My Little Pony: Orange-Cross Empire, Chapter 3

It was less than a day after my encounter with his employee that Mr. Orange himself visited me. He arrived at the boutique in the early morning, and I almost missed him at first, for he knocked upon the door while I was upstairs bathing. However, it turned out that Mr. Orange was a very patient pony, for even though he was forced to wait for almost ten minutes before I was in a state to greet him, I found him standing outside of the boutique looking utterly undisturbed. He nodded to me and entered the boutique, which forced me to follow him inside. He looked around the empty work floor and tutted, taking a moment or two to observe the interior. He had been here once before, to my memory, although the last time he had been looking for Rarity. Now he was here with very different motives. He cleared his throat and then pointed a hoof upwards, indicating that he was interested in the second floor of the building.

"This place looks empty," he observed. "I'm terribly sorry; I did not realise that the masses would be at the gates as fast as they were. News travels fast and fashion habits change as quickly as the winds, wouldn't you say?"

I nodded, dubious about how to respond to him. For all intents and purposes, Mr. Orange was a dangerous pony who had sent what could be essentially described as a hired mobster to my door in order to arrange a deal. And, said deal was the kind of sordid affair that, should I have declined, would have likely put me at great risk from this clearly influential businesspony. He wanted something from me that I could not provide, and I had said as much to his lackey; and, while said lackey had likely omitted my objections when returning to his employer, I had to stick to my decision. After all, murders never happened in Ponyville; they were a Manehattanite affair that occasionally dripped into Canterlot. I would be quite safe in Ponyville. Nevertheless, I found myself offering him a drink, for it seemed like the courteous thing to do. He declined my offer, even when I suggested something a little stronger. He wished to keep a clear head, he insisted; in fact, he informed me that he had not allowed his lips to touch alcohol for the past sixteen years. I did not wish to detract from his success in avoiding it, and so said nothing more on the topic of drinking for fear of tarnishing his good work.

"Let's get down to business, if we may?" he questioned although, just as with his employee, answering said question was not optional.

"I believe that there is a mistake," I replied bluntly. "I am no dress-maker. I have very little skill when it comes to making anything. I would be unable to emulate Rarity's beautiful style."

He raised an eyebrow, taking a seat behind the desk. I stood on the opposite side, watching him. He was a curious sort of fellow who took few measures in hiding his thought processes. He was expressive to the point of performance and revelled in his ability to impose all sorts of images in the minds of those who he communicated with. It was difficult, if impossible, to work out what he was thinking at any given time. Behind those calculating eyes and that tidy mane could exist any number of ponies, and that scared me; for few ponies were ever able to surprise me, and those that could were threatening.

"I am sorry if my employee made you feel uneasy," Mr. Orange replied, shaking his head sorrowfully. "He can be quite the intimidating specimen, can't he?"

"You can say that again," I replied.

"Perhaps I gave him the wrong message. For that, I apologise," the businesspony continued. "I understand that the passing of Rarity was incredibly difficult for you, and all of Ponyville. I would never expect you to replace her; she was a one-of-a-kind pony. A real good egg."

"So, what do you require of me?"

"Carousel Boutique is a special location," Mr. Orange replied. "Ponyville only has one fashion shop, and this is it. Already, since Rarity's dresses have become popular, ponies in Manehattan and the large cities are talking about Ponyville at length. I wish to seize upon this vocal interest by making Ponyville a small, but sturdy, fashion location."

"Isn't the big city a more fitting place for fashion shows?" I queried.

"It has been done," Mr. Orange admitted with a sigh. "Manehattan is full of fashion-ponies; you know the types. The ones who study fashion because they lack any talent but looking appealing – if such an act of genetic fortune can be called a talent – and apply this vacuous skill in a poorly executed attempt at 'higher education'. But these are not the sorts of ponies who should be educated, for it gives them more reason to think that the world gives a damn about them."

"I heard that fashion ponies are popular," I said.

"Popularity doesn't mean that anybody actually cares about them," Mr. Orange explained. "Manehattan is in a steady state of social decline. It is impossible for a modern, enterprising pony to go more than a month or two without embracing a new fashion star. It doesn't matter if the fashion that they create is lousy, or ridiculously proportioned; as long as it's new and receives a good write-up in a major publication – the Rococo Report or Dans Le Noir come to mind – then everybody needs them. Right now, Rarity's dresses are the big thing."

