Rainbow Dash tried her best to concentrate on the feeling of the ground beneath her head. It felt cold and uncomfortable, with several pebbles digging into her skin. Dirt and dust had settled into her coat, making her itch. Her muscles were so weak, so bloodless, that she couldn’t use them to scratch her cheek or lift her head, so the itch would remain. But there were several other, worse things she could concentrate on.
She closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to see. Everything in sight hurt her. She’d seen enough of the thick clouds covering the sky, from the horizon in the east to the one in the west. Their omnipresence felt suffocating, like they were weighing down and crushing her body. Looking away only brought other things into her field of vision, things like broken, barren, blasted trees, scorched earth with scant, withered grass, and a pair of bodies scattered apart, just at the edge of her blurred vision. Her only comfort was that a third, much closer body lay behind her, out of her eyesight. She’d never see what she’d done to Gilda, the last wound that finally killed her. Neither could she see what Gilda had done to her, and thankfully she started to lose all sensation of it entirely, all except for the smell.
Her breathing was shallow and ragged, hampered by liquid and producing a sickening combination of gurgle and wheeze. Despite that, the surrounding scents still hung in her nose, and she knew they’d never leave. She smelled an overwhelming aroma of blood mixed in with traces of burnt vegetation and carrion. A lot of the blood was hers - it made her neck and forelegs wet and sticky where they met the ground - but she didn’t doubt that Gilda’s body added to the smell. The thought that she couldn’t tell their scents apart made the corner of her mouth twitch, a brief facsimile of a smile.
She knew she would be gone soon, but it couldn’t be soon enough. And yet, no matter how much she thought, she couldn’t think of a place she’d rather be. Everywhere else had withered away. Everypony else had died, in her mind or in reality. If some good souls out there still needed her, she didn’t know them, and she never would. The memory of how she got here, alone, paralyzed, and bleeding to death, was the worst thing of all she could focus on.
So Rainbow Dash focused on the itch on her cheek and her dirty coat, trying to ignore the rattling in her throat. A few minutes later, the rattling stopped, and so did her heart.
“-nk she’s awake! Rainbow Dash! Rainbow Dash! Please wake up! Please!”
Rainbow’s body flopped like a doll beneath Pinkie Pie’s hooves. She felt so groggy and surprised that it took several seconds for her to react. Her muscles tensed up and she pushed Pinkie away from her.
The force of the shove pushed Pinkie onto the floor, making her grunt and roll until she came to a rest at Rarity’s hooves. Rainbow Dash sprang to her hooves and rushed over to Pinkie Pie as Rarity helped her up. “Are you okay? I’m sorry, I-”
Rainbow blinked. Pinkie Pie looked different to her. If it weren’t for one meeting between them, so long ago that Rainbow Dash could barely remember it, she might not have even recognized her. The Pinkie Pie she knew, who’d always taken precedence in her memory in the worst of times, was an earth pony with a coat in a vibrant, bright shade of pink, a mane and tail that curled every which way in a chaotic frizz, and a cheerful, nearly omnipresent smile on her face, one capable of shining into a gloomy heart like a beam of light. Sure, Pinkie had more and more moments when her cheer seemed forced, grating, disturbing, but it wasn’t... this.
Now Pinkie Pie’s colors were muted and dull, her mane draping her face like a curtain, hanging limp and lifeless with no body or spring to it at all. Her face looked like a mask, a facade of energy covering up a deep pit of exhaustion. Rainbow looked into her eyes and saw lines of red creeping in around the edges, and bruise-colored bags under both of them. The wistful smile on Pinkie’s face wasn’t the usual beacon of good cheer, but instead a blend of resignation and reassurance. The only good thing she could say about how Pinkie looked was that the gray stripes in her mane had vanished. Did Rarity persuade her to get it dyed? “Well... you didn’t hurt me if that’s what you mean,” Pinkie told her.
Rainbow Dash looked up at Rarity. Her hair was bent out of shape, like she’d just gotten out of bed, and she had the same tired eyes as Pinkie Pie, but something else was different about her. Now that Rainbow thought about it, the soft ache in her eyes made her wonder if she looked just as weary. She didn’t feel-
The realization of what Rainbow Dash didn’t feel hit her like a ton of bricks. She yelped and rolled back onto her back, patting much of her body with her front hooves. No lacerations, no broken bones, no blood, no stench, no presence of any illness at all. Even the pain in the joints of her wings, a constant thorn in her side for the last few years, had vanished, and her coat felt lustrous and smooth to the touch, its blue shade so vibrant it almost hurt her eyes. There wasn’t even a single familiar scar on it. Her heart throbbed as she double-checked to make sure her body was in the shape she thought it was. Looking back up at her friends, she saw recognition and sympathy on their faces. We’ve been through that too, she knew they’d say, and we don’t know why, either.
So she got back onto her hooves and took a few deep breaths, trying to keep her cool. “Okay. I’m okay. I’m cool.” She looked around the room, trying to move on to something else. “Where are we?”
“You don’t remember this place?” Rarity asked her.
But she did. How could she forget Twilight’s library? She looked around the room, a hollowed out interior of a giant tree, feeling Rarity's eyes on her as she took it all in. The floor displayed the tree’s rings, and another, smaller stump somehow grew out of floor, serving as a resting stand for a large, thick atlas of Equestria. Most of the walls were hollowed out into shelves full of books, most of them filled with dry, dusty nonfiction books that Rainbow thought she would never, ever read. Since she’d picked up on the joys of reading, she wished that Twilight would make room for more exciting, accessible books, instead of stuff that only the most hardcore eggheads could ever read for fun. She’d read a few such books in her day - she had to in order to keep up with the ins and outs of running a Ministry - but every chapter posed an uphill battle for her.
Just as she began to see the silver lining of never having to read those boring wastes of time ever again, she saw a series of books with brightly colored dust jackets, the spines displaying the same name over and over again in embossed gold lettering: Daring Do. The golden lettering continued the titles after the heroine’s name and numbered them for convenience, but the name was easily the most eye-catching part of the spine, and for good reason.
Seeing that name made Rainbow smile. It had been so long since she’d gotten a chance to read about her hero again. Her ears swiveled, detecting nothing but the occasional shuffle or creak from Rarity and Pinkie Pie. The two of them could wait for a moment. Rainbow reached out and pulled the leftmost book out of the shelf, glancing at the front cover. It was still the masterwork she remembered from the first time Twilight had shown it to her, a gorgeous reproduced painting of a pegasus climbing up a vine, escaping the reach of a pack of hungry crocodiles. She wore a pith helmet and an olive-colored jacket, and carried a two-headed sapphire figurine of a jackal in one outstretched hoof. Rarity told her once that it excited her so because of the picture’s dynamic angle and the foreshortening used on the vine and Daring Do herself, to better convey a sense of danger. It looked like Daring’s grayscale tail had already come within reach of one alligator’s open jaw! For a moment, Rainbow felt the ghost of that first thrill she had reading Daring Do’s debut adventure.
Rainbow turned the book over in her hooves, feeling a strong temptation to look up all of her favorite passages and take a peek at them. If only she had the time to read the whole thing cover to cover again! As she thought of why she didn’t, trying to pin down the sense of unease she’d had ever since waking up from... since waking up, she noticed a stain on the top edge. She knew that stain, remembered kicking herself for letting a gift like that get wet with apple juice. Then she remembered what got her over it, and flipped open the front cover to look inside.
Rainbow-
I can’t imagine how you must be feeling right now! You do so well at keeping your cool, so I can’t imagine you’re as nervous and excited as I am. To think that out of all the ponies in the country, all of the experienced mares and stallions Luna could have appointed, she picked us! I have so many new ideas to share with the princess and bring to life, even if they do have to be used in war. It really is a pity that I couldn’t really cut loose with my research until we needed it to keep Equestria safe.
You’ve probably heard by now that we’re all going to have more hectic schedules than ever before. We probably won’t have much time to hang out like we used to. So just in case we can’t meet up for long, I wanted you to have this. It meant the world to me when you told me you loved this book, and I miss being able to talk about new Daring Do stories after you read them. At least we’ll always have the memories, right? Keeping this around your place should help keep them fresh in your mind.
Yours truly,
Twilight Sparkle
P.S.: Try to read more books that aren’t Daring Do-related, won’t you? I’d love to share more literary discoveries with you and see you broaden your horizons!
That was the message that should have been written on the book’s inside cover. It wasn’t. Rainbow saw only a blank white space in its stead. She stared at the space, mouth hanging open, wondering where it went. It had to be there. No other copy of the book with that same stain existed, only the copy that Twilight signed. Flipping through the book, most of the creased pages that she remembered getting irritated over were much smoother now, like they’d never been damaged at all.
Was that what happened? Had the damage done to the book and her own body just vanished somehow? Before she could think of why, she heard the sound of a limp pony being shaken again. “Please, not too hard, Pinkie darling!” said Rarity, from behind Rainbow Dash. Rainbow turned to see what was the matter, and the sight that awaited her made her yelp in shock. It stunned her enough to make the book slip out of her hooves and hit the ground.
Pinkie shook Applejack’s head, which lacked the stetson that usually adorned it. Said stetson lay abandoned on the ground between Applejack and Twilight Sparkle. Both of them lay still on the ground, and for one moment Dash felt like her heart clenched tight. She knew it had to happen, but not like this. Not in the library.
“They’re-” Dash yelled, cutting herself off when she saw Twilight’s barrel moving up and down. She blinked and looked over at Applejack, whose body also showed signs of life.
“Sleeping, Rainbow,” Rarity said, looking from Rainbow back to Pinkie. She lay on a pile of blankets and pillows. Judging by the star and moon patterns on the biggest, blue blanket, Rainbow had to guess that they came from Twilight’s bed. Her old bed in the library, that is. Rainbow had never seen her new bed in Canterlot, since Twilight had never invited her over thanks to their respective schedules. Rainbow could see a yellow pegasus collapsed on the pile with Rarity, a pegasus whom Rarity must have tucked in as if she slept in a normal bed. “As were you until a few minutes ago.”
Rainbow looked back at Pinkie and Applejack. She didn’t want to look at Fluttershy right now. “How did you wake me up?” she asked.
