and expertly-highlighted) mares had just stepped off a train, and some of those who'd been waiting for nothing more than a chance at the best seats abruptly decided they could catch the next train -- and, if things worked out on a level which only the most poorly-written of novels generally allowed, they would do so on the next morning.

Those getting off the train were looking at the Guards. The ones who had been waiting to depart found their attention drawn towards the gravity well which had been created by having that much beauty in one place. A number of bodies quickly succumbed to the pull.

Fleur was used to that, knew how to move through a crowd which had members trying to make deliberate contact while barely being touched -- and even then, that contact would generally take place with those she'd decided should reach her: most of the exceptions were the ones who were and-I-swear-my-hips-just-shifted-at-the-wrong-time shoved away. She understood how to deal with all of it -- but Fluttershy didn't, and there was a pair of magnetic poles steadily pulling base filings in towards the center.

There were a large number of ponies watching the mares: some with careful intent, and Fleur suspected a number were planning to revisit the memory once they had privacy. But very few picked on the full movement pattern, that which had the unicorn casually trotting next to the yellow right flank -- to start. A stallion would try to come in on the open left and find his wing grazing across white fur. The mare attempting a rear approach would be a hoofwidth away from brushing against that incredible tail -- but then a streaked fall of pink would subtly lash across the path and by the time that one reoriented, the unicorn would be reminding the forward approachers that it generally wasn't a good idea to charge in the general direction of an unlit was-it-that-low-a-second-ago? horn.

It was another kind of armor. Protecting her charge from the crowd which the pegasus barely knew how to deal with, keeping the constant tremble in fur and feathers from worsening to the point where Fluttershy would make a break for it, and Fleur really didn't want to explain a field grab to the Guards. But it was also sending the crowd a very basic message, something so simple that even ponies eventually began to recognize it.

You are not in control here.
I decide who approaches.
I determine who is worthy.
And none of you have impressed me.

(There was a shorter statement lurking beneath that. In Equestrian, it was a single word, just four letters long. For every language which existed, it was one of the first words, and it was that which rerouted a number back towards the train, moving faster than they'd intended. It was something so primal that it would take a long time for Fleur to realize she'd been saying it at all.)

That was the subtext. But there was also open conversation, because talking helped Fluttershy to focus on her, even if the mobile nature of Fleur's side meant the yellow ears had to do a lot of rotating.

"Did you have any plans for Nightmare Night?" It was the sort of question where Fleur already knew the answer, because there had been things Snowflake was willing to discuss and her charge's typical actions during a holiday based in fear had been one of them.

Fluttershy took a deeper breath than usual, and the one visible eye (at the moment, that was the right) began to widen as she started to flinch away from a smiling earth pony who was less than a body length away from failing to make his dreams come true --

-- and then he was looking at a completely unfamiliar mark, at least for the split-second he had before Fleur's tail flicked across his face.

"...just the usual," the pegasus finally said.

"Which is?" Actually, Fleur had possessed the solution to that puzzle before the question had originally been posed, with Snowflake's answer serving as nothing more than confirmation. Because there were unfolding aspects of Fluttershy's behavior which surprised Fleur --

"...I lock the door." The shivering briefly accelerated. "...unless it's a real emergency, and whoever's there has to tell me so themselves. The animal. Not the pony, because some ponies lied about having a sick animal with them and forgot to bring anyone along. And the ones who did forgot their companions really don't know how to lie for them." Feathers vibrated all the way up the barely-folded wings. "...but just about everypony knows the rules by now. The cottage is so far from town... anypony collecting tribute from me can't get much else, and I don't give out any candy anyway. So the only reason most ponies might visit is to prank, and that means visitors aren't welcome. Not on Nightmare Night."

-- but for some things, the pegasus was utterly predictable.

"You don't want the holiday coming to you." The last word was timed perfectly to cover the impact of her left hind hoof against an unsubtle orange jaw.

"...no," Fluttershy definitively declared, and Fleur smiled.

"So let's go to it."

The pegasus blinked.

"...sorry?"

"Why do the disguises exist?" She'd originally been somewhat surprised to learn that answer, but as it now had a chance to work in her favor...

"...they're supposed to hide you from the Nightmare by making you look like something which isn't a pony." The next pause was oddly thoughtful, and also lasted long enough for Fleur to inflict three completely coincidental bruises. "...even if a lot of ponies don't remember to go that far. And I'm not sure how Luna really feels about the whole thing now. It's something which built up around being afraid of her. Except it isn't her. Wasn't. Not really."

That's... interesting. Not just what just Fluttershy had said, but the form of address used in vocalizing it. When her charge had previously spoken about the palace, Celestia was 'the Princess'. And that was typical for Equestrians, because the passage of more than three years since the Return hadn't been enough to fully eliminate the singular -- but the alicorn of the night had been casually identified as simply being 'Luna,' and Fleur filed the newest surprise away for later.

"So a disguise which is good enough to keep others from spotting you as a pony," Fleur reasonably pointed out, "could also be good enough to prevent anypony from identifying you as Fluttershy. So why don't we get you something expert, and then you can go out yourself?"

The time before the "...because..." emerged allowed them to approach the arcing gateway which led to the station's central hall, along with gaining the first glimpse of the constellations which had been carefully embossed into its ceiling. The silence which followed got them all the way up to the booths, then threatened to purchase its own ticket back to Ponyville.

"Well?" She had to raise her voice for that one: the announcements of arriving and departing trains were staring to become loud.

"...there's still other pranks," Fluttershy weakly protested. "...ones not directed at me personally, not when nopony knows it's me, but just pranks in general. There's Rainbow..."

"So I'll come with you."

The pegasus blinked.

"That way, somepony's guarding your flank," Fleur explained. "Fluttershy, half of social pressure is having to be yourself in public, and there are ponies who've never managed to do it. Mares and stallions who decided it was easier to spend every minute of their lives pretending to be somepony else. It's not a good idea for a lifetime. But for a single night... why not see what it's like to be Fluttershy, when nopony knows Fluttershy is there at all? I can even pick up a basic enchantment to alter your voice." Although there was probably nothing which could help with the identifying hesitation.

