This is a very experimental fic written purely for fun. However, proper research went into the writing of this story so as to cover the topics hinted here in the most informed and adequate way. Said research will continue as I update.

Additionally, though it was cleared with a mod for Teen, this fanfic will very much tango between the thin line separating Teen and Mature. Please be aware of this as you read, and though I will keep this as tasteful as I can, I'm not discarding the possibility that the rating might upgrade as I progress with the story.

Lastly, if you find any typos, please let me know, preferably via PM. Thank you!

Her carriage arrived at the city early in the morning. The coachman yawned heavily, his tired eyes glazed over by an even more tiring three-day journey. The horses, too, were on their last legs, their horseshoes clacking against the cobblestone streets.

Men in clean trousers, clean shirts and roughly-cleaned boots strode out into the streets, ready for another day’s work. Some stayed at home, however, and some waited outside their houses until children in hand-me-down clothes came out, reaching out for their fathers’ calloused hands and following them to school.

Women, some in dresses, some in pants, opened the curtains of their homes, waving to their husbands and children as they left for work. Some stayed at home, and some left for work—the very few who’d disregarded social expectations to do what they wished.

Beggars stalked the streets, some covered with torn rags as they slept, others barely awake and extending their hands towards passerbys. A child in a dirty dress slept next to an elderly woman, both huddled together against the cold stone, the child shivering in her grandmother’s embrace. An embrace cold by the life snuffed out of the elderly woman at precisely half past two in the morn.

All lived in the beautiful and unforgiving city of Canterlot.

The capital of elegance and depravity, of art and magic, of beauty and ugliness, of hate and love.

Not that Twilight Sparkle would ever care about the last one. Not yet, at least. Not yet.

In the distance, dawn came with the arrival of the sun, its light coaxing itself through the carriage curtains. A woman sat inside, her thin fingers brushing the page of an old book, dimly lit by a modern invention.

A lamp that burned entirely with magic.

The world and all its glory waited outside the carriage, and yet Twilight Sparkle could not be bothered to look past alchemy, and metaphysicalities, and words strung together to prove a clever hypothesis. The city held no interest to her unless it was something to be studied and tested. She was blind to so many things, my darling beloved, and it was both her flaw and her virtue. Unaware of the poverty, unaware of the misery, and also unaware of the love, and unaware of the bliss.

All she cared for were her studies and her magic, and she excelled at both. A snap of her fingers would conjure things I could only dream of doing with my meagre magical abilities. What she did effortlessly, I struggled with endlessly, and the reverse was true as well.

But on that day…

All she cared for was to impress Lady Celestia; she who lived in the mansion at the edge of the city, with towers that I could see from my room, along with the rising sun.

I always did love the dawn, but my favorite time of day, and you will have to bear with me now, was the twilight. The light dimmed of its innocence and turned towards something more severe. Purity and sin come together in balance, neither good and neither bad. Just what they were—a mix of both.

But she arrived in the morn with her carriage and her books and her silly notions, and so did I stare out my bedroom window, up in the highest floor of The Sapphire Carousel.

Someone stirred beside me, and I slightly turned my gaze towards the person in question. A man and his half-naked body covered only by thin sheets and an expensive linen comforter. I thought he would wake, but he did not. Instead, he snored rather unpleasantly and his lips then curved into a smile.

I stared at him for a moment.

There was no sign of my crimson lipstick on any part of his body.

Fabulous, I thought. A lady never leaves a mark.

Eventually, I laid back down and allowed myself a smile. One meant just for me and no one else. I stared at the sky in the distance and wondered if I had time to go to the bakery before the first performance.

I wondered, as a carriage in the distance moved through the city, if I might meet someone interesting that day.

Everybody knew of Lady Celestia.

A dazzlingly wealthy scholar with a reputation diametrically opposite to that of The Sapphire Carousel and its inhabitants. She was pristine, yet dull; we were tainted, yet sensational. Two reputations whose only similarity was that they were both partially incorrect.

Her white mansion at the end of Willow Street was certainly a sight to be seen. Locked away beyond silver gates that only chosen guests could cross, as well as the occasional visitors when the Lady opened the gates on Sunday mornings, allowing access to the grand gardens at the back.

If you got to know her, however, took the time to speak to her, you would more often than not find yourself in a strange position. You could meet her for the first time in your life, and yet she would treat you as though she knew you her entire life. It would seem as though she somehow knew everything about you.

It was fascinating, yes, but terrifying as well. After all, chances were she did in fact know a great deal about you.

I was eighteen the last time I visited her gardens. A child who’d turned into an adult a few months back. We met briefly that day, the Lady and I, and I remember her very clearly still. She wore a long yellow summer dress and a matching straw-hat that kept her auroral hair in place.

After engaging me in some silly pleasantries I can’t recall, she spoke.

“I heard you’re a...” I remember the pause. It burnt me for quite a while. “...an entertainer at The Sapphire Carousel now. Is that true?”

Shame, like her pause, burned me. I felt short of breath. There, in the gardens, I regarded Lady Celestia with a stricken expression before turning around and running away, ignoring her when she called my name.

The shame soon turned to anger. Anger at her for making me feel ashamed, and anger at myself for feeling ashamed. I resolved to never again feel that way towards my work, and I also resolved to never see the Lady again.

Until, as I said before, Twilight Sparkle arrived in town.