Rarity gave Rainbow a full pause before she answered. “We... didn’t,” she admitted. “At least, as far as I can tell. We were simply repeating ourselves out of desperation when you stirred.”
Pinkie Pie took out an airhorn from who knew where and pressed down on top. The sound caused Rainbow and Rarity to wince, but it failed to elicit a reaction from any of the sleeping ponies. Pinkie Pie looked over at Twilight and started sniffling, lying down and burying her face in the nearest pillow. It muffled the sound of her weeping, but not well enough. Rainbow walked over and put a hoof on her back. “Pinkie...”
Nothing came to her. What was she supposed to say? Even when things were normal she sucked at consoling her friends, and given how little she knew of anything at the moment, Rainbow thought she might get the urge to cry as well. “We’ll wake them up soon. I promise.” It was the least she could say in this situation, the one thing she knew she wanted, but she didn’t know how to make it happen. Twilight always knew the most about that sort of stuff, way back when.
Inspiration hit Rainbow Dash. Twilight did know more than anypony else back in the day, but that was then and this was now, wasn’t it? She also loved sharing her knowledge and educating other unicorns, right? “Rarity, did Twilight teach you any spells that can help? Anything at all?”
Rarity looked worried. Rainbow and Pinkie both stared at her, eagerly anticipating an answer. “I... nothing comes to mind offhoof...”
“Forget offhoof!” Rainbow told her, taking another step. “Think harder! You’re the only chance they’ve got!” She could barely keep her voice under control when lives that meant the world to her rested in one pony’s hoof. Just because they all wanted their friends to get better doesn’t mean they would. They’d all learned that the hard way. All six of them tried to make Equestria better during the war, and in return they saw too much death for them to count, let alone comprehend, as a reward.
She saw Rarity concentrate until her horn flared up and glowed pale blue. Rarity turned her head from one side to the other, looking, scanning, until she lowered her horn to point to one bookshelf in particular.
Rainbow needed no better reason to rush over and scan the spines of the books on the shelf. A Brief History of Zebra Piracy? The Anatomy of the Everfree? What did those have to do with finding a solution? “What am I looking for here, Rarity?” she asked. “We don’t have time for books like these!”
Rarity began to levitate the books out of the shelf, one by one, setting them down neatly on the floor again. “We want to look behind the books, Rainbow,” she said, eventually revealing a horseshoe-shaped button on the back wall behind the books. She pressed it, and the wall slid away, revealing a few old tomes lying flat, as well as something that Rainbow couldn’t identify. With extra care, Rarity levitated it over to the nearest table for the three of them to examine.
They saw a cylinder with thick glass sides and a material they couldn’t identify on the top and bottom. It didn’t look cold and shiny like metal, it didn’t feel grainy or earthy like stone, ceramic, or wood, and something told Rainbow that it wasn’t plastic. She suspected that there might not even be any plastic now. There were no engravings or decorations on it, nothing that could indicate what the cylinder actually did except a button on top in the approximate shape of a hoof. It had already been depressed, and it didn’t look like it could be raised again.
But that wasn’t what drew their eyes. The sides of the cylinders were made out of glass, or at least it looked like glass. It was thick and clouded, but a pony could see a distorted image of the inside, like the view had been refracted through a melted lens or the image had been warped by heat. They could see something indigo floating inside, radiating an intense light. It revolved so fast that Rainbow couldn’t tell anything more about what it was, so fast it produced a faint humming noise.
What IS this thing? Something in Rainbow’s gut told her that she’d seen it before, but where? She ran through all the tech that ran through the Ministry of Awesome’s hooves, every piece of equipment she looked over and approved for the Shadowbolts, and came up with nothing. It wasn’t a weapon, and she couldn’t figure out how it worked. Did it even have a spell board? Somehow this thing, whatever it was, figured into the comatose state of her old friends, and its origin hung just outside of her awareness, its closeness making the inside of Rainbow’s skull itch. As she thought and thought, she noticed Rarity had shifted her gaze from the thing in the jar to her face.
Her voice quavered. “Rainbow Dash, are you fe-”
“How did you know?” Rainbow barked. Rarity and Pinkie Pie both flinched, jumping away from Rainbow. “How’d you know it was there?”
“I... I detected the gemstone inside,” Rarity said, pointing at the jar again. “I cast the spell I used to find gems for my dresses. D-do you remember?” Rainbow turned and looked at it, and now that she thought about it, she could see that the thing inside could be a crystal.
Looking back at Rarity, Rainbow saw that she was frightened. Was Rainbow really being that scary? She could feel a spring inside her, coiled up so tight that she thought it would snap. A few deep breaths, and she managed to loosen it again, just enough to calm down. “Yeah, I think I remember. They... Twilight talked about it. Sorry I yelled at you.” She sighed. “I don’t know, Rarity. I don’t know what that is or where we are or why I’m not dead!” Her hoof slammed into the floor, making the jar rattle on the table.
Rarity and Pinkie Pie shared a glance, then looked back at Rainbow Dash. She could already feel the spring winding up inside her again, and she hung her head and stared at the floor, only raising it again when she felt hooves rest on her shoulders.
“I know, Rainbow,” Pinkie said. “It’s really weird and creepy and I feel like I just walked a tightrope and almost fell off a bazillion times! Everything’s upside-down and backwards, but...” She sighed. “I have the two of you. You have no idea how much I missed you girls. I w-was super gloomy and... and...” As her voice started cracking, Pinkie Pie stopped talking and sniffled again. “I’m really, really sorry.”
Rainbow pulled Pinkie Pie close and let her bury her head under Dash's shoulder. “It’s fine, Pinkie. We can talk about that after we get the others up and running.”
“Yes, Pinkie darling,” Rarity said, putting her arms around Pinkie and Rainbow. “Once we’re reunited, you’ll have our unconditional support.”
Those words. Rainbow had heard them before. The realization struck her like a lightning bolt. She rushed over to the jar, wrenching herself out of her friends’ hug, and stared at the crystal inside. Her brow furrowed and she gritted her teeth.
“Rainbow?” Rarity asked. “Do you have an idea?”
Rainbow’s eye twitched. She snatched the jar off the table. “Yeah, I got an idea, alright.”
“Man, Twilight, why’d you have to wake us up like this?” Rainbow asked, stretching her legs on the library floor. She still felt drowsy enough to curl up on the floor and relax, undoubtedly falling asleep again in a few minutes. “You know I have flight training in the morning! Spitfire’s going to cut some cadets from the roster and I gotta make sure I’m not one of them!”
“Oh, I completely agree,” Rarity said, examining her hooves and affecting the air of a haughty businessmare who wanted to convey her displeasure at her time being wasted in as few words as possible. “A lady like me should never be awoken and deprived of beauty sleep. You know full well that I have an image to maintain.” She sighed and raised a hoof to brush her mane out of her eyes. “And now I look positively dreadful.”
“Shucks, Rarity, ya looked worse after we bungled up our little fashion show, remember?” Applejack chuckled even as Rarity glared at her. She’d made herself at home, lying on her side, and yet she resisted the temptation to close her eyes. Rainbow probably couldn't, though her friends didn’t need to hear that.
Naturally, only Pinkie Pie, out of all the ponies in the room, displayed no sign of exhaustion whatsoever. She bounced up and down on the floor, hopping around the room and coming to a stop next to Twilight. “Ooh! Lemme guess! Surprise slumber party! Oh Twilight, you really should have told me about this! I could have gathered a huge pile of fluffy pillows for us to fight with and a bunch of party mix to eat and ooh, we could probably use a bunch of that fancy mud that Rarity likes to put on the face with those yummy cucumber slices-”
“Girls!” Twilight Sparkle yelled. All of her friends stood at attention and stopped talking. Only Fluttershy kept silent, too timid to raise her voice even when she wasn’t fighting to keep her eyes open. Twilight herself looked alert and awake, even though her mane and tail were disheveled from sleeping.
When she saw that she had their attention, she tapped her hoof on a box that, now that Rainbow noticed it, hadn’t been there before. It was small, about the size of one of those large jars of pickled eggs the Apple family kept in their pantry. She’d seen them once and couldn't believe that earth ponies would eat something that gross.
“This package just arrived on my door, six hours and forty-seven minutes before Ditzy Doo normally delivers the mail,” Twilight explained, “which includes the fifty-five minutes it took for all of us to congregate here.”
“So?” Rainbow asked as Twilight reached inside. “Express packages are a thing now. Big deal. You don’t need to wake us up just because there's a hair out of place in your life, you know?”
“It’s from Princess Celestia,” Twilight said, pulling a roll of paper from the box.
“Wait, what?” Rainbow asked. “Why wouldn't she just-”
“To my faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.” Twilight cut Rainbow off, reading from the letter.
“Please forgive the circumstances behind this letter. I could not risk sending it through Spike’s fire as I usually do. One reason why is because I am being monitored by dark forces who will wreak havoc on Equestria should they discover that I’ve learned of their plans. The other is that the device enclosed in the package is too large to safely transport through Spike's fire.
“The device inside the box contains far more detail on the threat that faces Equestria.” Twilight paused and lifted from the box a very sturdy-looking glass jar with a hoof-sized button on top, the top and bottom made of an unknown material. “It is not so simple a threat as Discord or King Sombra. It is more insidious and subtle, and will test your dedication as nothing ever has before. But you and your friends bear the Elements of Harmony, and it is my belief that no challenge is insurmountable for the six of you.”
Twilight's friends couldn’t help but smile at this simple statement. “Damn straight,” Rainbow muttered.
“I must insist that the six of you activate the device in the same room, once you've placed it in the secret panel behind your bookshelf.” Twilight glanced over at said panel, which she had opened before any of her friends had gotten there. The books that she’d cleared out to access it were still organized, stacked nearby on the floor. “Press the button on top, then conceal it. You should have three minutes to cover up the panel and hide its presence before it activates. Please hurry. The fate of Equestria lies in all of your hooves. Sincerely, Princess Celestia.”
All of the ponies in the room watched Twilight set the paper aside again. She stared into the jar, which contained an indigo crystal suspended in midair. Her eyes narrowed as she peered inside, scrutinizing its every facet. As she examined it, her friends moved their eyes from Twilight to meet each other’s gaze. Half a minute of silence passed before Pinkie broke it. “Come on, Twilight, press the button!” she said with an excited squeal.