Her charge thought about it. Fleur used the time to intercept multiple dreams, then carefully trod on the fragments.

"...not a voice spell," the pegasus softly said.

Maybe she wants Twilight to cast one? Which both presumed the alicorn knew a working which would do the job and meant the other Bearers would quickly learn about Fleur's intended activity: the second aspect formed the heart of the current problem. "It would be the last step in concealing your identity. With your body hidden, a voice is just about all anypony has to go by --"

"-- I... sort of had one of those once," Fluttershy quietly cut in. "It... wasn't nice. I'd rather try to sound different on my own. Or use something which doesn't have a spell used right on me."

Okay... (It wasn't the first time Fleur had decided that possessing full knowledge of her charge's past would have made things a lot easier, and it wouldn't be the last.) "I can think of a few things." The majority were even legal. "So you'll go?"

That pause got them under the Barding Of The Ancients.

"...yes," emerged just before their tails cleared the constellation of the Commander. "...if you're with me."

Which gave them only four days to get a pair of suitable costumes, both of which would probably need to be commissioned -- but the heart of Canterlot was just a few hoofsteps away. And then all I need to do is find the right party, get her circulating while one of the primary barriers is down, see how she does... "Good. So that gives us one more shop to look for. But first --"

Fleur tossed her head back. It was a simple shift, one which visibly centered manefall while flouncing the gentle curls at the end, and the fact that it let her horn scratch the barrel of a pegasus who'd gotten a little too low for comfort was the sort of coincidence which tended to hold up in court.

"-- I have to make a stop."

"...going home," her charge softly stated: most of the volume had been drowned out by a rising tide of renewed apology.

I can't go home.

Returning to a temporarily-retired base of operations to close out accounts (and find out why none of her things had ever arrived in Ponyville). That was all. And once that was done...

...secure the treasures.

"Yes," Fleur lied. "It shouldn't take long. But I'll need a few minutes to myself on the way out. There's something I need to check." Something she was certain Fluttershy wouldn't question.

"...all right. Where do you live?"

It was a completely innocent question, and it dislodged a fully inadvertent answer. "Oh, I'm in --"

-- she's going to be the first.

Fleur went to other ponies' homes. Nopony ever came to hers --

"...Fleur?"

"You'll see it when we get there," the unicorn finally said, and watched the station's enchanted glowing doors swing open as the mares approached: something which meant so many first true views of Canterlot were distorted by dark red. "But it's nothing special."

It was another observation she'd made before: that anypony who spent a lot of time around Fluttershy needed to become comfortable with extended periods of quiet. Her charge didn't say all that much as Fleur led her through the streets, quickly gaining an ever-increasing degree of privacy as they moved away from the train station. At this hour, most of the traffic flowed along well-established routes, and Fleur had lived in the capital long enough to know how to avoid just about all of them.

It didn't take long to leave the best shops behind (and Fleur had no intention of buying anything this early: it was just extra weight to carry). Restaurants shrunk at the same pace as the houses: false mansions whose kitchens were purely decorative because the four-hoof rated establishment down the street had been booked for every night were quickly replaced by family homes whose residents knew that the hole-in-the-wall on the corner hosted flavors which were too good for mere cuisine -- but a proper budget meant that experience was best saved for special occasions. Streets narrowed, with cobblestones becoming noticeably chipped. The echoes of distant hooves gradually faded, left them hearing little more than their own passage --

-- there was a faint squawk. Worse, a familiar one: something which had reached the point where Fleur didn't have to track the source. It came from two blocks ahead and several floors up, and it was followed by the screech because of course it was followed by the screech.

They're fighting.
Still.

Of course, it was those two. It was possible that they'd never stopped.

Fluttershy's nostrils flared, and the air current (twisting as it moved through the streets, distorted as much by buildings as magic) meant they did so slightly before Fleur's snout mimicked the action.

"...I smell meat," her charge observed. "Cooked meat. I think... zirolak?"

Fleur nodded. "We're coming up on the border of the Aviary."

"...the..." eventually emerged, and failed to secure company.

"Canterlot's griffon neighborhood," Fleur explained.

With more than a little shock, "...there's enough for a neighborhood?"

"It's not that big. Most of a block, and the majority are on the upper levels of it." She shrugged. "The embassy's staff lives there, along with most of the citizens."

"...citizens?"

It was easy to hear fright in the soft voice. Fleur just hadn't been expecting to hear that much of it, and when it became possible to to say that about Fluttershy...

She stopped. Turned, and looked directly at her charge.

"What's wrong?"

"...I..." The wings were trembling again. "...had a bad experience with a griffon. Just once. She was -- the first one I'd really seen, and she wasn't... nice. She'd just gotten into town, and she wasn't nice at all..."

"She was loud," Fleur calmly stated, because facts so basic had no need of emotional embellishment. "And crude, and angry, and did everything she could to show you she was in charge."

Fluttershy blinked. "...yes. How did you --"

"-- because just about every griffon is like that when they come into a new place." Fleur sighed. "They have to make it look like they're in charge, because the ones who let them get away with it are the ones they can be in charge of. And anyone who can stop them -- that's who gets to be in charge of them. When they're home, they know exactly where everyone stands: who's stronger, who's weaker -- but when they travel, they get confused. Shaken. They have to figure it out, and the best way to do it is through challenge. Which, for the majority, works out to becoming the biggest jerks and bitches they can personally imagine. But they want someone to stand up to them, tell them off --"

The visible eye had gone very wide.

"-- they want to be stopped?"

"Drink it."

"...Fleur?"

She took a breath, and the scents tried to push her that much deeper into the past.

"Most of them do," Fleur finally said. "Because if no one stops them, no one at all -- then they're the ones at the top. The final link in the chain. And that's not just power, it's responsibility for most of the ones below you. The ones who can't take care of themselves. It's... easier, to have someone else be the strongest. But not knowing your place -- that's terrifying. So they challenge, because challenges lead to either victory or defeat and either way -- they'll know. It usually takes them about a week to figure out the basics." The eighth day was occasionally reserved for a minor apology tour.

Just a week, at least for the basics. One week and they usually know...

There was something to envy in that.

