Nevermore eyed the ghastly shade of pink unicorn who stood before her, smiling brightly. The last time this filly had come this close to her, she'd smeared the remains of her blueberry yogurt into her fur. Nev responded by smearing her face with the ground. But here she was all the same, with a big, friendly greeting and a smile that didn't reach her eyes and was too tight. Nev narrowed her eyes. "What do you want..?" She snapped.

The fake smiled dropped from the filly in an moment. "Look," she said, wrinkling up her nose as if speaking words to Nevermore were repugnant. "I just heard that you can do things..special things.."

"Special..things.." Nev said, arching a eyebrow. "You wanna be specific?" The other filly groaned and stomped her hoof on the ground.

"You know..MAGIC STUFF.." she said, rolling her eyes. "Like make other phony do things you want them to do."

"I want you to go away." the pegasus said, her wing feathers puffing up in irritation. The other filly thrust her hoof out at Nevermore and opened it, revealing a hoof full of bits.

"Look, there's this filly I like, and I want her to like me! So take these and use your weird magic to make her do that!" Nevermore blinked, surprised. Her bully wanted a love charm from her? Her mind raced, she knew of some love charms but nothing that had any real results. Still, that was an awful lot of bits.

"I'd..need a lock of her hair.." Nev said slowly, gauging the other's reaction. The filly nodded and crammed the bits into Nev's hoof quickly. "I'll have it tomorrow." she said.

That evening, Nev mulled over the idea that she was selling something she normally only did for her own benefit. She'd hexed the exact same filly who was paying her with thinning hair. It'd been exceptionally amusing to see all the hairstyles and tail decorations she'd employed to cover her balding head and tail. And this filly wanted a LOVE charm, something that was extra difficult to make and the chance it would work was not quite nil, but close. Nevermore completed the charm for the final ingredient.

The next day, she met the pink filly on the playground where she handed over a lock of periwinkle blue hair. Nevermore knotted it and stuffed it into the small red doll in her possession, cinching the opening closed with dark red ribbon, tying it into a small bow to keep it secure. Reluctantly, she handed it over to the buyer. The filly snatched the doll up excitedly, examined it, shook and poked it. "How does this work?" she demanded.

Nevermore sighed, fighting not to snatch the doll right back. This horrible unicorn didn't deserve her help wither it would actually work or not. "You take it home, sleep with the doll next to your heart, and dream about your intended."

"That's it?" she scoffed, tucking the doll into her saddlebag. "I guess even freaky looking phony have a use too..thanks." The unicorn turned on her hoof and ran home.

"It might n.." the warning died on Nev's stitched lips. Screw it, if she was going to be completely rude, she didn't deserve the charm to work. On the way back to her own home, Nevermore stopped in Sweetbread's shop and bought a dozen muffins with instructions they'd go to homeless foals. It might not totally set her juju straight, but she felt better about using some of the bits she'd gotten for something that wasn't for herself.

It was only a couple days later that the pink unicorn bounced the love charm off Nevermore's flank. Turning to glare at her, Nev was momentarily sympathetic to see tears streaming down the other girls' cheek.

"IT DIDNT WORK! SHE LIKES SOME OTHER GIRL!!" the filly screeched before breaking into sobs. Nev started towards the other, but froze when she screamed; "YOU DIDN'T DO IT RIGHT OR SOMETHING! THIS IS YOUR FAULT." The pegasus ears flattened for a moment as a spark of white hot rage flared and then cooled.

Exhaling, she replied icily;"I guess you're feelings weren't true enough then. You get what you put into it, good or bad. My charms always work, so the fault was yours." Nev's voice turned into a silky coo. "Clearly no one could resist someone like you, so your feelings must lie somewhere else." Yes, go find someone else to obsess over, whoever that poor soul might be.

The unicorn filly sniffled, rubbing one of her eyes with a hoof. "I know right? I don't understand how she couldn't like me.." Nevermore tried not to gag. "Well, fine then! Make me a new charm, one to find the phony I REALLY love! The one destined to be mine. And while you're at it, do something nasty to THAT filly," she pointed to the doll that had been tossed back in Nev's face "and to the filly she likes!! Make them both pay!" The unicorn hissed, taking out another hoof full of bits and tossing them at Nev's feet along with a lock of black hair. Nev shrunk back from the hair and bits just a little. She wasn't enthusiastic about selling something like a hex to this filly, and all over a silly thing like a unrequited crush! But...

A few hours later, the unicorn was at her front door. Nev handed her two small packages. A talk with Nobel, who reminded her that she wasn't doing the hexing herself, just providing products to phony for a price, had made her feel more at ease. Any backlash was on the unicorn's head. After all, everything she made was purely cosmetic or uncomfortable and the effects would pass or start to regrow in a day or two.

"Remember, you get what you put in and what goes around comes around." Nevermore was especially mindful of that last part, this time donating half of the bits she was paid to a charity.

"Yeah yeah yeah." the pink filly snapped, taking the small bundles and leaving without a word of thanks.

The next day, the phony who's hair was a pretty shade of periwinkle lost all of it, along with all of her fur she'd heard, and then broken out into itchy red spots. The filly with black hair had all of her feathers fall out and her wings felt so heavy that they drooped down, getting scratched as they dragged along the ground. Nev was impressed, the girl had certainly harbored some deep malice towards those two if the hexes were THAT potent. Also, she'd be getting a regular payment from the unicorn to cleanse the love charm to find the phony she was destined to be with until the filly found them or wised up. Nevermore was pretty sure neither of those two things would happen anytime soon.

More days later, the two fillies who had been hexed approached her on the playground. Rather then being angry at Nev, they wanted to buy their own hexes to put on the pink unicorn. The pegasus was more then willing this time, and returned the next day with what they had demanded. The effects of those hexes were almost doubled, considering how nasty the unicorn had been towards the two of them. And so it went, back and forth, with others getting word of her skills and seeking similar services.

Nevermore was content to sit back and watch the chaos happen. It was amazing to her what love made others do and want to do. More then selling her charms and curses, more then enjoying the messes that the other phony were making casting them at each other, more then anything, she wanted to find a way to harness real, true love. She'd been warned against it, and everything she'd read said that real love was not a force you could control and use, and if you tried, only misfortune followed. Nevermore already dealt out misfortunes as easily as candy, she was confident it would one day be the same for love.