Applejack walked up to the jar and gave the crystal inside a sidelong glance. “Ain’t much point in hesitatin’ now, sugarcube. You want one of us to give this here doohickey a whirl instead?”
Twilight finally looked up at her friends, looking each of them in the eye, then sighed and hung her head. “This doesn’t feel right. I don’t even know what this is or how it works, and Princess Celestia wants me to use it without any prior testing? This isn’t scientific, it’s reckless.” She frowned and looked back at the jar.
Fluttershy coughed, looking at a book on a shelf to the exclusion of all else. Her worried expression mirrored Twilight’s. Rainbow Dash just tilted her head. “Why would the princess send you something that doesn’t work?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Twilight said. “I wouldn’t even consider going through with activating this if it didn’t come from the princess herself.” She sighed and stared at the floating crystal. “What should I do?”
The rest of the mares in the room glanced at each other, before Rarity stepped forward. “Darling, I suspect you’re more qualified to make this decision than the rest of us. Whichever path you choose to take, you have our unconditional support. Right girls?” She glanced behind her and saw their friends nodding, though it took Fluttershy a moment to muster up initiative. Rainbow Dash nodded first, wishing that Twilight would just get on with it so she could go back to sleep.
“Alright,” Twilight said, levitating the jar and giving it a much closer examination. Rainbow guessed that Twilight used some sort of magic to scan it or something, but she didn’t know for sure. Just before Rainbow could blurt out her impatience, Twilight took the jar over to the secret compartment behind her bookshelf, tucking it inside and finally pressing the button.
Before Twilight closed the compartment and started piling books into the shelf again, Rainbow caught a glimpse of the floating gemstone starting to whir, glow and spin. “So what happens now?” she asked, stretching her legs and wings. “It better happen soon, ‘cause I’m gonna crash any minute now.
Rainbow yawned, and Applejack followed suit soon after. “I’m feelin’ mighty tuckered out myself,” she said, rolling onto her side.
“I... think that’s how it works,” Twilight said, rubbing her eyes. “There’s some kind of soporific enchantment on that device.”
“Whuzzat mean?” Rainbow asked. She could feel a twinge of pressure inside her head, like claws pushing it down to the floor, and judging by the sudden slump of a body hitting the floor, she wasn’t the only one.
“Oh, Fluttershy!” Rarity called out, following her concern with a yawn. Rainbow turned to see her lying down next to Fluttershy’s unconscious body.
Everypony looked barely awake, like a stiff breeze would make them fall over and sleep. Pinkie Pie didn’t even wait for that, rolling over onto her back and squeezing herself up against the wall. It looked like a good position for Rainbow to get into. Very comfortable. All of her thoughts about the letter and the crystal jar and the princess dashed out of reach before she could grasp them. She just needed a good night’s sleep, and then they’d be more cooperative.
“Rainbow Dash, where are you going?” Rarity shouted, looking up from outside the door to the library.
“To wake them up!” Rainbow Dash called back. She had flown out the door, the crystal jar tucked against her chest, and now scanned the environs of Ponyville for something suitably hard and pointed.
She noticed many things in those moments. She noticed that Celestia’s sun had risen, and as such the ponies of Ponyville, ponies who had no idea that anything was wrong, who acted like the last few miserable decades never happened, woke up and got settled into ordinary routine for an ordinary day. They looked so small and helpless from above the rooftops. It occurred to Rainbow that she didn’t know what this thing was. She could be dooming the ponies down below to a terrible fate if she cracked it open right then and there, in the middle of town. Besides, she didn’t know if anything in town could do the job.
“Hey, Rainbow Dash!” called out a voice Rainbow vaguely recognized. A brief glance confirmed the presence of Ponyville’s mailmare, Ditzy Doo. She fluttered in the air, adjusting her bag so that fewer letters stuck out and had an opportunity to fly off, though she seemed to be putting a new letter at risk for every one she successfully tucked away. “How was-” Rainbow sped off before she could hear any more.
Soaring above the clouds of Ponyville, she took a moment to marvel at the feeling of flying. The wind lifted her, flowing around her wings, and for a moment it felt amazing to take to the air again. It felt better than she remembered it being in a long, long time. No stiffness in her muscles, no aching or creaky joints, no blurred vision. Whatever happened, it put Rainbow Dash right back in her prime, it made her young again, and it brought a smile to her face.
Flying past Ponyville and Sweet Apple Acres to the surrounding plains, she spotted a rock on the ground, a tall stone as wide as her torso. Rainbow smirked. It looked nice and hard enough. Her wings spread out and she leaned back, coming to a stop in front of the rock. With a grunt, she raised the jar and brought it down on the top of the rock. The jar hit the rock with a loud smack, the impact wrenching it out of Rainbow’s hooves.
“Ow!” she said, flexing her legs. When she picked up the jar, she could only see a single hair-thin scratch on the glass. It wouldn’t work; it would take too long. Unless, Rainbow thought as she looked up into the sky, she could pull it off again.
A nearby thermal gave her a ride up high into the air. All around her she could see wispy, malformed clouds, the kind that form in the night when the pegasi sleep and leave the sky to its own devices. She brushed past one of them as she rose, feeling the soft, downy texture on her feathers. The comfort of clouds was beyond compare.
But then Rainbow Dash remembered that two thirds of Equestria's population would never be able to experience the joy of feeling clouds prop up their body. All her life, right up until the last day, she had never truly considered how unfair it all was. It got especially galling when it meant the difference between a comfortable life and a short, hellish one. Did they care? Of course not. Fucking Enclave. As Rainbow clenched her jaw, she felt herself wavering in the air, and tried to force those sons of bitches out of her head. All she could do was force them aside so that she could still fly. She had a job to do.
With a few powerful flaps of her wings she rose high into the air. Ponyville sat down below, looking like a toy model set with tiny little dots populating it. Up above floated the distant city of Cloudsdale, innocent, unsuspecting and pristine. For a moment Rainbow stared at it and wondered why it still existed. Then she remembered why she came there and dropped into a nosedive.
Vintage memories flooded her mind, brought to her through rejuvenated muscles. The lead-up to the big event felt fuzzy in her mind, the details obscure and confusing. She knew her friends came up to the clouds with her, and that Rarity tried to steal the spotlight by flying too, but she didn’t know what else they did or what Rarity wore while performing. Only the descent, the rescue, the rainboom stood out with burning clarity.
Rainbow felt wind whipping through her hair as she picked up speed. She’d called it the best day ever, and she wasn’t wrong. The grin that had spread so wide that it hurt her cheeks shrank when she realized how sad that was. The day her sonic rainboom won her the Best Young Flyers Competition should have been the start of an excellent career, but aside from joining the Wonderbolts, nothing else had ever made her that happy, that fulfilled ever again. Moments in the decade after came close, but that was it. One decade. Nothing else.
She started to see the air bend in front of her, coalescing into a wall for her to burst through once she picked up enough speed. Twilight had called it the sound barrier, expressing mild surprise that it was an actual barrier that Rainbow had bounced off of before, when unstable nerves kept her from pulling it off. For a moment she thought it would happen again. What if-
No! Rainbow gritted her teeth and pushed up against the barrier like a hoof pushing up against thick rubber. You’ve done this so many times before, it’s second nature! Your body is toned, your mind is sharp, you’ve never been this capable in your entire life! There’s no way you can fail, not when your friends’ lives are on the line! This will not beat you! You are Rainbow Dash, the best flyer who ever lived!
Her hooves split the barrier open. A kaleidoscopic rainbow of colors washed over her eyes, accompanied by a deafening crack. A split-second of silence followed, the most crucial moment of time in the entire stunt. Rainbow could see the ground and the spire growing out from it zooming up to meet her. One moment of hesitation and she’d smash every bone in her body onto the soil. But she didn’t worry. She’d done it before. At the last possible second, she released her death-grip on the jar and banked up into a sharp right angle.
As she pulled back and tried to slow down, she glanced back at the spire and heard the sound of smashing glass catch up with her ears. It worked! Her plan actually worked! She turned her eyes back to see the spire and saw the shattered remains of the jar on the grass below. Above the spire, she thought she saw some sort of blue wisp in the air above. Then her eyes drifted up to the rainbow pattern in the sky, the typical awesome result of the sonic rainboom. Except it wasn’t a rainbow this time. Every single shade in the pattern was blue, tinged with various other colors and shades of white and black.
Huh, weird. Rainbow hovered in place and stared at it, noticing that it wasn’t going away. Normally the rainbow would disappear like a delayed flash of light, but this dissipated at a much slower rate, almost like it was some sort of cloud or gas. But her friends took priority, so she rushed off to find them.
Most of the ponies who had woken up in Ponyville had stopped, staring at the blue cloud. Rainbow weaved through the crowd and flew over to the library, stopping right in her tracks as Fluttershy burst out the door and came within an inch of crashing right into Rainbow.
The two of them stared at each other for a few moments, each frozen by the other’s gaze. Rainbow thought she looked like a cornered animal. Her eyes were wider and more bloodshot than Pinkie or Rarity’s, she looked twitchy, and from her puffy face and runny nose it was clear that she had just finished sobbing. Looking at Rainbow Dash was enough to make Fluttershy cringe and cower. She bit her lip almost hard enough to draw blood. At the back of her mind, Rainbow realized she’d been glaring daggers at Fluttershy without even knowing it, and so she softened her face a little. Not too much, though, not enough to let Fluttershy think Rainbow forgot what she did.
“Darling, I’m afraid I don’t know any Crumble.” Rainbow heard Rarity’s voice from inside the library, and she shifted her gaze to look over Fluttershy’s shoulder, into the interior of the library. Past the door, she could see Rarity trying to console Applejack, who looked around the library in a panic, searching for something that clearly wasn’t there. Now that she thought of it, Rainbow could hear Pinkie Pie’s incessant, terrified babbling in the background, the words running together too quickly to identify.
“I just had her,” Applejack mumbled. “She was next to me an’ she was sleepy an’ I just put ‘er down for a nap.” Much like the rest of them, Applejack looked scary, like she’d just woken up from a nightmare. Her mane and tail flowed freely and unbound, some hair getting into her eye. But her posture was almost as broken as Fluttershy’s, and if Rainbow had to be honest, it scared her. She racked her memories for instances where Applejack had lost her cool, seemed like she had completely given in to panic, and she just got a headache for her trouble.