"...Gilda wasn't in town that long," her charge admitted. "But when somepony stopped her... she just left."

"Oh. One of those." She failed to repress (or even notice) the snort. "You're better off. But in Canterlot, there's enough griffons to form the Aviary, because they like to cluster together. It's easier to set up their own restaurants -- well, one -- and specialized shops. But there's a lot of Equestrian citizens who aren't ponies, at least when you add them all together. It's just that most ponies don't think about it until they meet a few." One of her clients had mentioned that compared to the nation's total population, it was about two percent. Also that he'd felt the number was far too high, which had given her an extra degree of satisfaction in what had come next. "Just in Canterlot, there's a few yaks, a minotaur-owned camera shop in the Heart, and now they've added --"

"-- dragons."

Fleur's jaw didn't drop. Jaw dropping was unrefined. A tail twitch, however, seemed to be called for.

"Dragons." It bore repeating.

"...yes," her charge matter-of-factly said. "Well... dragon. Singular. And you're right. I didn't think about it, even after Zecora..."

"Zecora's the dragon." Because there was a time to be subtle in her inquiries, and that time was not when she'd just been informed that there was a tower of scales and fire which held local voting rights.

"...no. She's a zebra. But she isn't a citizen yet. She has... two?" Fluttershy visibly thought about it, then nodded to herself. "Two years to go, and that's mostly because she got behind on her classes and has to catch up." A small head tilt. "You haven't seen Zecora yet?"

Which meant the zebra lived in Ponyville, and there was no way Fleur would have overlooked stripes. "No." And back to the important part. "You mentioned a dragon --"

"...there's been a few," Fluttershy failed to clarify.

"A. few. dragon. citizens."

Thoughtfully, "...historically. Twilight did the research, because she sort of had to for that one. They aren't in every generation, and sometimes you get a while without one. I think the most she found in any census was -- five? And that was a family. But they've been around."

Oh. Historically. So there's no firestorms currently in a position to run for the Day Court. Which felt good to know. "I understand." And deliberately slowed the exhale. Dragons...

"...so you haven't seen Spike either?"

The final stage of the trip took long enough for most of the internal reeling to stop. (But not all of it because realistically, finding a way to fully reconcile 'The town librarian, who incidentally happens to be an alicorn, has two brothers and the youngest one, lives with her, sorry nopony brought this up before, is a dragon' was going to take a while.)

"...it's..." Fluttershy hesitantly began, still looking up at the building. She seemed to have been doing that for a while, and had quite a bit of distance left to cover: it was the tallest one in the area, enough so that the uppermost details would have been hard to spot even without the steam which seemed to cluster at the top.

"The rent was fair," Fleur explained.

"...not in very good shape..."

Fleur considered that the observation was coming from the owner of the cottage. Then she added in the fact that it had emerged from somepony who actually lived on their property and so unlike Fleur's landlord, had a personal vested interest in keeping it livable.

Fluttershy was still looking at what, with a significant degree of sarcasm, could be described as a structure. The residents never took that long to observe any part of it, largely because the pressure of a pony's gaze had a way of deepening the cracks.

"Look," and she hadn't quite picked up on the rising defensive note in her own voice, "Canterlot is expensive. You saw some of what we trotted past. Think about what those big homes have to cost. Just the maintenance is a multiplier on what I was paying for rent. This place does the job."

"...and what's the job?"

"It has walls."

Fluttershy looked at the nearest vertical ravine, which responded by stretching that much closer to her on the downslope. "...intact walls?"

After I put enough patchwork and spackle -- "Yes."

She'd had several reasons for never bringing anypony back to her Canterlot rental, and image had been high on the list. If a pony like Fleur had an apartment, it was expected to be a palatial one -- and the capital's interpretation of the term meant 'costs as much as an equivalent section of the palace, with a proportionate number of retainers.' And there was just no reason for that. She moved among ponies whose central priority for a purchase was to say they owned the results -- and that was it. Art they would never really look at, and how many times did somepony else have to look before you effectively recouped the cost? Books they had no intention of reading, furniture whose only purpose was to go with all the other furniture because none of that was being used either, dresses were never worn and the overflow meant you had to commission yet another closet...

Fleur was more practical than that. She had been saving money, especially since there was only so much time in which to make it. That meant limiting herself to the essentials, and...

Four walls. A floor and ceiling. And you got to all of it through a door which locked. That was enough.

(She'd wound up replacing the lock.)

"Let's just go inside," Fleur irritably declared, because she had somehow expected that Fluttershy would understand basic sense and she hated being wrong. "I need to find out where my things went."

There was nopony on duty on the security desk. But then, there never was.

"...why is there a crate in the lobby?" Fluttershy asked, because finally moving her stare off the wall of dented mailboxes meant it had to go somewhere. "The trash bin got lost, and now everypony's using a crate?"

"That's the security desk."

"...it's a crate."

"I didn't say it was all that secure." Which also meant there was nopony she could speak to about the location of her possessions. In theory, she could try the superintendent, but there was supposed to be something which indicated that party's arrival and the last time she'd checked, the stars weren't due to come into that alignment for another three hundred years. "Come on, the ramp's this way..."

They climbed for a while, and met no other residents within work-emptied halls. Fleur took the lead, paid special attention to the cracks (especially as she was the one who knew how best to spot them in the dim grey light), and led Fluttershy around the ones which had used the absence as a chance to spread.

"...I can still smell meat."

"The Aviary is on the next block." And with a degree of pride, "That's part of why the rent is so low. The air currents are supposed to take all the scents straight up, but this part of town usually gets the weather team's rookies. There's some slipstream leakage, and when you combine that with what the heat from the barbecues does to the local weave during the summer..."

She'd figured that out on her own, back when she was first looking for a place to stay. That things would be that much cheaper on the border. It was something she had every right to be proud of. And once she'd started to consider of the other implications...

"Oh, and you're also getting something from the restaurant," Fleur added. "They start working on the stews early. And that's where all the steam comes from, because nopony's rerouted the flow." Which brought up what seemed to be a perfectly natural question. "By the way, have you ever tried griffon cuisine? The modified version?"

"...Mister Flankington tried serving it for a while."