"I heard," I said. "I was in Manehattan recently and witnessed several mares talking about Rarity's dresses and needing to get their hooves on them. I also heard, however, that Rarity was disgraced in the Rococo Report after Mr. Friesian Cross paid off the publishers and editors."

"That was a retaliation attack, unfortunately," Mr. Orange admitted, hanging his head for a moment. "It was a shame that Friesian behaved in such a way. We always discussed together that business should always remain professional."

"He's not professional," I said, comfortable at that point in the conversation to give more credence to my dislike for the pony. Mr. Orange objected, however, shaking his head quite noticeably.

"-Friesian is fantastically professional," he insisted. "His problem is that he's too darn smart for his own good."

"It's a shame about his wife," I said, and Mr. Orange looked alarmed.

"Let us speak no more of Friesian Cross," he urged, "but rather, we should address the situation at hand. Regardless of the fact that Rarity was lambasted in the news, and that rumours were spread about her – most of them since proven inconclusive – it makes little difference to the fact that she is the popular article of fashion at the moment. Had she not passed away, she would be making millions. Sadly, the contract that we signed before her passing requires me to give money to the current owner of the boutique in exchange for dresses. Is there nothing else left?"

I eyed him up and down for as long as I felt I could without arousing too much suspicion. I still feared him, despite his down-to-earth behaviour during that meeting, but I saw no reason in denying a pony such as him purely out of spite or an inane desire to cling to what little remained of her range. "I have some dresses in the back," I said. "A few upstairs as well. But nobody is allowed upstairs but me."

"Fine," he said. "Bring them down to me and we'll have a look at them, shall we?"

Again, it wasn't a question that I could ignore, for he had already removed himself from his seat and entered the back room, working on the assumption that I would do as I was told. And, despite disliking the idea of disturbing whatever remained of Rarity's clothing upstairs, I caved to his command and did just that. I managed to find among the prototype designs in the Inspiration Room a finished piece of work, as far as my eyes could tell. It was a long red and gold cardinal outfit, but it seemed to be far too large for Rarity to have worn. I threw it over my back and returned downstairs, where Mr. Orange sat at the desk once more, his hooves fondling a pink dress from the back room.

"I'm not sure what this is," I admitted, heaving it off of my back. He took one glance at it and smiled. "-It appears to be a costume for the Golden Gown Parade," he said. "This looks to be an outfit for the marching band."

I knew that parade well. Rarity had taken me there several months before her passing, as she had wanted to share with me a personal experience from her childhood. She had always told me of the parade, which played upon the streets of Manehattan annually, and how she had visited it at a young age. I had always assumed that the parade had directly influenced her attraction to fashion in her older years, and this outfit, which had never been distributed for public consumption, proved it.

"You're familiar with the parade?" I asked, and he nodded with a smile.

"-I know a lot about anything that directly influences my line of work."

"And what line of work would that be? 'The textile industry'?"

"Anything that puts coins in my satchel," he replied, grinning. "There's enough here to work with," he then said, rising from the chair. He was roughly the same height as me, and so I did not find him to be all that imposing; even his stature was on the lesser scale of physical bulk, even if he could win awards for elegance and refinement. I could infer that my trepidation towards him was derived from his status and reputation more than his physical appearance. I was surprised, admittedly, that he had even shown up himself, especially given the threatening demeanour of his employee. "I'm going to send a couple of workers your way," he said. "This floor is big enough for a degree of production to go ahead, at least to start with. My suspicions have been confirmed by this number, after all." He nudged the cardinal outfit with a hoof and I shrugged.

"What does it mean?" I asked, rather confused by this entire situation.

"Rarity was contracted to make the costumes for the Golden Gown Parade this year," he explained. "She didn't live long enough to make them all, but decided to create this concept so that others could continue her work."

While this was a wild assumption, it made sense; Rarity had known of her illness, she had revealed while in her resting place, for several months before she had passed away. It made little sense for her to start on a dress for the parade almost half a year before the event itself; the assumption being that, as Mr. Orange had suggested, she had made a prototype design early so that it would still see the light of day even in her absence. I had not realised how much she had planned for the future, but, by leaving the boutique in my possession, she clearly had big plans for my involvement in all of this.