Rarity, meanwhile, looked like somepony had poured ice into her belly. “I... I’m terribly sorry, Applejack, but... well...” She gulped and averted her eyes from Applejack’s, coming to rest on Fluttershy. Rainbow felt Fluttershy trying to brush past her now that Applejack had distracted her, and with a frown she stepped to the side and let her flee. Rarity had raised a foreleg and opened her mouth, halfway to calling Fluttershy back and begging her to stay, but she wilted back into resignation once she saw her go.
“Rainbow, why did you-” Rarity said, before Rainbow Dash raised her hoof up in front of her.
“We’ve got enough problems worrying about our friends, okay?” Rainbow replied. She sounded exasperated.
Rarity looked aghast, gasping in her typical melodramatic manner. “Rainbow, Fluttershy is our friend as well!”
Rainbow bit back the temptation to tell Rarity to speak for herself. The last time Rainbow and Fluttershy had contact with each other, Rainbow practically bit her head off. She chose to be a traitor, giving aid and comfort to the enemy during wartime, and that was all Rainbow cared to know before she shut Fluttershy out of her life. But after every cowardly pegasus in the world slapped the “traitor” label on Rainbow, she felt bad about tossing the word around so much. It didn’t feel right to call Fluttershy that... though she was still an idiot.
A twitch worked its way across Rainbow’s face. “She’s all yours. I got Applejack.” Without waiting for any response, Rainbow pushed past Rarity and put a hoof on Applejack’s shoulder. The farmpony stayed alert, pacing around the room. Her eyes kept darting, giving Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie an occasional glance, before locking eyes with Rainbow again.
“She ain’t here,” Applejack mumbled. “My li’l girl’s gone.” It sounded like she could barely keep her voice steady herself.
“Yeah,” Rainbow said, looking at the ground. “Sorry.”
When Applejack leaned on her to give her a hug, Rainbow didn’t resist. She just raised a foreleg to pull her in and glanced over at Pinkie Pie embracing Twilight in much the same way. Pinkie squeezed the shellshocked unicorn tight and continued talking. When she focused, Rainbow could make out words like “missed you,” “treatment,” and “Mint-Als.”
She saw Twilight’s face pucker up in disgust, saw her wriggling out of Pinkie’s grip. “Ngh... gah! Let... go of me!” Her horn glowed, and transferred to Pinkie Pie’s hooves, tugging at them in an attempt to break her grip.
Pinkie fell silent and stared at her hooves. She let go of Twilight and took a step back, shaking her head to get hair out of her eye. “I’m super sorry, Twilight, I know what you said about personal space and everything but I was really worried about you! I thought you’d be sleepy forever and I just wanted to tell you-”
“It’s not working,” Twilight said. Her face grew stony and she backed away from her friends, eyes darting between them.
Rainbow looked Twilight over. The egghead looked the way Rainbow felt, minute twitches moving through her body, ready to flee at a moment’s notice. That is, unless she decided that turning her magic on them made a better plan. But why? Things got sour between all of them when Pinkie got addicted to those zebra drugs, but not this sour. Did Twilight really cut Pinkie off after that party, like Rainbow did with Fluttershy?
“W-what ain’t workin’, Twi?” Applejack asked with a sore voice, having finally gotten back on her hooves. She raised her head to look at Twilight, revealing her puffy face.
“This, this, this, all of this!” Twilight said, spitting out each word like a thorn. She waved a hoof around to encompass the library and the ponies inside. “I don’t know what you think you’re trying to do here. Get me to let my guard down? Bribe me with good memories? This is a new low for you. At least you were being honest with the trauma and torture!”
“What?” Rainbow yelled, completely baffled. Twilight said just about the last thing Rainbow expected to hear from her, and since she could almost see Pinkie’s heart being ripped asunder through her face, she couldn’t help glaring daggers at Twilight and her inexcusable language.
Pinkie gulped and reached up to Twilight with an outstretched hoof. “Twilight, it’s me,” she said. “I’m your friend, remember? I know we had bad times before, but I’m all better now! All better!”
“You are not Pinkie Pie!” Twilight shouted, making Pinkie freeze in her tracks.
“But... but I...” Pinkie Pie said, her voice rising in pitch.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Rainbow asked her. She flared her wings and marched up to Twilight, whose eyes widened as she backed up into a shelf. “Pinkie pours her heart out to you and you pay her back by shouting her down? Are you out of your mind?”
Twilight’s expression cracked, slipping into a look of doubt and uncertainty. She fell on her haunches and began to hyperventilate. “I... I... you’re...”
Rainbow sighed and shook her head. “Would it kill you to talk to her?” she asked, with a quieter voice. “To listen to her? That party happened ages ago! It’s ancient history and something tells me she’s sorry about it!” She jabbed a hoof out to point at Pinkie Pie, who watched the two of them with bated breath. “What possible reason-”
She stopped when she noticed Twilight’s horn starting to glow, a glow that quickly spread out to Twilight’s entire body. “No no no, don’t you dare!” Rainbow yelled, tackling Twilight to restrain her.
A bright flash of light went off in Rainbow’s eyes, and she only ended up hitting the shelf behind Twilight, causing a few books to fall on top of her. Twilight herself had already gone. Despite Rainbow’s efforts, she’d teleported away.
“Uuuuaaaaaauuugh!” Rainbow let out a groan and slammed her hoof into the floor. For a moment she stood there, panting and staring down at the floor, trying to unwind again. After her breath slowed down enough, she looked back up at her miserable friends and sighed.
A hoof rapped at the library door, breaking the silence. “Rainbow, are you in there?” a mare’s voice asked from the other side. It sounded familiar to Rainbow, but she couldn’t put a name or a face to it.
The three ponies inside the library looked up at the door, then each other again. Rainbow could feel a hesitation hanging in the air, ice to be broken. But nopony moved to break it again except the mare at the door, rapping louder than before. “Rainbow, I saw you come in. I saw that weird rainboom you pulled off. You mind telling me what that was all about?”
“Will you two be okay?” Rainbow asked Applejack and Pinkie. “I’ve got work and I... I’m sorry, I don’t know how to do this.” She scuffed the floor with a hoof. “I was never any good with feelings and junk, you know?”
“Go on, sugarcube,” Applejack said. She looked better, but not by much. Her eyes still looked bleary and her face still looked reddened, but she looked determined, like a pony trying to pull herself out of quicksand. “Think Pinkie an’ I can get our affairs in order.”
Her gaze met Rainbow’s as she got up to stand next to Pinkie, and they kept their eyes locked until the mare outside knocked again. “Rainbow!”
“I’m coming!” Rainbow flew over to the door and opened it, revealing a yellow pegasus with seafoam hair. Rainbow hovered for a few seconds until things fell into place and she remembered the mare’s name. “Hey Raindrops, what’s up?”
Raindrops stared at Rainbow’s face. Her look of stern annoyance melted into surprise. “Rainbow, you look terrible! What happened?”
They could barely hear Rainbow grinding her teeth. “Ugh. Pretty sure it was a nightmare,” she said. It might have been a lie. She could still be in a nightmare for all she knew. “Don’t tell me, I’m late for cleaning up the sky again, aren’t I?”
Raindrops stared at her, mouth open. “No,” she said after a pause of several seconds. “We have Wonderbolts drills in half an hour.”
“Oh.” Rainbow felt a chill spread through her body. She forgot that Raindrops joined Wonderbolts Academy at the same time she did. As far as Raindrops went, Rainbow only ever remembered managing Ponyville’s weather with her, day in and day out, the routine having burned itself into her mind. She spent much less time with Raindrops training for the Wonderbolts, since Raindrops didn’t make the cut. The fact that she now wanted to come to practice with Rainbow suggested that she hadn’t been dropped yet. Now she had her surroundings narrowed down to the year, even if she still had little idea as to why. “Ssssorry, I forgot,” she said, scratching her head and dusting off her sheepish look.
“You forgot?” Raindrops asked, looking like she’d just been slapped. “You spent every moment of our shift yesterday talking about how you were going to impress Spitfire with your super special awesome moves at training and now you forgot about training completely? Dash, did you hit your head on a branch when you napped in your last tree?”
Rainbow chuckled in spite of herself. She could never explain why she found it so easy to nap in trees. It just happened from time to time, sometimes ending with her falling into an awkward position. “Nah, I just had a rough night. Really rough.” She shut the door behind her and shook her head. “So... guess we should get going, huh?”
“If you’re really out of it,” Raindrops said, squinting and looking Rainbow over, “I’m sure Spitfire would understand if you called in sick. Are you sure you’re up for drills?”
Now that was a question for the ages. Rainbow sat outside the library door and tried to weigh the pros and cons. Physically, she felt more than ready, though she might not have the right muscle memory for some of the more advanced moves she’d otherwise blow the Wonderbolts away with. She knew she could still pull off a Sonic Rainboom and probably even more. Mentally...
She looked at Raindrops, really looked at her. It made the other pegasus back up a step, but Rainbow kept looking. Her mind drifted back to the black day of her trial, when the remnant of the pegasus race had deemed her a traitor. The anger she felt that day, at being judged by the most arrogant, self-righteous, deluded, unsympathetic, reprehensible ponies in Equestrian history.
Was Raindrop there? Was she one of the hypocrites who tried to make her a pariah? She couldn’t remember. All throughout the trial she focused so much on yelling at every single one of the pegasi who took an active part in that wretched show trial against her, she didn’t take note of any faces in the audience. So for all she knew, Raindrops didn’t agree with the decision to banish Rainbow, but she certainly didn’t try to stop it, either. Then again, maybe she was dead by then. How sad was it that this possibility felt most comforting to Rainbow?
“Okay, Rainbow, you need to calm down, right now,” Raindrops said, snapping her tail. “Spitfire’s not going to tolerate that attitude on the grounds, and if she catches a whiff of disorderly conduct you’ll be lucky if she settles on busting you back down to wingpony!”
Rainbow blinked. She had to calm down, had to be smart about this. One deep breath, another, a third. “Sorry,” she said, trying to smile again. “Nightmares. I shouldn’t have had that pickled egg before bed.”