Fortunately, Fleur had brought enough makeup to repair the damage done by her own wince. "He didn't have the real thing."

"...I wouldn't know," her charge eventually stated. "I didn't try it." With a little sigh, "He's a good stallion. He really is. And he tries, he just tries so hard. He tries so hard that everypony keeps waiting for him to stop. But it's his mark..."

She tried not to think about how much she felt like Sweetbark (which doubled the memory of nausea and almost turned it into a renewed event) just for thinking of the next question -- but it felt like she had to ask. "What's his mark for?"

"...food chemistry."

And now the brow furrow also required touchup. "What's food chemistry?"

"...nopony knows. And the more he tries to explain it, the less anypony understands." Another, deeper sigh. "But he tries. Why are the lighting devices so dim?"

"Conserving the charge. If you run them at a lower level than usual, you can stretch it out for a while."

"...but it's easy to recharge them," Fluttershy protested. "Just about any unicorn can charge a device. You could charge it --"

"-- right," Fleur cut her off, stepping onto the newest level bend in the ramp. "I could do it. Most of the adult unicorns in the building could manage it. And then we're giving the landlord rent and free thaums. This is my floor. It's three doors down."

"...what's this first door? With all the -- water stains coming out from under --"

"Oh, right," Fleur said, and was glad to have been reminded in time. "That's the bathroom. Hold your breath."

"...your bathroom has its own door? Coming off the hallway? That's... not a normal design, is it? I've never lived in an apartment building, but that just sounds --"

"It's the floor bathroom," the unicorn patiently explained. "For everypony on the floor."

There was only one other set of hoofsteps in the hallway, and so it was easy to notice when they stopped.

"...for everypony," said the oddly-hollow voice.

Fleur stopped.

"It's a big city," she steadily pointed out. "A place where there's ponies with a lot of money. If there's a department store in the Heart, there's a pony who's collecting the profit. Paying the employees. And the way some of them make sure there's profit to collect is by not paying their employees all that much of it. Wherever you get wealthy ponies, you're going to find ones who aren't. Because that's how the wealthy ones stay that way."

You're poor.
How can this be new to you?

"The owner gets the mansion," Fleur finished, "and the workers have to live somewhere. This is somewhere."

"...but..." A shuddering breath, followed by "...but Mr. Rich isn't like that -- he says living wages have to be wages you can actually live on, and survival isn't the same thing..."

"Then he's a good pony," could be said, although Fleur was going to need a look at his real ledgers before assigning it any degree of truth. "But he doesn't have a lot of company." She resumed her trot, went past the second door, reached the third...

She glanced up and down the hallway. Registered Fluttershy's presence, discarded it from any future list of risk factors, and pressed her ear against the door.

"...what are you doing?"

"Seeing if it's been rented out," Fleur softly explained. "I don't want to just trot in if somepony new is living there." But all she was picking up was silence.

"...what if they're at work?"

"Then there would be a very low hum coming from the basic security spell on the door," the mare distractedly replied, still focusing on its absence. "Because it would have been reattuned for a new owner, they would have activated it as they left, and it's a very cheap security spell. But I can't hear anything. This is still vacant."

"...oh," Fluttershy half-whispered. "So it's still attuned to you?"

No.

"Yes."

Fleur casually broke in.

The room was empty.

She'd expected that. The list of furnishings which the rental came with began with 'Window' and also happened to end there while making no mention of the fact that Fleur had needed to have it replaced. She was tempted to take the clean glass with her.

"...it's small," Fluttershy softly observed. Her charge was still mostly in the hallway: Fleur was walking around the edges of the room, trying to make sure nothing had been missed. It wasn't an activity that required all that much in the way of time.

"It's cheap."

"...there's no kitchen."

"Fast-cooker. And eating fresh produce. You don't need a refrigerator when you're just keeping things for a few days." Basics.

"...and no bed..."

She was an escort. Beds had been readily available.

"...but it's clean," the pegasus tried. "And the walls are in better shape."

Fleur thought about all the cleaning and repairs she'd personally performed. Then she considered the effective increase in value, wondered just how much of that had been placed into the next lease, and finished it off by deciding that was why the apartment was still empty: she'd effectively priced a tiny part of the building out of the local market.

"...but there's nothing here," Fluttershy finished. "None of your things." With fear somehow more open than usual, "Did somepony steal --"

"I wasn't really expecting to find anything," Fleur stated, turning away from patched grey walls. "I asked somepony to pack my items and mail them to Ponyville. They were clearly packed. I want to find out where they went from there. There's two places we can look first."

They were in the second.

The building's basement was seldom visited by any of the residents: only the most knowledgeable (or stupid) tried to fix their plumbing problems by venturing to where everything tied into the city's water system. It meant very few were aware of the floor-to-ceiling wire cages which took up so much of the space between pipes. Prisons which held those items whose owners had committed the crime of abandonment or rather, of skipping out on the rent.

It was technically illegal for the landlord to sell such things, at least not before a significant amount of time had passed. It was a duration just short of that required to declare the departed pony as legally dead, although the majority of those who reappeared just in time to protest the final disposal of their possessions weren't returning from the grave so much as they had been released from solitary confinement: admittedly, the difference was rather fine. And in the case of Fleur, who was believed to Have Money...

She suspected that the landlord had seen Early Sale as having too much of a chance to trigger Major Lawsuit, and so the skimming had come from another direction. An intermediary had been engaged to retrieve her possessions -- but at a guess, the process had been interrupted by declarations of Who Are You, I Don't Think That Looks Like Her Fieldwriting, and I'll Know She Sent You When She Comes To Pick It Up Herself -- ultimately concluded by She Was My Tenant, So I'll Mail It To Her, followed by collecting (and keeping) the shipping costs. Her hired party had simply been too fearful to tell her what had happened, especially since Fleur was going to find out eventually and staying out of contact gave the mare that much more of a head start.

"...they're nice dresses," Fluttershy said.

They weren't nice enough to sell. Although she'd kept a few of the better ones: gifts didn't come in every day (at least not of the type she needed) and having a few suitable pieces around at all times had been practical. It was just that keeping pace with fashion meant the usual duration of 'suitable' was about a season, which also did horrible things to the resale value. And as for hanging onto something long enough for it to become vintage...