"We'll make sure that the design is made into a fully-functioning range," Mr. Orange said.

"What do you need from me?" I asked worriedly. "I still can't see what my involvement in all of this is."

"Your knowledge of Rarity," he said. "She always spoke fondly of you. At least, she did in the final meeting that I had with her. Rest assured that my workers will be able to copy from these concepts easily enough to class them as genuine articles."

"This concerns me," I said honestly. "Your employee mentioned that as well. Isn't it illegal to lie about the authenticity of a product?"

"My sweet, innocent lamb," Mr. Orange grinned. "Don't concern yourself. We have a few dresses already that have not made their way to the masses. Now we have more. We will soon be able to replicate her entire range. Doing so before the black market is imperative."

I knew little of the black market of Equestria and at that moment in time, for whatever reason, chose not to question about it. Instead, I had a greater concern in mind. "Given the fickleness of the fashion world that you mentioned, won't those concepts only last until ponies get bored of them?"

"Indeed," Mr. Orange nodded. "That's why I need you to find somebody with a penchant for fashion, just as Rarity had. She can closely emulate Rarity's style while making new and exciting designs, which we can also say were made by Rarity before she passed away. We should be able to keep to that story for a few years, by which point we will have made so much money out of Equestria that it won't matter if we are found out. I, too, shall be looking closely for such a pony. When we find somebody good enough, I am happy to let you live at the boutique and merely watch over the workers. They are professionals and will not disturb you."

His offer could have been considered generous, had I not been concerned about his illegal methods. Nevertheless, while I disapproved of almost every facet of his business proposal, I had been drifting for too long without opportunity and guidance; and now that such an option had presented itself to me, it appeared to be a career choice worth taking. In many respects it would allow for Rarity's memory to live on, and while morally suspect, it was a good earner. More importantly, however, Mr. Orange, a pony who had put threats on my life, or so it had been inferred, was willing to allow me to become something of a business partner in his enterprise. Given the fact that I had little talent in the field, having him adopt me as a protégé of sorts was an interesting, almost unbelievable experience. It was not one, however, that I would allow to slip through my hooves, merely because it was a lie. As far as I had heard, the entire fashion industry was a superficial joke. If I was to become part of this Manehattanite scourge, I could at least play the part by indulging in their fickle perspectives and practices.

"Do we need to shake on this or anything?" I asked, raising my hoof. Mr. Orange smiled and turned away, ready to leave. "We already did," he chuckled, "back when you shook the hoof of my employee. I've never been one to write things down in ink, either." He glanced back and set his stern eyes against my own, providing instructions for what was to come next: "Your mission right now is to find as many of Rarity's leftovers as you can; my workers will be here in the next couple of days to set to work."

"One last question," I said before the businesspony left. "Your employee marked my door with a symbol. What does that mean?"

"It's a seal of possession," he called from the doorway. "It means that Carousel Boutique belongs to me. You are now working for me, and all of Ponyville will soon be under my financial control as well. Friesian may have taken some of the outer towns, but Ponyville is mine."

He withdrew, leaving me with more questions unanswered than before he had shown up. Sure enough, as I watched him depart from the town into a waiting carriage, I noticed that several other buildings around Ponyville had had their doors marked with the same symbol: the three lit splints. It was a curious situation, made more improbable by Mr. Orange's comments about owning Ponyville. I cared little for the town and the ponies who lived there - naked as they were and exposed for their general ignorance – but I could not deny that I was curious about his aspirations. I believed at that moment, as I was right to, that Mr. Orange was more than just a simple textile trader from Manehattan; and as it was later proven to me quite drastically, he considered himself to be anything but simple.

How difficult it would have been for me to find another fashion star such as Rarity. She had been truly unique and special, and I still persisted that Mr. Orange was asking the impossible. Nevertheless, I had been given a job to do – one that involved entering the Inspiration Room once more – and while I disliked the very principle of Mr. Orange's job description, he had made the entire situation seem a lot more manageable than his lackey had. I later found out that this was because Mr. Orange had experienced a change of heart; the threatening pony from the previous day had told him that I had adopted little of Rarity's skill-set and Mr. Orange, who was pragmatic to a fault, had decided that if I couldn't personally help him, I could potentially find another pony who could. And while Carousel Boutique was still mine by legislation, Mr. Orange had suggested quite fiercely that we would not be playing a legal game, and the place that I currently called home felt, for the first time in many months, as if it was slipping away, beyond the grasp of my hooves.