That earned her a wary look from Raindrops. “Okay, if you’re sure,” she said, turning and taking off. “You really had me worried for a minute.”
“Eh, don’t worry about me,” Rainbow said. She flapped her wings and lifted her hooves off the ground. With wings as strong as hers, she overtook Raindrops easily, speeding off in the direction of the Academy. “I’ll be fine.”
Author's Note
Many thanks to Seraphem, Sagebrush, and Snow for help in editing, and additional thanks to Sagebrush for creative consulting.
The glow from Rarity’s horn faded away. She stared at the spot where Angel had been five seconds ago and sighed. He was with Fluttershy now, away from the dying city. The two of them would be safe at Zecora’s hut, far away from the population centers the megaspells cut down in the seconds it took for her to ponder the situation.
But the burning pain in her hoof pulsed again, demanding her attention, spreading fire and molten glass through her veins with every beat of her heart. Rarity thought she could tolerate pain like this. The pain inflicted on her when she had her soul cut to pieces broadened her horizons of torment, gave her a telescope and made her discover entirely new galaxies of agony. It unshackled her hooves and tore her away from the pyre that singed her body, only to take her from a cave and into a sun that roasted her alive. When Snips’ black magic had finally finished coursing through her, it ripped out her guts and left a hole in her center that would never heal. That was the end of it, she thought at the time. She’d never feel like she would be destroyed so utterly ever again.
In a way, she was correct, but pain still hurt, no matter the tolerance she built up. Not to mention, this necromantic plague, the pink cloud, was an entirely different variety of pain. She knew it would somehow destroy her body, and even if it didn’t, if she somehow shrugged it off, no help would ever come.
Morbid curiosity overtook her, and she glanced at the hoof that had fused to the window. In only half a second, she turned away and retched onto the floor, the vision of a deformed hoof fused to the window breaking down one of her last mental barriers. Her exposed hoof had melted and mixed with the glass, spreading with no rhyme or reason like an impurity in the work of the most incompetent glassblower in Equestria. She could see that exposed, liquefied bone had risen to the surface, the entire fusion spotted with shades of red from the blood and flesh caught in it. It was hideous. Her own body had been deformed by the pink cloud and made into an aesthetic mockery.
Rarity made a sound halfway between a sob and a laugh. How apropos. Every trace of beauty in Canterlot had been annihilated in an afternoon. Why should she be any different? She hardly looked the picture of grace and charm even without the deformity. Her mane and tail were a complete mess, sweat soaked her coat from the effects of the pain, and she felt so bone thin that she could barely-
There she went. The surge of pain had redoubled and sapped the strength from her muscles. She dangled from the window fusion and let out a weak shriek when gravity wrenched her hoof out of alignment with her leg, straining her ligaments to the breaking point.
For a brief moment, she pondered using the last of her magic to levitate a shard of broken glass to her. It would be so simple to slice into her throat and release her blood. Cut her front cannons open just to be sure. But she couldn’t trust herself to keep a steady hold on her magic. The pain had spread to her head now, amplifying with every use of her horn. No more magic. No quick relief.
In the last hour of her life, she hoped and prayed that her efforts hadn’t been in vain. Angel and Fluttershy had to find safety somewhere, get to Stable 2 before it shut down. Twilight had to find her message and the book, use her intellect to figure out a way to counteract the cloud. Her own death had to matter! It had to mean something!
It had to!
It… had……
“Fluttershy!” Rarity galloped after the yellow pegasus flying at what, for her, was breakneck speed. It couldn’t hold a candle to Rainbow Dash’s maximum velocity, but Fluttershy could still fly over the stalls and ponies that crowded the market square, a feat that Rarity couldn’t replicate without the aid of magic.
Rarity had to duck and weave between a corn cart and a wagon filled with bolts of cloth, leaping from side to side with grace she hadn’t possessed in years. The first few times she leaped to the side of a pony who looked dumbfounded to see the town’s dressmaker barreling down on them, she did it too early, adjusting for a lag in reaction time that no longer existed, and on a few occasions almost collided with another obstacle she hadn’t noticed. But after she nudged a cantaloupe cart and bruised her flank, she started to catch on and adjust her path.
Every time she took her eyes off her friend’s back, she did her best to lock on to it again. The last time she saw Fluttershy, the poor girl’s heart had been shattered. Judging from the demolished state of the furniture in the meeting room, she’d also had a surfeit of aggression and frustration to work out. Rarity didn’t mind the property damage as much as she did the sight of her best friend acting like an enraged beast. It was an occasion so rare that “once in a blue moon” was too frequent to describe it. Years could go by without any sign of it ever happening. But Rarity found herself disturbed every time Fluttershy’s demeanor transformed from the kind, gentle introvert to an angry or domineering spitfire. Rarity thanked her lucky stars that for the most part, the episodes she witnessed were brief.
But then, most of them weren’t triggered by the death of civilization itself. Rarity had teleported Fluttershy away before she could be sure that Fluttershy had collected herself. She had no idea what Fluttershy would do in her current state.
So far, Rarity could see her flying out of town, to her cottage. She turned a corner and climbed a hill, saw the cottage creeping into view just as Fluttershy zipped in and slammed the door shut. As she got closer, every window slammed shut as well, the drapes zipping together to block out the view from the outside. Rarity slowed to a stop in front of the locked door.
She fidgeted on Fluttershy’s welcome mat, scuffing it with her hooves. What a delicate situation this was! Uncertain of whether or not to leave the poor girl alone to process her grief, thoughts of sensationalist obituaries entered her mind. The leader of the Ministry of Image had to pay attention to the papers, and from time to time she had to put her hoof down and talk sense into scaremongering muckrakers who felt the mad temptation to play up a prominent suicide in a shameless grab for readership. The possibility of a decline in national morale never entered their minds, and even though she never could stamp out anti-war sentiment in its entirety, she cordoned it to the disreputable underground so that it couldn’t interfere with Ministry efforts. Oh, and didn’t she feel proud of the resulting fallout?
But she remembered details of the suicides. The ponies in question, famous and otherwise, felt that the war had destroyed their livelihoods and closed the door on Equestria’s golden age forever. She winced upon remembering how easily she had dismissed those claims, and they had come from tertiary parties without much reason to feel guilt about the nation’s state of affairs. What if Fluttershy…
Rarity gasped and zipped around the house, using her magic to part curtains in the hopes of catching a glimpse of Fluttershy. She barely got a second to peek in each window before Angel tugged the drapes shut again, but she saw enough. Fluttershy had sequestered herself in her bedroom, or perhaps the upstairs bathroom. The upper windows of the cottage loomed high above her, out of reach. She could only think of one way to reach Fluttershy at this point. Hopefully it would work in time.
She closed her eyes and concentrated. Her horn glowed, and a shimmering white cocoon appeared from nowhere, levitating and enveloping her. A numbing sensation spread through her body, leaving behind an uncomfortable tingling that collected in her sides. In a few moments, the cocoon burst, and Rarity emerged, a pair of glowing, transparent butterfly wings growing from her sides.
A glance confirmed that they were just as beautiful as she’d always made them, a substantial improvement on the pair Twilight had originally made for her. Each segment looked like an intricate stained-glass painting, with filigree-esque swirls and a striking chiaroscuro color scheme. Ever since Twilight taught her how to make them, Rarity had made several designs for them, one of the few ways she could relieve stress from Ministry work. Flapping those wings felt odd, like flexing a leg fresh out of a heavy cast, but Rarity soon found herself airborne nevertheless.
She flew up to the window of Fluttershy’s bedroom and pulled the curtains open. A shivering, blanket-wrapped mound lay atop the bed, a tuft of pink tail hair peeking out from a loose fold. Before Angel could come back and shoo her away, Rarity took a deep breath and rapped on the window with a hoof.
The sound made Fluttershy jump out of bed like she’d just conducted an electric shock through her body. She whipped her head around, trying to find the source, and upon seeing Rarity she stared with widened, fearful eyes. But in a moment she calmed herself, taking short, rapid breaths before she turned away with a wince. “Go away!” she said, preparing to wrap herself in her own cocoon again.
“Fluttershy, please!” Rarity said. She pressed her hooves up against the glass of the window. If she could only fix Fluttershy, make all the bruises she got over the years fade away with her care. Fluttershy had done so much to heal other ponies over the decades, but now Rarity feared that she might be beyond help herself. She saw Fluttershy as a beautiful glass vase, battered to pieces but still holding together like a house of cards. The slightest touch, no matter how well-intentioned, could make her collapse completely.
Inhale. Unlatch the window. Open. “It wasn’t your fault, Fluttershy,” Rarity said. “You never meant anything but the best for all of us. You always were the best of us.” The words felt forced and awkward, poorly sculpted. Fluttershy stirred once.
“I… believe…” Rarity turned her head to look back at Ponyville. How could she say it? “We’re back. Surely you’ve noticed you’re back in your old home? Not a bit of that unpleasant business from the war appears to have transpired at all! It… It almost seems like paradise.”
That got Fluttershy to peek her head out from the blanket and stare at her. Rarity found her expression inscrutable, but it didn’t seem distraught at all. Was she making progress?
Rarity fidgeted from the eye contact. She noticed that Angel had arrived from downstairs, and that he also stared at her, almost as if hoping his gaze would launch her back out the window. “Er. I’m… unfortunately a bit tongue-tied at the moment, darling. But I want nothing more than to help you through your pain, so if you need anything from me at all, you need simply ask. I’m available to talk whenever you require it of me."
Fluttershy blinked, looking past Rarity’s eyes. Slowly, she slipped out of bed, setting one hoof to the ground after another. When she started walking over to the window, Rarity’s heart leapt. She reached her! Somehow she managed to affect Fluttershy enough that her friend wanted to embrace her! There wasn’t any verbal communication just yet, but Rarity hardly expected a full recovery right out of-
The force of Fluttershy’s Stare pounded Rarity’s psyche. The conjured wings at her sides locked up. Her body dropped, and she had to scrabble at the windowsill with her forelegs to keep from dropping a story down to the ground. Dread cloaked her being, thickening with each step Fluttershy took in her direction.
“Help me?” Fluttershy asked through gritted teeth, with a voice so strained it felt constricting to hear. Rarity could only emit a terrified squeak in response. “The way you helped me and Angel get out of Canterlot? Is that what you think?”