"It looks like it's all still here," Fleur declared. "There's a packing company about two blocks away. We'll bring a few of their employees into the building and they'll ship it out by this afternoon. Can you wait for me down here? This is when I need to check something." Which was leaving a pegasus in a cramped basement, but Fluttershy had one of her own at the cottage and had never shown any signs of the species' near-universal claustrophobia.

"...yes. This is really all of it?"

"I won't know for sure until I open it," Fleur admitted, because it wasn't as if breaking into this was going to be a problem. "And we'll do that when it gets packed, to save a step. But I can see the edge of the fast-cooker, so at least I don't have to worry about getting a replacement." She turned, bent all four knees and half-scooted under a pipe with as much dignity as she could manage: nearly all of it. "I'll be back soon."

Some treasures didn't need to be buried underground.

There were two places where her possessions might have strayed to within the building, and she passed through the first again without so much as a glance. The existence of something approaching a flat-roofed attic had never struck her as deliberate intent: the low ceiling simply made it feel as if the construction crew had run out of wall budget and slapped an extra-thick roof on before the payroll went dry. Very few tenants ever risked keeping anything in the cramped space and Fleur, who had officially entered the category of 'tall' during puberty and never looked back, maneuvered through clumps of dust and shed insulation without ever quite being able to straighten her legs.

(She thought about how Celestia might have done in dealing with the conditions, and it nearly made her smile.)

She hadn't kept anything in the so-called attic. The space was public, and the fact that nopony really wanted to go there didn't change the fact that anypony potentially could. But she'd had to store the best things somewhere, and there had been certain requirements for that location. It had to be fairly close to wherever she was staying, but it also had to be accessible without going through the building, especially as any situation where she might reasonably have to flee might see those chasing her staking out the rental for any signs of return. But nopony in Canterlot had known that she was capable of self-levitation --

There's the hatch. Her field interacted with the minimal locks, prodded here and there, and then winked out so that her unlit horn could push the results open.

-- and nopony ever expected a running unicorn to go up.

She stepped onto the roof, took a moment to adjust blinking and breathing for the steam which shrouded so much of her view. Moved across cracked stone and fractured cement, sliding her hooves as she did so.

The tallest building in the area. It was impossible for anypony to see what she was doing from ground level, nothing nearby stretched high enough to allow a lateral inspection and if it had -- there was steam, enough to keep pegasi from inspecting the roof on an overhead view. It was about as close to being completely concealed as anypony could be while remaining in the open. And if you understood how to hide your field, maintain the intended effect while temporarily preventing all glow and could deal with the ways in which that could warp the magic...

It's here.
It has to be here.

Except that... Celestia had discovered so much...

...no. She only knows about Canterlot, and she might not have discovered all of that.

She didn't have any reason to look beyond that.

She doesn't know.

Fleur slid her hooves a little faster. Peered through the steam --

-- there. A distinctive pattern of cracks. Looked at through a lens polished by memory, it almost resembled the interwoven branches of a nest.

Her field projected, and did so without a visible corona: something which took all of her concentration as the distorted magic tried to bend where she wanted it to push, twist angles against themselves. But the pieces within the cracks were moving, lifting here and there, a sliding puzzle where the pieces added up to about a quarter of her own weight. It was something which had to be done in a precise order to keep the whole thing from caving in on itself, and she was trying to work the exact sequence of shifting concrete while frantically inspecting the edges of each fragment for new chips and cracks, trying to figure out if anypony had been there before her --

-- keep it as high up as possible, always close to the sky --

-- there was a hollow. Shadows gathered within the fresh exposure. Steam sank into pulling coolness, and fresh moisture glinted on dark wood.

Slowly, shakily, she raised the box. (Dark red, so deep as to nearly turn black, almost like painite captured in wood, from a tree no earth pony had ever grown. It was twice the width of her hooves, weighed very little, and took almost all of her strength to raise.) Squinted until she spotted the three thin threads which had been glued down to cross the line between container and lid, still unbroken.

The lid raised, just enough for the threads to snap, and the scant sunlight which breached the steam glinted off keratin.

You're still here.

It was a lie. She had known it was a lie from the very first night, and it was still a lie she told herself every time the box was opened.

She looked at the contents for a while, because that was what had to be done. And when the past allowed her to pretend it could be put away, she closed the box, reassembled the puzzle, and went back down.

There was a chance that Fluttershy might have noticed the fresh weight in Fleur's right saddlebag. But the pegasus never said a word.

Talk Of The Town

She arguably hadn't felt so relaxed and in control since she'd received the invitation to the Solar throne room, and recognizing that little fact nearly reversed the whole thing. But she had a true reason to be calm this time, especially as she'd just personally disproved the existence of lurking traps. Being kicked into Ponyville had undone more than two years of careful work, cut her off from precisely-constructed supply lines while permanently blocking the flow of bits through pipes which had taken so much effort to unearth before ultimately placing her within the confines of an open-air prison sentence of indefinite duration --

-- but it had also separated her from the box. And she'd felt it was safe, it had to be safe, of course it was safe -- but that had been a lie. The sort of thing she told herself in order to remain calm, because even if she knew the words were a falsehood, repeating them gave her something else to think about. She'd felt the box was safe, but she hadn't known: the only way to gain that truth was to enter Canterlot and retrieve it herself. Something which had only been possible at Fluttershy's side, which had meant she'd needed to wait --

-- but the box was in her right saddlebag. (She could feel it through the fabric, because the edges had always been on the sharp side, and every poke against her skin felt like a caress.) The best things were hers once again, and the renewed possession had to mean Celestia's investigations had been limited to the city. More than two years of her life had been turned to ash by the Solar alicorn's unwelcome attention -- but the largest hooves in the realm had never placed prints into the older burnout. For that, Celestia knew nothing.

It was calming. It made her feel relaxed, in control, and that made the entire day start to work.

Hiring the packing company had been a simple matter, and she'd taken a special joy in filling out the invoice before placing it into one of the pre-stamped envelopes and mailing it to the palace. Once that was done, empty boxes had been brought into the basement and once Fleur had broken into the cage, the inventory had begun. Fleur possessed a precise memory for exactly what she owned at any given time, which made it easy to see if anything was missing.

