Rarity waited in the shadows of a Manehattan alley and breathed in the brown and black and the fine and choking dust of the city. There had been a time when she had seen the windows of the city’s towers reflecting the golden light of the sunset and thought it a kind of final performance before the drawing of the curtains on a city where the elite and the civilized gathered, where fortunes were made, where dreams were realized. Now she watched the many refractions of the sunset and knew it meant something else.

It was at sunset that the dust of the city settled.

During the day, the carriages and the hooves of the wealthy and the famous kicked the dust off the streets and the sidewalks. The dust rose up over the city like stormclouds on the horizon. At night, the dust fell like snow. It hung in the air, collected in your mane, in your eyes, in your mouth.

During the long sleepless nights of the past week Rarity had taken in more dust from the streets and alleyways than she would have thought even existed in the city. Its taste was ever present on her tongue. Her coat felt heavy, like she was wearing a winter coat. She felt filthy. It had meant to be a week of vacation. But what had started as silly intrigue and gossip had turned into violence and frustration and failure. And now here she was, waiting in a dark and dirty alleyway.

She heard the sound of hooves on concrete nearby, and quieted her breathing.

A hooded stallion walked by, struggling to drag a pony-sized sack behind him through the dust.

Rarity cleared her throat.

The stallion dropped the sack and whirled around. “Who’s there?”

Rarity stepped forward. “It’s over, Silver Locks,” she said, trying to keep her voice cool. “The city guard is waiting outside this alley to take you into custody. If you try to run, they will catch you in mere moments.” She looked at the sack. “Is she in there?”

Silver Locks pulled down his hood, revealing his long, frazzled, graying mane and yellow eyes panicky with the desperation of a father with a child in trouble. “Dammit, Rarity! What are you doing? Why can’t you mind your business?”

“Is she alive?” Rarity asked.

“Dammit, Rarity!” he shouted. “Is the guard really here?”

“Yes.”

He cursed again. “Why are you doing this to me? For her? What did she ever mean to you?”

“She was nothing to me but a mare in need,” Rarity said, and stepped towards the sack. It looked wet.

“And that’s enough to risk your career, even your life over?”

“It is.”

He raised a hoof. Rarity saw it clearly. She could have moved out of the way. She could have stopped him, but she found she didn’t want to. He deserved this much from her. His hoof came down hard across her face, and she fell to her knees.

“You’re such a saint, aren’t you?” he hissed, standing over her. “You’re such a perfect little saint.”

“I’m not.” Rarity rolled her jaw back and forth. It would hurt for a day or two, but not any worse than the rest of her.

“Why can’t you let this alone?” he asked, pleading. “Why can’t you just go home?”

Rarity didn’t answer.

“She was a bitch, Rarity. Even you admitted so.”

“Everypony has the power to do the right thing, if given the chance.”

“She had her chance!” he barked, and his warm spittle fell on her forehead. “She had every chance. She was never going to change. She was never going to leave my daughter alone. You know that.”

“And killing her was the only way?”

“Shut up. I won’t apologize for washing a little spot of filth off of this city.” He backed away from her. He looked towards the alley exit. “I’m leaving.”

He ran off, leaving the sack.

Rarity let him go. He wouldn’t get far.

She stood up. She stepped towards the sack. Her hooves felt heavy like lead and her head felt faint like too many glasses of wine. She untied the sack and looked inside.

Past the smell of the decay and the dust, she recognized the mare’s perfume, sweet and strong as flowering lavender in summer wind.

“I’m sorry,” Rarity said, to both a loving father soon to be in jail and a miserable mirthless mare lying motionless in the Manehattan dust. “I’m so sorry.”