“I…” Rarity gulped. “I saved your life, Fluttershy!” Did Fluttershy not see what the pink cloud had done to Rarity, to the other ponies of Canterlot?
Tears came to Fluttershy’s eyes again. She wavered, broke eye contact with Rarity. “I found a plant, Rarity. In the Everfree Forest.” There came a long pause as Rarity struggled to get herself in the air again. “It changed me.”
Rarity’s mouth hung open. She felt a chill spread through her body. When she sent Fluttershy to the Everfree Forest, she forgot about all of the dangerous flora and fauna inside, trusted that Fluttershy could avoid it. But that depended on Fluttershy keeping her wits about her, instead of being emotionally distraught. Rarity didn’t even know of everything that lurked inside, not even to the degree that Fluttershy did. “Oh, darling, I’m so sorry,” she muttered. She tried to slip inside the window and into the room so she could embrace Fluttershy.
But Fluttershy cringed and bristled when Rarity drew closer, furrowing her brow. It made Rarity cover her face with her hooves, unwilling to bear the thought of another stare. “Do you-!” Fluttershy shouted, before she caught herself again. Deep breath. “You don’t. You don’t know what it’s like. I grew roots and I couldn’t move. It took my eyes, but I could still see!” She sniffled and sobbed. “Why could I still see? I had to watch the sky light up and the earth turn black, watch every pony who ever stumbled into my patch! I could see and hear them, but I couldn’t warn them! You know how many ponies died there? More than you’d think, Rarity! More than you’d think!”
Rarity watched Fluttershy crumble to the ground, staring into nothing with empty eyes. Nopony said anything for several moments. She could hear the soft whoosh of wind coming from her flapping wings, in lieu of any louder sounds. The tapping of Angel’s foot on the floor soon joined it. From the look on his face, Rarity could tell he expected her to leave, and soon. “Are you… is there nothing I can do?” she finally asked.
“I don’t want to see you,” Fluttershy said. Her voice became a dull, lifeless monotone, the only response she could muster for Rarity.
“Oh!” Rarity gave Fluttershy a gentle smile. “Well, yes, I think some time to yourself would be best for you, just as long as Angel gives you proper supervision.” Angel narrowed his eyes. “When do you think I should come back? Tomorrow mo-”
“I don’t want to see you,” Fluttershy repeated, in the same tone.
Another silence passed, and Rarity’s face fell. Her mouth opened, then closed again. Before she could say something else, Angel hopped up onto the windowsill and closed them in Rarity’s face, taking time to draw the curtains again.
She began to fly away from the cottage, before she took another look at her majestic wings. What magnificent specimens of magical art they were! If she recalled correctly, each new design she created filled her with immense pride, especially when she had shown them to Fluttershy and her employees for the very first time. Those were halcyon days.
Her hooves touched the ground, and with a spark of her horn she set her wings ablaze. Considering the circumstances, immediate and otherwise, she felt inadequate and undeserving of their splendor. She would have to walk back into town the normal way.
The pony Rarity saw in the mirror scarcely seemed recognizable. She had seen her in many pictographs in the past few years, but this was no static image. It moved. It breathed. Its eyes moved at her command. She could see a tear forming in one. Such beautiful, smooth skin, a shining mane, elegant lashes. With a bit of maintenance, Rarity would look like a perfect object of beauty for the first time in what seemed like ages. Only Rarity’s tired eyes marred her perfect visage.
For the past half an hour, she supposed, Rarity had stared into the mirror in wonder. She had previously spent the hour before then seeing that her friends had cleared out of the library and wandering about her boutique in a daze, taking in every last detail, where the furniture stood and where her designs and drawings lay. All of the dresses in her workroom, be they half-finished, nearly done, or only sketches on paper, she recognized from old projects she completed long ago. Many of them made her wince. Such rookie mistakes she made. This one dress had clashing colors, that dress had an eye-straining pattern on the rear trail, and whatever was she thinking using that variety of lace as a hem? The temptation to throw most of them out and start over completely passed through her mind, only to realize that she had no new ideas to improve upon them, not a one.
She slumped forward onto her vanity table and sighed. It had been years since she designed a dress. The location of the list of clients, commissions, and specifications still eluded her memory. If she wanted to resume her old life, she would have to comb through all of her drawers to search for it.
Before she could open the first one, she heard a knocking on the front door to the boutique. The sound made her sigh. She wasn’t ready to return to seeing customers in her shop like she had in the past. Ponies who visited Carousel Boutique demanded a certain level of poise and professionalism in the proprietor’s personality, and she could imagine the cracks her customers could see if she admitted them. Lapses in memory and the instinct to revise her designs out of nowhere were the most obvious problems she could think of, combined with potential problems that could arise depending on the customer.
Though she kept records on her commissions, her recordkeeping was nowhere near Twilight’s level, and didn’t cover customers who would come to her in the future, so naturally she didn’t remember who came to her on a specific day. What if today was the day she first met somepony she knew later in life, somepony she had a history with? Amethyst, perhaps? Maybe Rose Madder or Velour? She could think of many such ponies, and the last thing she wanted to do was break down in front of one of them. Oh, what if she could warn them about-
Another knock, this one louder, more insistent. Rarity sighed and got up, annoyed that the first pony to come to her shop had ignored the “closed” sign she put on the door. Honestly, why had she even bothered if Ponyville lacked the manners to leave her in peace? “I am currently indisposed at the moment!” she shouted as she trudged into the foyer. “I thought I made it perfectly clear that I am not to be disturbed! Good day!”
“B-but Rarity!” The voice on the other side of the door was that of a filly, and it wavered like the pony it belonged to might burst into tears with little provocation. Rarity yanked the door open and saw Sweetie Belle standing there, with a quivering lip and wide eyes. She wore saddlebags that Rarity had designed for her, a simple yet elegant design with a durable silk weave, with clasps embroidered with Rarity’s own cutie mark.
Good heavens, how long ago had she made that? It had to have been before the cuteceneara, or else Rarity would have embroidered chimes and musical notes instead of diamonds. No, now she remembered. It had been the birthday before the cuteceneara, shortly after her old saddlebags got stained and scuffed. After ensuring that the fillies responsible were punished, she got to work on designing replacements for her, just in time for her birthday. The look on Sweetie Belle’s face, pure gratitude and love for her older sister, buoyed Rarity’s mood all week.
Sweetie Belle tilted her head, blinked. Disappointment faded away, replaced with curiosity. “Rarity?” she asked.
“Yes, Sweetie Belle?” Rarity looked up and down between Sweetie Belle’s face and the approval forms awaiting her perusal and signatures. Her voice spoke of weariness and endless complications, the drudgery of day to day work and bureaucracy weighing on down on her. A trace of affection remained, but buried deep, so that only an ear as well-trained as Sweetie Belle’s could hear it.
Sweetie Belle looked tired herself, having been given the runaround by the lower levels of the Ministry of Image, a culture of delegation that presented a wall of resistance that weeded out the less stubborn among the populace with a complaint. They couldn’t just let anypony see the Minstry Mare, busy as she was. Sweetie Belle’s special manecut had been knocked askew by all of the rushing around, and Rarity thought she detected perspiration soaking into her sister’s dress. A look of annoyance passed Sweetie Belle’s face when she noticed Rarity using magic to continue writing and filling out paperwork even as she looked Sweetie Belle in the eyes.
My, she’d aged gracefully. Both sisters were used to seeing their likenesses appearing on magazine covers, but for different reasons. Sweetie Belle’s likeness continued to be used for glamorous aesthetic purposes, being the glamorous diva with music that moved the souls of a nation. The flaws on her face could easily be fixed with makeup and manipulation spells on the pictograph. Rarity was beyond such help, the age on her face too thick and copious to hide. Instead she made it her own, playing the part of the dignified elder statesmare. Her face appeared on political periodicals (that she had a hoof in publishing), wearing a facial expression with a clear message. I have a duty, her image told the nation. It won’t be pleasant and it won’t be quick, but it shall be done.
“I need to get ‘Thousands’ on the air,” Sweetie Belle said. “You need to veto the verdict from the Equestrian Cultural Committee.”
“Oh dear, oh dear,” Rarity said, shaking her head. “I wasn’t aware that you’d run afoul of the Committee.” A smile started to form on her face. “Which means that the members haven’t leaked word of your evaluation past their walls. Did they send you a private letter, then?”
Sweetie Belle nodded. “It was a warning telling me to forget the song and stick with what I know,” she admitted, frowning and pouting. Her pout looked adorable, one of many aspects of her which continued to capture the heart of the Equestrian public.
“Well then, I fail to see the problem!” Rarity spotted a disheveled stack of papers on her desk and cast a spell to align and straighten them into a seamless cubic shape. “So long as you heed the advice of the Committee, your career should be perfectly fine.”
“It’s not fine!” Sweetie Belle yelled, making Rarity flinch. “Nothing about it is fine! I can’t stand writing love songs and empty encouragement anthems and petty, flirty, empty-calorie nonsense anymore! I’m going to sing a meaningful song about the world if it’s the last thing I do!”
Rarity looked her sister in the eye. Her magic pushed aside the papers on her desk, and she tented her hooves, leaning forward and focusing her attention. “Well now, I can certainly respect your passion, Sweetie. But the Committee doesn’t bar material without good reason. Tell me, what exactly did you put in this song that raised their ire?”
Sweetie Belle pursed her lips, then pulled a small square out of her saddlebag. Thin as a few tiles stacked together, it had a plastic case covering everything except a few buttons, a pair of tiny speakers at the bottom, and a slot for little chips with miniature spell matrixes in them. The word Vibrancy, presumably a model name, was engraved on the front, with the much smaller Wondra logo to the upper left.
It was a new form of portable music player, a “chiptuner” as Rarity had heard the youth of the day calling it. Personally, she didn’t see the appeal, as the sound quality took a slight downgrade in the transition from vinyl to matrix, as well as the general act of listening turning from classy to crass. Still, it did have its advantages. Chips didn’t scratch or skip like vinyl, and they were far easier to carry around. Sweetie Belle had probably found this reason enough to use it to transport her new song here. She pressed the button marked “play” and the tinny little speakers produced the song.