Fluttershy had tried to help her load the boxes, and she'd allowed it: there wasn't anything there which the pegasus didn't need to see, and when it came to potential theft... her charge wouldn't.

"...it's a lot of makeup."

Fleur was still field-wrapping bottles: the protective padding was provided by dresses which were more than three seasons old and so by Canterlot standards, were no longer good for anything else. "Professional supplies." Some things could be acquired as gifts, and she could usually find something to do with those attempts to curry her favor -- but nopony had ever been thoughtful enough to considerately nose over a basket of assorted hoof files. Fleur would have awarded significant bonus points based on practicality alone.

"...but that much of it?"

"I get a lot of bookings." She was just barely able to prevent herself from the full sardonic eye roll -- then recognized that she'd used the present tense, and that made her feel better still. Maybe there was still a way to get some of it back... "And makeup doesn't last." With a tiny, still-unnoticed snort, "Some of it doesn't keep, either. You can get somepony to make a wonder which makes sure food doesn't spoil for a while, but just try buying a device which prevents eyeliner from turning into powder after two weeks." Her field slung a pair of vials onto the small discard pile: their contents didn't shift so much as sift. "Of course, that keeps ponies coming back for more of it..." She'd had better results with --

-- they don't grow here.

And the thought didn't upset her, because she'd just recognized a simple fact about Ponyville: it was a town with an earth pony majority. If she could just find a few seeds...

"...I have the same problem with some of the medications," Fluttershy softly said. "The mixes separate if they sit for too long, or just spoil. Or..." The hesitation took long enough for Fleur to wrap most of the hoof polish tins. "...go inert. Quickly."

It was perhaps a measure of just how good she felt, not considering what her charge might have truly been referring to. Not thinking about it at all. "I believe it." Her field uncovered the rest of the fast-cooker. "Pass me an empty box? This one's traveling alone."

Fluttershy's right wing carefully unfurled, pushed the cardboard over. "...I've heard about those," she said. "But this is the first one I've seen. They're supposed to be really hard to find."

"The company is still trying to make shipments match the demand." Which was why it was the piece she was second-happiest to see: in Fleur's opinion, it was among the best gifts she'd ever received. (Unfortunately, it hadn't come from practicality: the stallion who'd presented it to her was the inventor's oldest son, and he hadn't inherited his mother's creativity in the lab. The same lack of imagination had carried over to puzzle and bedroom: Fleur, who'd been doing everything she could do to work with him, had finally wound up faking her climax and calling it a night.) "Which is why I'm glad it's still here. This is worth breaking into the cage for." Or, for that matter, the apartment. Another reason Fleur hadn't kept anything within the walls that she couldn't afford to lose. A break-in was always a possibility, especially for a pony who knew how easy it was. And there were other opportunities for theft --

--no: she didn't risk it. Fleur had chosen her intermediary carefully: somepony who was not only easily intimidated, but who tended to believe just about anything she was told -- especially when it was possible to hear the echoes of never-spoken threats lurking behind the words. That was a pony who was too timid to steal. (Unfortunately, based on the caged evidence, she had also turned out be a mare who was more afraid of what she was seeing than what she had read, and so Fleur's former landlord had been able to intercept her.)

Besides, all Fleur had really told her was that she was being asked to clear out a rented roleplay site. Just about every escort would eventually wind up using a few, although the majority of independent ones got fed up with turning over part of their booking fees to the hosting brothels.

"Just a few more," she observed as the cage's floor began to drift into grimy visibility. (Multiple dresses needed cleaning, and a few were going to be outright scrapped.) "And then the packers can come down." Which was something she'd deliberately had to push off, because some stereotypes had a well-earned basis in fact: the idiotic flirting had started at the moment she'd entered the company's office, had its movements tracked through listening for the traditional crude whistle -- and then the trailing stallions had seen Fluttershy.

After that, she'd practically had to shove them up the basement's ramp at hornpoint. Deep breaths allowed her to pick up on some of the hopeful hormones drifting down.

I decide. Besides, while some had a few puzzle pieces which matched her charge, the majority felt the peak of romance was represented by that whistle. It was going to be hard enough to pair Fluttershy with somepony whose vocabulary knew to exclude a too-loud declaration of 'I'd like to dust those feathers!' Her field had nearly made a grab for the pegasus right there --

"-- and I'll make sure they're careful with this," Fleur decided as the dome of the fast-cooker went into the box. "I don't want to do what it takes to get a replacement." (Technically, she knew of a rather simple method -- but there were ways in which fighting through any purchase riot at Haydocks would be easier than having sex with him again.)

"...so where do we go after this?"

Fleur raised her head: the bundle of old blankets within her field bubble bobbed with the movement. "There's a few stops." They were advertising, and that meant Fleur needed to learn where the most active sales floors were scheduled to appear over the next few moons. She'd already committed Nightmare Night for further building her charge's fragile self-esteem and Homecoming was the sort of holiday which didn't encourage parties so much as family-inflicted injuries -- but Hearth's Warming wasn't all that far away.

Get her circulating. Put the word out. And maybe by the time we hit solstice, she'll be getting a few gifts of her own.

"But we're not heading to the Heart immediately," the escort (no longer quite so former, because Celestia hadn't discovered everything and so the alicorn hadn't won yet) instructed. "We have to touch up our makeup first, after being down here." For Fleur, it would be the second repair of the day: there had been a pause between roof and basement to fix the damage which had been done by the steam. "And I have one more personal stop. It's a quick one."

If Fluttershy had asked, the words 'Just a pharmacy' were ready to go, with just about all of the irony serrated off. But the pegasus simply nodded, and the yellow snout nudged another waiting box.

So much of it was easy. Canterlot wasn't her home, but the time she'd spent away hadn't been enough to fully prevent it from remaining her territory. She knew the ins and outs. The patterns. Where to prowl.

