You're a masterpiece

Upon later reflection and contemplation Two Tone would come to the opinion that Chrysalis honestly seemed to enjoy events like the art auction she'd wrangled the zebra into attending with her in my Royal Equestria Security Forces (RESF) dreamscape. That and the changeling possessed a fairly extensive knowledge of the arts. For Two Tone she had no fucking idea what she was looking at most of the time, and understood even less what the queen or other ponies had to say about it.

At least the free food and drinks were good. Although many of the drinks were alcoholic which the zebra declined.

The zebra had discovered years ago that one could get through many conversations where you had no fucking clue what the other party was saying by making various appropriate nonverbal sounds. Nodding or shaking one's head in response to other ponies comments about something. Or by making simple, vague, nonspecific observations about various topics. That evening Two Tone found the following phrases to be useful.

Well I've never seen anything like it before. The artist is definitely making a bold statement. This artist is not afraid to take risks. This artist is going somewhere nopony has gone before. What do you think the artist is getting at with this? Then usually making one of those nonverbal sounds in response to the question. This worked most of the time.

Two Tone found many of the attendees to be nothing but eccentric, overly flamboyant, and prone to bloviating on and on unless one excused themselves or did something to short circuit their overly inflated egos from their mouths. However beyond that most of them were just annoying but harmless.

Most of them.

One thing Two Tone had a knack for was being able to spot patterns in ponies behavior and habits. It had saved her life on the street many times. So the mare quickly picked up pattern in the queen's behavior. For the bulk of the evening her majesty stayed in and around what was normally the main dance floor. Their she hobnobbed with the important ponies of Ft. Trotterdale and since Two Tone was suppose to be part of her entourage this meant as the evening progressed the zebra found herself slowly moving from one group of important ponies to another. For her part the zebra tried to keep a low profile. Well, as low as she could in the get up she was wearing.

However. On several occasion Chrysalis in her disguised form of Glimmering Gems would be approached another attendee and the queen and the newcomer along with the queen's security detail and the zebra would slowly drifted away to one of the more secluded parts of the club. Usual under the pretense of getting the queen's opinion concerning a particular piece that was being sold. But it quickly became obvious to the zebra that this was a way to conduct informal business meetings.

It was during one of these side excursions that it happened. The queen and ostensibly another of the so called patron of the arts as they liked call to themselves were engaged with what Two Tone recognized as being a coded conversation. She didn't know what they actually talking about but it had nothing to do with the abstract painting hanging on the wall in front them. Although the zebra felt the word painting was doing some pretty heavy lifting in this case. In Two Tone's eyes it looked like the canvas had been left outside when a flock of gulls had suddenly suffered some form of spontaneous and severe intestinal catastrophe, but as her eyes scanned around the immediate area her gaze settled on a nearby sculpture.

It was a statue of technically of a pegasus. Gender was indeterminate, but what had caught the zebra's attention was a major component of sculpture. Much of it was collection of existing objects, much of looked like it had retrieved from recycling center or vehicle scrap yard and reused to create this piece.

The thing that had initially caught her attention was that the chest/ribcage part of the sculpture was made from the block of a 500cc V-Twin motorcycle engine. The framework for the wings had originally been the handle bars from a chopper-type motorcycle. After a second Two Tone realized the feathers of the piece were actually the blades of various kitchen knives of assorted sizes that had been welded to the handle bars. That probably explained the presence of a security barrier around the piece. Wouldn't want some rich pony slashing themselves while in the club.

The title of the piece was: The Power Of Flight and this was the first thing that Two Tone had seen this evening that intrigued her. Slowly she started circling the piece. The more she examined it the more things she recognized. Suspension parts from various motorcycles for the legs and arms. Pieces of various exhaust systems had been cut, bent, hammered, and welded to help define the limbs and face. Frayed copper wire from ignition harnesses and power cords for the mane and tail.

The zebra was making another orbit of the piece when she heard male voice speak up.

"Beautiful. Simply beautiful."

Two Tone looked up to see a palomino unicorn stallion standing in front of her He gave the mare a smarmy grin. With his long, flowing, perfectly coifed mane, finely chiseled features, a body that spoke of daily visits to the gym, along with a brilliant white cotton shirt that was only buttoned halfway up he looked like he'd stepped off the cover of some tawdry romance novel.

The zebra just stared in disbelief. Standing before her was the most punchable face she'd ever encountered. Resisting the intense urge to do this she nodded her head and looked back at the sculpture. "Yes." she said. "It's surprisingly beautiful."

The stallion chuckled heartily then he cupped his chin with the thumb and index finger of his right hand. He gave Two Tone a hungry look and then purred.

"Oh dear! I wasn't talking about that nasty piece of scrap of metal. Oh no, no, no! I was talking about you. You're a masterpiece."

Two Tone felt the urge to punch the stallion growing by the second.