What Rarity noticed first was Sweetie Bell’s typical, exuberant singing style, though it had been dialed back a bit for the song. Most ponies who talked of her career talked of her accomplished vocal gymnastics and her range exceeding five octaves. She could belt with the best of them, and when she threw her heart into a song, most ponies found theirs swept away as well. The obvious downside to this was that it distracted from the lyrical content, and Sweetie Belle was only ever an above-average songwriter at best, according to the critical feedback. Most of the truly articulate songwriters had been forced out of the public eye by the ministry for their choice in subject matter, but it took Rarity a few minutes to realize that Sweetie Belle intended to follow them.
The song flowing from the speakers sounded like an exuberant, jaunty tune, a chipper blend of piano and acoustic guitar with an added burst of brass horns. It evoked the image of a pony caught up in the thrill of being alive, so exuberant that only a parade could properly portray her emotions. But the lyrics, sung in a brassy R&B trill, clarified the source of the emotions by the end of the song, jarring with its innocent melody.
Thousands of ponies fight thousands of zebras
Clash over and over again
Thousands of coffins shipped home every week
They keep coming since I don’t care when
But I carry on strong and realize all this bad news
Can’t strangle my mood today
Because carnage, destruction, and the outpour of death
Happen thousands of miles away!
The song couldn’t end fast enough. Rarity’s eye twitched and her jaw hung open as her stare slowly shifted from the chiptuner to Sweetie Belle’s face. Her sister had the same anxious look she’d seen on the targets of Ministry performance reviews, and for good reason. This was an ambitious departure from her normal body of work as an artist. It was shaky, daring, provocative, and exactly what Equestria did not need!
“Forget that you ever made this,” Rarity told Sweetie Belle after she had a moment to inhale. “Leave it with me and I’ll ensure that nopony ever hears it again.”
Sweetie Belle’s face fell. “Wha… buh… no!” She snatched the chiptuner away from Rarity and glared at her. “I poured my soul into this and you want me to throw it away? I haven’t felt this much passion about a project since my third album!”
Project? Album? She was planning on writing more songs like this? Rarity had to keep herself from grinding her teeth. “Well… Sweetie Belle… a good artist has to learn to kill her darlings. The sooner you can learn to do that, the better. Now, if you’ll excuse me-”
“Rarity, you’re my sister!” Sweetie Belle’s shout stopped Rarity from leaving her seat and zipping to the next meeting on her conference. “You run the Ministry! You’re telling me you can’t tell that stuffed shirt Committee to… to… jump in a lake and let me on the air?”
Rarity turned her head away from Sweetie Belle. “Hmph! And open the door for nepotism to run rampant over an integral institution of government? Don’t be ridiculous.” She brushed past Sweetie Belle and opened the door outside her office. “I would advise you to go home and let these self-destructive urges pass over you. Consider your career, darling!” Hearing no further word from her stunned sister, she trotted down the hall to the policy meeting regarding a new series of recruitment posters. Soon her sister’s appointment slipped from her mind-
-only to return to the forefront of her memory as she looked at a long-lost, innocent version of her sister, looking at her with the same look of crestfallen disappointment. It wasn’t a bad song, she realized. Heaven knew the war could have used more satire to take the wind out of its sails back in the early days. “Thousands” had come years too late to be allowed the life it deserved, but by killing it Rarity had only meant to protect Sweetie Belle from retribution and censure. That, and protect her own career, protect the war, protect the reputation of her family, spare herself the shame of being related to an anarchist subversive.
Said subversive tapped her in the shin again. “Rarity, you promised!” she said with admonishing edge.
“I’m sorry!” Rarity sobbed, breaking down and embracing Sweetie Belle in a tight hug. In just a moment Sweetie Belle let go of her disappointment and fell into shock, trying to squirm away from her sister’s grip. “I never should have let you down! I’ve been the most horrid sister you could ever have!”
“R-Rarity,” Sweetie Belle gasped, “we can still… go…”
Rarity continued holding her sister close, her head pressed against Sweetie Belle’s, side by side. “After everything I learned at the social, all the strife that nearly tore us apart, how could I have forgotten the importance of our sisterhood and let that wretched Ministry tear us apart? I can’t apologizing enough for letting our state of affairs get so oppressive and horrid!”
Sweetie Belle stopped pushing against Rarity with her hooves and looked up at her again, gawping and incredulous. “Wha-”
“Here I vow,” Rarity said, letting Sweetie Belle go and standing back on her hooves again, “that I shall always support you in all artistic endeavors no matter the consequence or difficulty. No matter what you wish to sing about or how many ponies object, I will be right there beside you, ready to defend your work. I swear on Celestia’s mane!”
A brief silence passed, and Rarity’s face, proud and sad, started to soften when she saw Sweetie Belle looking at her with wide eyes, though she looked away and off to the side quickly, fidgeting on her hooves. “Sweetie, please talk to me. It’s been so long. Can’t we just talk like we used to?”
“But we can do that anytime!” Sweetie Belle said, looking back out the door. “And we’re gonna be late for the Social!”
“The Social? As in, the Sisterhooves Social?” Rarity couldn’t think of any other socials in Ponyville that the two of them had attended. Sweetie Belle certainly seemed excited enough for it, since attending it together had always been her idea.
Sweetie Belle clicked her hooves against the floor, moving in an antsy little dance that reminded Rarity of a little filly grabbing attention to indicate that she needed to use the lavatory. It wasn’t what Rarity would call dignified behavior, especially for a grown mare like… no, she wasn’t a grown mare. “Yes!” Sweetie Belle whined in a high-pitched squeak. “The ceremonies are gonna start and I told them you’d be there!”
That was it. That was all Sweetie Belle wanted, for her sister to be there by her side. Rarity knew where she needed to be. She zipped out the door, taking Sweetie Belle with her and locking the door behind them.
Attending the Sisterhooves Social again felt odd. At its roots, the event was a rural, informal fair that never truly fit the designation of “social” as far as Rarity was concerned. In her mind, a social was a private gathering of friends who gathered to converse and have light refreshments, perhaps themed around a common hobby like a book club or a shared profession. She’d brought it up with Sweetie Belle one day, and her sister shrugged, pointing out that the words didn’t matter as long as they had fun together.
She wished she could claim to have a photographic memory of the second Social she and Sweetie Belle attended, so that she could undo every misstep and stumble they made during the race and for once take home blue ribbons for their efforts, but instead she made even more mistakes, dragging Sweetie Belle down to a middling rank along with her. The only detail she could be sure of, Applejack’s presence at the head of the pack, proved false. Applebloom sat in the audience with Big Macintosh, looking disappointed that her sister couldn’t join her.
The more she watched Sweetie Belle acting at the festivities afterward, the more she realized that this wasn’t the mare she’d known. Anytime a conversation between the two of them drifted into singing, Sweetie Belle flinched and tried to change the subject, leaving Rarity in an awkward position. The Sweetie Belle she knew talked about the nuances of her vocal performances, often intertwining with Rarity’s own rattling off on the minutiae of dress design. She left her former shyness about her talent behind by the time she started dating.
Not so here. Unless Sweetie Belle was only pretending to be a filly to avoid the pain of the past, an unlikely possibility given her unfortunate and very brief stint as an actress, she genuinely didn’t remember a thing, nothing about the war, the Ministries, her career, or even how she earned her cutie mark. The sister she knew, the one she wronged, had vanished.
“Are you alright, Rarity?” Sweetie Belle asked as they walked back to Carousel Boutique.
“Hm?” Rarity lifter her gaze from off the ground and glanced at Sweetie Belle.
“You look really sad. I thought you’d be happier spending time with me. You were really happy last time.” The smile on Sweetie Belle’s face had gone now that nopony else could see them.
“Do I really look so despondent, Sweetie Belle?” Rarity asked her, only getting a scrutinizing look from Sweetie Belle in return. She thought at first that Sweetie was prompting her to admit something, but closer inspection revealed that Sweetie was looking at her and thinking over her answer.
“Um, uh, maybe?” Sweetie Belle asked. “What’s ‘despondent’ mean?”
Rarity chuckled a bit and made herself smile. “Perhaps I am a bit down in the dumps, but it’s really nothing to be concerned about. You have your youth, Sweetie Belle, and you should enjoy it while you can, cutie mark or no cutie mark. The dreary parts of adulthood will be upon you before you know it.”
The two of them trotted in silence for another minute, both of them glancing at and away from each other’s faces. They hadn’t noticed how much space they left between them until another pony passed between them. “So,” Sweetie Belle finally asked, “do you really think I can sing?”
“Well, of course!” Rarity says. “I’ve heard y- er, I’ve heard through the grapevine that you’re getting to be quite the diva. Once you overcome your stage fright, you’ll be able to charm audiences the world over! I’m sure of it!”
Sweetie Belle stared at the ground, looking less sure than ever. Perhaps Rarity hadn’t made the right decision, prodding her in the direction of what she knew would be her special talent. She could almost hear her sister’s soulful singing voice in the air. If only she could help her sing again.
Now the two of them stood at the door of the Boutique, letting the silence take over for a moment further. Both of them waited for the other to speak first. Rarity pondered what more she could say, opening her mouth when she thought she had something and closing it again when it got away from her. “I… apologize for my dreadful performance today,” she settled on saying.
“Huh?” Sweetie Belle looked up at Rarity, confused. “Oh, um, it’s okay, Rarity. I’m just glad to be spending time with you again!” The smile she gave Rarity looked shaky, like a mask of good feelings. How far did Sweetie Belle go out of her way to conceal her singing abilities from the other ponies in her life, before the one performance that changed everything for the better? Apparently it was more important than Rarity remembered.
“Do you need any help walking home?” Rarity asked.
“No! Um, I can get back on my own.” Sweetie Belle started backing off, keeping Rarity in sight the further away she got from her. As she got to the other side of the dirt road, she realized the mask was slipping off. “But thanks anyway!” She scampered off and left Rarity alone.
With a sigh, Rarity slinked back inside the Boutique and took a moment to rest on her chaise longue. She draped a hoof over her forehead and closed her eyes. Oh, where had she gone wrong? Was she doomed to never reunite with her sister, the same sister that she had wronged and now wished to grovel to until she took Rarity back? Instead she received the immature filly, a ream of pristine cloth instead of the beloved gown it became. It was a far stranger answer to her wish than she had wanted, and now she stumbled in trying to find an answer to a simple question: What was she to do with it?