She also knew a number of other things, and the offer to not tell ponies about them in exchange for fiscal considerations no longer had a reason to be honored. The trip into the Tangle passed one of her dead-drop receipt sites, she was able to get away from Fluttershy long enough to make a discrete check of the little hollow, and it didn't even contain a note telling her to drop dead. It made sense for those whom Celestia had spoken with to have told the alicorn about where they had been making the deposits -- but given the comparable sizes of the 'know' scroll versus the 'suspect' one, Fleur had been vaguely hopeful of having a few last payments waiting to be recovered. But she'd been away, and it was possible that more ponies had talked -- or rather, used her absence as a chance to retrieve their bits.

The pharmacy stop was quick: Fluttershy was willing to wait outside, the brewer was mostly concerned about reciting the full and mandatory dosage speech, and Fleur left with three well-hidden vials of sleep aid potions added to her saddlebags. A last resort, but -- a resort which was now available. She just wouldn't use them unless there was no other choice.

But she'd known where to go. Being in Canterlot meant she knew exactly where to go for so many things, and the fact that she had less strings to pull for opening those doors didn't mean she'd lost them all. She was moving through her own territory, what had to still be her territory, and that meant there were ponies who would do what she wanted. A few might even cooperate with her desires when they didn't strictly wish to, because she had done the asking --

-- slow down. (Her hoofsteps shifted to match the thought, Fluttershy met the new pace, and dozens of traveling ponies felt grateful for the chance at an extended view.) Celestia spoke to a lot of clients. She may not have everything from the city, but I have to assume she suspects most of it. And if anypony feels I've gone too far with any request, they might just carry the protest directly to her. Play it subtly. She could try for what an escort on her level would normally be able to access, and a little more -- but not too much.

Still, she knew the capital. The ponies in it. And they knew her not merely as an escort, but as the third most dangerous mare in Canterlot. That had to still mean something.

(For starters, it meant the first was watching her.)

Ponies who knew her (or at least believed they did), and some of those were ponies who got out of her way as she came down the street. But there were also city residents who simply stared, frozen by the presence of beauty. Others followed for a while. She recognized a few minor nobles: she'd had a perfectly acceptable evening with one, while three had never been able to hire her. Matching Fluttershy with the fifth would fail to fulfill one of the core requirements because while it was remotely possible that she might somehow be happy with him, having children meant sex and sex generally required being more than two heartbeats away from death.

There's plenty of ponies who would be thrilled to just have her as wing trimmings. Somepony they could show off. But Celestia wants her to be happy...

Happiness was harder.

Canterlot residents watched the mares, because beauty demanded attention. Fleur was pleased to note the amount of visual regard being directed towards Fluttershy, and prepared to sort any possible catch.

They moved through chill air, followed by hot gazes, with the unicorn constantly checking the pegasus for shivers which went beyond that produced by the weather. But Fluttershy didn't bolt. Ponies were staring at her, because they had to -- but she was moving on the ground. Staying at Fleur's side.

So many ponies were looking at her charge, because Fluttershy was beautiful. And because she had to pay close attention to every vibration of the feathers, Fleur didn't immediately recognize the common element in a few of those gazes. To her, it was natural for them to focus on that lightly-shivering yellow presence. It was what she wanted to happen, and the fact that so much of it was taking place was simply a testimony to that beauty, along with granting an assist to Fleur's makeup skills.

Ponies she knew. Ponies who wanted to know her charge --

-- they saw each other at almost the same moment. Fleur had a single heartbeat in which she was aware of the mare's presence without the reverse being true, the deep black body (although not so dark as what lurked under the surface, and it was a puzzle Fleur never looked at for long) easy to pick out. Large eyes were looking through the glass of a shop window within the Heart, because the mare had a special interest in cameras. She knew what she liked (as did Fleur), and she liked to keep a permanent record of the results. It had made certain things that much easier, even if Fleur was no more fond of examining the stolen pictures --

-- but the mare was looking at the glass, and the surface provided just enough of a reflection for what was happening behind the dark tail.

She spun on the spot, which was seldom an advisable move for any species with four legs: the result nearly twisted her into the ground. But she found her balance somewhere within the stagger, the tail lashed, and hot black eyes glared as lips like peeling scabs pulled back from her teeth and forehooves furiously scraped at the street.

So many ponies would have pulled back in the face of such open aggression, and there were those in the shopping district who found instinct taking over their paths, sending them through the closest available doors because that way, there was a barrier in place if the target somehow happened to be them. But Fleur simply maintained her trot, and that meant Fluttershy had to do the same.

Ponies she knew. Ponies who knew her. Ponies who were now aware of just how much Fleur knew.

She steadily trotted on, because that was what she had to do. But there was plenty of glass available, and multiple shop windows helped her watch the mare. You had to be ready for a charge at all times, because that was what a maddened animal might do --

"...what happened?" Even for Fluttershy, it barely counted as a whisper: only carefully-rotated ears combined with what was now a substantial amount of experience allowed Fleur to pick up on it at all. "...that was because she saw you, wasn't it?"

Fleur noticed the increase in the shiver rate as they passed Barneigh's, and allowed their travels to accelerate because it was Barneigh's and you couldn't pass it quickly enough. "Yes."

"...why?"

Because I know her.
Because she paid to pretend somepony didn't. Somepony who hadn't signed her little contracts, the ones which haven't been tested in court. She just didn't know she was paying me. Not for moons.
And now she does.

Her fur remained within its natural lie, with no strand going against the grain. Fleur's tail moved precisely as she wished. But that didn't change what was happening within.

I had control over her. And now I don't...

But the mare hadn't said anything, and the display had been strictly limited to the visual --

-- did Celestia tell her to keep it quiet? Because I couldn't do my job if ponies were coming after me? It was something Fleur hadn't really considered before, and it seemed to be the only possible solution. Nopony had sought revenge because a very large alicorn body had positioned itself in front of the target. Celestia had granted Fleur a measure of protection because the Solar ruler was practical and that shield was necessary.

And if I complete my sentence...

There was now a certain question as to whether that interposing body would use the opportunity to step aside.

...have a clear shot at the horizon ready to go. And when it came to that particular mare, along with so many others -- legally, extortion didn't include simply saying everything out loud. For free.