Luckily, or unluckily, as some may argue, my hooves were soon filled with the arrival of a strange, if subconsciously expected visitor. A day went by after Mr. Orange's visit and his workers had not yet shown up. I was beginning to feel by the late afternoon that the meeting with him had been a dream, and that all of this talk of bootleg fashion and no longer owning that which was legally mine was a thousand miles away. I was pulled back to reality not by a conventional knock at the door, as one might expect, but by the sound of something falling over in the back room. It was getting dark and, as a result, I took a candle with me when investigating to help me to see what was going on in there.

At first I saw nothing, but as I hovered the candle around the room I caught sight of a sprawling form on the floor. I was alarmed at first, but it soon became apparent that a golden-maned mare had entered the boutique without permission, and had fallen, presumably while navigating in the dark, over a mannequin. I placed the candle on a nearby shelf and helped the pony up; she took my hoof gratefully, rubbing at her side, as she had hurt herself in some minor, if immediately concerning way. I took her closer to the light. In its amber glow, I could see that the pony before me was the same mare from the train: The Little Runaway, as I liked to call her. She was less interested in me, however, than she was in fumbling around on the ground with her front hooves, looking for something in particular. It took her mere moments to feel the soft surface of her dropped plush toy, which she quickly picked up and held to her body tightly.

"What in Equestria are you doing in my home?" I asked fiercely. She was worried now, and quite dubious about responding, but she found her feet and cleared her throat in a most petite way.

"-You said that if I had nowhere else to turn, I could find you at Carousel Boutique," she mewed quietly.

"That was over a week ago," I replied. "I had completely forgotten about you."

She seemed disheartened by my words, but they were true; while her invasion of privacy had naturally reminded me of her, given the events of the past couple of days I had removed her memory from my mind entirely prior to that meeting.

"Do you remember my name?" she asked eagerly, perhaps hoping that she had made something of an impression upon me. Luckily for her, I did recall the name.

"Farleigh," I said. "But ponies call you-"

"-Fa!" she interjected. "You do remember me!" She did a little dance on the spot, for some odd reason. I could only assume that she was delirious, or perhaps a little mad.

"I remember you," I admitted. "Why didn't you just knock on the front door?"

"I felt guilty about coming into your home," she said, "and the back door was open, so I just sort of walked in. I only planned on sleeping in the back room for one night, honestly. I don't want any charity."

I sighed and took her out of the room. I would have to lock that back door shortly. No doubt it had been left open when I last took the waste bags outside. We ended up in the kitchen and, although I felt odd doing it, I found myself making her something to eat. I could only assume that my natural compassion had kicked in. At least the kitchen had a proper lighting system, and so I could see her, and the toy that she clung to tightly, without any trouble. She appeared younger than she had upon the train, which was strange given that, on the train, she had already appeared to be rather youthful. I could deduce that she was approaching the ages of courting in Trottingham, which was where I remembered she was from. It was doubtful, however, that she had been paired with a suitor yet, for he would be unlikely to allow her to run away if he was bound to her by intention of marriage. She had told me very little of her parents and even less about her motives for running away. I was curious about all of those things, naturally, but my natural curiosity favoured an interest in her current situation. I took a seat opposite her, pushing a daisy and dandelion sandwich towards her side of the table. She looked at it with a wide-eyed expression, and moved her head forwards in order to sniff it. Following this, she lifted the top of the bread up and checked the filling, before pressing the sandwich back together. Only then did she take a bite, which was quickly followed by a second and third.

"Have you been in Ponyville since we spoke on the train?" I asked. While I could not remember how long ago it had been since we had spoken, it was at least a week ago, as far as I could tell. That was a long time for somebody to be without a home. She nodded slowly and I sighed. "Where were you staying?"

"Nowhere important," she said through mouthfuls of food.

"Why only now did you choose to come to me?"

She finished her sandwich and pushed the plate back towards me. I asked the question again in a slightly different way, but she merely tapped the plate and hid behind her wavy, golden mane. "Hungry, were you?" I asked, getting up to make her another sandwich. She had probably been living on scraps and various other foods found around town for the past few days.

"Cold," she said.

"Cold?"