However, that theoretical shield was currently in place, and so Fleur aimed her words for the yellow ears only. "She has a reputation among escorts." In this case, the lie was the plural. The mare didn't hire escorts, because escorts shared information: it was the best way to be safe. Fleur had simply gotten close to her at a party one night, that grouping of pieces was impossible to ignore, and after that...

"...a bad one," Fluttershy easily guessed, and shivered a little more.

"It's --" How much could she really tell Fluttershy --

-- Fleur considered the mating habits of multiple animals, and decided she could say enough. "-- not quite enough to get her on the blacklist. There's ponies who are willing to participate, and -- technically, it's legal, because they're adults and they sign their consent. But most of them just do it once." Anypony who spent a night with that mare wound up with a long period of solitude in which to rethink their actions, especially since they wouldn't be able to go out in public until the worst of the injuries healed. "It's something a few ponies like to play at. And as long as they all understand what the game is -- and that it is a game -- it's okay, because games stop when somepony says they aren't having fun. But she just -- goes too far."

There's a safeword. There's always a safeword and with the ones who know what they're doing, it's never said. Stinging fades. The tail swats have just enough force to let you know the impact is there. And the one who's taking the blows is the one who has the true power, because they're the one who can make it stop.

She listens for that word. And the moment she hears it is when her real game begins.

There was a way to summarize all that for her charge, and Fleur used it.

"She isn't... nice."

"...oh," the pegasus whispered. "You -- you weren't -- you didn't have to --"

I was in her bedroom. It was easy to sneak in there once the party reached full gallop.
Then I found the other room.
The pictures.
The stained frames on the wall.

"-- no. I'm not what she looks for."

I was looking for --

Fluttershy shivered a little faster.

"Good," her charge immediately stated, and it was that as much as anything else which made Fleur look directly at her.

"They're not all like that." If they were, Fleur's working time would have been cut down to three moons. "You'd be amazed how many ponies just want silly things. There are escorts who get paid to tickle."

"...really?"

"Of course, the problem there is that it's hard to tell somepony to stop through all that laughing --"

"-- Fleur!" the stallion's falsely-jovial voice called out from far too close by, and the first priority the addressed party resorted was the one which hadn't had her checking ahead. Every escort in Canterlot knew that voice, largely because it insisted on taking the floor at every group meeting. It could pile words up to the ceiling and on a good night, one in every twelve might be slightly true. "It's been forever! And yet somehow, that feels so short, doesn't it? Even so, it's like being gone for a while means you were never really here at all!"

She turned her steady gaze forward.

When regarding the surface alone, there was a fair amount to look at. The well-built unicorn's deep red fur was precisely, almost enviably groomed -- it was the one thing about him which Fleur almost wanted to emulate, as she'd never been able to figure out how he managed to get that kind of visual distinction on the strands -- and he was trying out a fetlock style, which meant most of the male escorts in Canterlot would soon be doing the same. His features were handsome enough, although he tended to have one cheek partially puffed out: the distortion had a way of switching sides just when the viewer had gotten used to the other one. A light blue mane swept across his neck in waves, and the tail was forever immaculate.

He wasn't a coworker: any such description would mean Fleur had been willing to participate in a group effort with him, and that was something she hadn't been willing to suffer through. She had solved his puzzle, and so she was familiar with a pony who hogged both the center and edges of the spotlight while wrapping his body around the actual bulb. He was simply somepony in the same profession, and the fact that he'd had to acknowledge her as also being in it had formed the cornerstone of their relationship.

"Polish," she politely greeted. "It has been a while. We just don't seem to be at the same parties any more." A light shrug added its own punctuation. "You're missed, of course."

But he was looking at Fluttershy. "And to see you with her...!" The stallion's forelegs bent, and a briefly-ignited horn traced an arc of glowing respect through the air.

"Lady," he smiled, with the gleam from bright teeth glinting off Fluttershy's foreknees.

"...um..." was the best her charge could do for an opener and depressingly, when it came to what Fleur had expected, it represented an improvement. "...I'm -- not a noble..."

"But you are a lady," Polish declared as he straightened again. "And there are times when that's much more important."

It came across as sincere. Polish often came across as sincere, which was just one of the reasons he received so many bookings -- but in this case, it almost felt as if he was --

-- and that was when the dark yellow eyes focused on Fleur.

There were ponies slowing their pace, and some had stopped entirely. Gravitational pull had a way of doing that, and several began to slip towards the new center of activity. The steady draw of beauty had only marginally increased -- but for a herd species, the instinctively-sensed opportunity for street theater just couldn't be passed up.

Fleur, fully familiar with the nature of those who typically shopped in the Heart, was already prepared to use it.

"You're right, Fleur," he declared, and she knew why he was agreeing with her. Strictly speaking, Polish was bisexual, and that was a useful thing for an escort: anything which increased your potential client pool generally didn't hurt. And when working, he preferred to play the stallion --

"Because you haven't been at any parties lately," he smiled. "Not in Canterlot. Now why are you isolating yourself out there in the boondocks? -- no offense to your home, milady." That with another little head sweep towards Fluttershy. "I've been to Ponyville, if only briefly. 'tis quaint. And I'm told it's quite inspiringly comedic, although I've never been there for the good parts. But apparently Fleur must love to laugh so much that she's given up on the more restrained nature of Canterlot." (That made another dozen ponies stop all by itself.) "Which is truly saying something, because I've hardly ever -- never? Fleur, refresh my memory: do you laugh?"

-- but most ponies meeting him off-shift had to deal with an utter bitch.

All right. There was a chance for this to happen. If Celestia had anypony tell my clients why I wasn't going to fulfill my bookings, then they were potentially told I was in Ponyville. That word has spread. There was no way to avoid it. Visually, Fleur couldn't be missed -- and that meant her lack of presence also had a way of standing out. It wasn't a party unless Fleur was there and so technically, nopony in the capital had been to one in a while. Her absence had created a very noticeable social vacuum, along with what had to be a power struggle as the city's other escorts fought to see who would take over the status of most-booked --

-- and that might even be him. He was certainly carrying himself that way, although that was typical for Polish: he considered himself to be the most important pony in any room, and it took most of his clients a while to leave him alone in it. But she knew he would have been among the first to go after her scraps.