"The cold. At night, I felt as if I would freeze."

"Used to a warm bed back home, are you?" I asked, and she nodded, although her actions were noticeably slower than one might expect.

"Isn't it about time you went home?" I asked, aware that she had obviously run away for a reason and that my question would thus be awkwardly received. It was a known fact that a child who runs away from home returns the following day unless they are completely serious. Whatever had occurred in this young mare's domestic life, it was clearly enough to make her not wish to return to her home at any cost. Ponies do not risk starvation and the cold unless the alternative is an even less desirable state.

"I can't," she said. "I don't want to be found."

"I bet your family are missing you," I said. She shook her head.

"-My father will pretend that he misses me. But he doesn't."

Under normal circumstances, such behaviour defined by little more than angst would elicit sighs of despair on my part. However, I did not wish to offend this young mare, as she was certainly concerned by her troubles enough without my meddling. I pushed another sandwich towards her, this one with a slightly lesser filling – I had run out of daisies – and this time she ate it without question. She did note, however, that it tasted different; I pointed out the absence of a primary ingredient, to which she remarked that she preferred it this way.

"I do not see the point in making something over-complicated," she tutted as she nibbled through her sandwich, taking greater care to make this one last longer. She may have observed while I had been making up this second serving that the loaf of bread was reaching its end, and thus, that I would be unable to provide a third should she finish this one with as much eagerness as the first.

"The daisy gives it a tangy taste," I said. She shrugged, and continued to eat. All the while, her plush toy stared back at me from between her legs with its beady black eyes. "You like that plush a lot, don't you?" I asked. She nodded, saying nothing on the matter. When she had finished her food I sighed and took the plate to the sink. I would clean it up in the morning, after the guest had moved on.

"You can stay here tonight, Farleigh," I said, adopting less of a conversational tone with her in the light of the seriousness of the situation, "but tomorrow, I want you to go back to your home. If you need money for the tickets I can give you the bits. You don't belong out here."

"I can't go home," she repeated, this time appearing quite distressed. I sighed and pressed her on the matter, but she did not say anything more on the subject.

"-Where will I sleep?" she asked instead.

"You seemed ready to sleep on the floor in the back room," I said, but she seemed to dislike that idea as she scrunched up her face as if pained by the suggestion. It was probably a better option than she had been offered for the past week, and yet she seemed to dislike it. "Is there not a bedroom?" she questioned. I shook my head, pointing out of the kitchen towards the shop floor. "-No," I said, "you aren't going to sleep upstairs. Nobody goes up there except for me. You can sleep in here or in the back room. Take your pick."

She hesitated for a moment. "Can I at least have a pillow and blanket?" she asked, to which I nodded and instructed her to wait there. I walked upstairs, the top floorboard creaking as it always did as the weight of my hoof touched down upon it. I would have to get it fixed at some point. I located a spare blanket in a cupboard and managed to find a pillow in another. Taking both downstairs on my back, I noticed that Farleigh was no longer in the kitchen where I had instructed her to wait. I sighed and checked the back room; she had lit several lanterns in there and had taken to lying upon her belly on a thick roll of material not dissimilar to that which her plush toy was made from. As a makeshift mattress, it would suffice. I towered above her with the pillow, which reminded me of an event several months ago that had been rather similar to this one. It was a dark time for me, and a period where I may have not been acting rationally. I did not wish to dwell upon it further, for I had spent a considerable amount of time and effort in shunning it from memory. She looked up at me innocently, removing her glasses and placing them safely on a shelf nearby.

"I can tuck myself in," she said, and I dropped both the blanket and pillow on her as a result. She squealed and fumbled around beneath them, poking her head out of the top of the blanket when she could and arranging her body to a point where she was comfortable. Moments later the head of her plush toy emerged beside her, held between her hooves.

"Tomorrow morning we'll get the tickets, Farleigh," I said as I was about to leave. "It really is time that you went home."

And although she did not verbally object, closing her eyes and yawning deeply as she did instead, I could sense in her a determination in opposing my demand. While I would no doubt lose patience with her defiance sooner rather than later, her bed-bound opposition reminded me all too clearly of past events that I was still vulnerable to. I left her sleeping there and withdrew myself, attempting to return upstairs to whatever I had been doing before she had arrived. I could not, for the life of me, remember what it was.