Dresswork proceeded slowly for Rarity, as she struggled to remember the exact motions she once used to sew and design dresses. As luck would have it, she found a book in her boudoir, old even by the standards of her current environment, which gave her a refresher course on the general, step-by-step process of constructing a dress. She hadn’t needed to write down precise instructions covering every single detail for every single variation, and she spent minutes trying to remember them when she wasn’t learning how to use the sewing machine again. To think that she could have saved time if she took meticulous notes on her every technique as Twilight had done. Shame she had to-
Rarity froze. The sewing machine continued to weave thread into one stationary spot over and over again, making an ugly mound of thread in the fabric. She let her hoof off the pedal which powered the machine and slumped in her seat. She finally noticed something missing, something which had left her ever since she woke up.
Late in her career as with the Ministry, she realized, far too late, that her friends had drifted apart from each other thanks to their work. Her invitations for socials had been rebuffed time and again, always with the excuse that their Ministries needed them, that the bureaucracy or the media or whichever institution demanded their constant attention. Only Rainbow Dash seemed willing to admit when she refused to chance to spend time with a friend she had ideological differences with. Rarity could see everything falling apart, and she knew she had to do something to bring them back together.
The figurines seemed like such a good idea at the time. She gave them to her friends as a simple reminder of what they used to be, and she paid quite the price to make it feel like the ponies the figurines represented were truly with them in spirit. It had seemed like the best option at the time, the only way to get around the issue… and it didn’t go over too well. The gifts were appreciated and beloved, and Rarity felt a small measure of warmth whenever she heard of how they’d been used and passed on, but the rifts remained, laughing at her attempts to banish old grudges. In some cases, their friendship only crumbled further, and some ponies refused outright to speak with others.
After she literally poured herself into the creation of those gifts, Rarity felt plagued by the specter of exhaustion. Every day she woke up, she felt the need to act and keep up appearances, preserving her secret from the ponies who wouldn’t understand. Once in a while she would have a genuine out-of-body experience, watching herself moving herself along the pre-set paths of work with no rigor, struggling against tugging ropes to get back. She made frequent contact with a nightmare of being turned to porcelain, her muscles freezing, heart stopping, lungs calcifying, becoming a lifeless objet d’art forever more.
It had taken her all day to realize that those feelings had vanished. More energy filled her body than she’d felt in years. Nothing contested the anchor holding her together as a flesh and blood mare.
She was halfway to the chaise longue again before she knew it. Her spiritual condition shouldn’t have surprised her any more than her physical one, but somehow she’d held on to the hope that her gift would outlast her, immortalizing her and all her friends. How could that still be true, if she felt so alive and whole? Would nothing remain of the figurines in the wake of the apocalypse but ground and shattered ceramic?
Her body hit the cushion with a sloppy impact, leaving her head crammed awkwardly into the pillow and her legs dangling off the sides. Instead of correcting her pose for aesthetic value, she let out a groan. All of her effort, all of her hardship, suffering and painstaking care, had been crumpled up and tossed in the garbage like a ruined design, and all of her dresses could go right to hell along with it.
Somepony knocked on the door. Rarity kept silent, hoping this meddlesome interloper would pay heed to the sign and remove herself from the doorway immediately. Of all the times she stopped feeling a hair’s breadth away from passing out, why did it have to be now? She’d love nothing more than to shut the world out and get a recuperative rest, but the twinge in her head wouldn’t let her be.
“Hey Rarity, are you there?” Her ears perked up for a moment upon hearing Spike’s boyish voice. “I know your sign says you’re closed, but I can see you left the lights on and, well…” He didn’t need to finish. Like most sensible ponies, Rarity only used the lights in her home when necessary and would only neglect to dim them again if circumstances made her forget, circumstances like being shunted into a life she thought she’d left behind.
Silence reigned between them for a moment. Rarity’s ears relaxed again, the only movement Spike elicited from her. Would he persist? Would he leave her? Did she want him to? Her eye twitched as she waited to hear him again.
He sighed, and she heard him fall. “Oof!” Tripping as he walked away, no doubt.
She opened her mouth before she could think twice. “Are you alright, darling?” Her voice croaked.
“Oh! You’re home!” He chuckled nervously. “I’ll be fine. My legs fell asleep while I was napping and I’ve been trying to get them to wake up all day! No big deal.”
More silence.
“So… can I-” he asked.
Rarity sighed. “You may come in, but I can’t guarantee I’ll be any decent company. I’m in a mood tonight.” With her magic, she unlatched the door and let him in.
Spike walked inside the boutique, taking slow, awkward steps and concentrating on making his feet hit the floor. She could see he wasn’t kidding about how much trouble his legs gave him. At one point he even pinwheeled his arms around to keep from falling flat on his face again. “Wh-whoa!” It didn’t work, though he at least fell on his hands. On all fours, he looked awkward but stable.
As Rarity’s magic closed the door, Spike just laid down on his stomach and looked up at her. “So, what brings you to my door?” she asked.
Spike smiled and shrugged. “Oh, you know, I thought I’d go around town, talk to ponies, hang out. The usual.”
Her tail twitched. “I thought your ‘usual’ was assisting Twilight in her library, darling.”
She peeked from out of her pillows at him and watched his bright mood fall. “Well, I couldn’t find Twilight, so I just… I don’t know where she is.” He sighed. “She didn’t even leave a note.”
Twilight still hadn’t returned. Rarity furrowed her brows, wondering what it was that Twilight had seen that made her so frightened. “Heavens, I hope she’s alright. I haven’t the faintest idea where she went.” She propped her chin up against the end of the chaise longue, then groaned and flipped herself over, scooting herself into a comfortable position that she couldn’t find.
“Is that… why you’re in a mood?” Spike asked.
“No. Well, in part, but…” How could she possibly explain it? Sweetie Belle and all of the other ponies of Ponyville couldn’t understand anything she’d been through. They wouldn’t have the faintest inkling of how her most recent career served the nation – or failed to – and if anypony knew anything about the magic that seduced her, they dismissed it as a childish and macabre fairy tale.
One more adjustment shifted her to her side, facing Spike and giving him a glance at her tired eyes. “My muse has deserted me, darling. I’ve come to realize that my work is ephemeral and disposable. Events beyond my control can undo my accomplishments in an instant… so I’m scrounging for a reason to muster effort at all.” She sighed and put the back of her hoof to her horn. “And I have orders to fill with such ennui in my soul.”
Spike had gotten up, successfully standing on two legs again, and made his way to the chaise longue. He leaned on the side and put an arm around Rarity’s shoulders. “I’d never forget your dresses, Rarity. They’re all pretty in their own way, like that gala dress you wore, and the bridesmaid set, and I really like that red and white polyester one you had!”
Rarity looked Spike’s way and smiled, patting him on the head. “Thank you for saying that.”
He nodded, then perked up and broke into a grin. “I can help make dresses for you if you want!”
“Oh, Spike, I appreciate the offer, but I don’t think it will work too well.” She got up from her sitting position and stepped onto the floor again. “It’s a very delicate art and I wouldn’t want to trouble you.”
Spike took several unsteady steps her way. “I’ve helped Twilight around the house for years now. I can do a whole lot of things and I’m a really quick study. And I can’t just let you do everything yourself if you’re as sad as you say you are. C’mon, Rarity, can’t I at least stick around and keep you company?”
She looked down at him, leaning back and forth on his feet, hands clasped together, eyes open and gleaming in a pleading look. That look on his face made Rarity wince in recognition and turn her head away.
“V-very well, Spike, you may assist me, just please, don’t look at me like that again!
At first Rarity regretted allowing Spike to assist her with her work. His hands mangled the first few attempts at making a dress in a variety of ways, either by moving the fabric too slowly or too quickly down the machine, failing to keep together material in such a way that it would be sewn correctly, or leaving uneven or skipped stitches. At that point she saw him, staring at and flexing his hands, and politely suggested that he gather materials for her instead.
From then on the process became much smoother, with Rarity being allowed to dedicate all of her time to cutting, sewing and ornamenting the dresses. She appreciated Spike’s help in retrieving the materials for her, but it was the act of having someone around, someone to talk to, that gave her the determination to pull through.
“Oh, what WAS I thinking?” she asked Spike as she looked over a design for one of Tres Couture’s upcoming shows. “I was only fooling myself, thinking that shade of red would go well with black satin. The overabundance of lace on the dress doesn’t help matters, either.”
Spike squinted at the design, tilting his head to look it over. “Well, maybe you can convince Tres to go with something else? Did he say it had to be that design specifically?”
“Well…” Rarity looked up at her horn, trying to remember. “He fell in love with this design at a glance, but I don’t believe he took in the details specifically.”
“So you can probably change a few things here and there. Take off lace, change the red, things like that. Did you want the red to be darker or brighter?”
It hadn’t solved every problem of Rarity’s. Thoughts of Sweetie Belle still lingered in her head, which led to a chain of emotions that threatened to bog her down, but she dealt with it by powering through and focusing on the work at hoof. Spike proved himself a valuable asset once again by warning her every time it looked like she was about to let her frustration get the better of her and make the very same mistakes he’d made at first.
Hours passed, and Spike folded and bundled dress after dress into the appropriate packaging. By the time Celestia’s sun had set, robbing them of most of their light, Rarity looked at the pile of packages stacked next to the door with a lump in her throat. One by one, new doubts about the veracity of her designs, memories of them bombing at shows, trickled into mind, but she took a deep breath and pushed them all away. One failed dress did not ruin an artist’s reputation. She could always try again later. That she had the opportunity to try again at all, with an old, dear friend assisting, was blessing enough.
She watched Spike look at the packages too, and took a special glance at his posture. He continued to rock back and forth on his feet, but it wasn’t a regular, equal motion. Instead, he gradually leaned forward every so often, then jerked back. His tail moved back to support him, causing him to lean forward again when it proved it lacked the strength. The look on his face when he beheld them all was… inscrutable, she settled on.
“Thank you for your assistance, Spikey-wikey,” Rarity said, sappy sweetness creeping into her voice. She fluttered her eyelashes at him, taking note of his reaction.
It prompted him to snicker and turn to look back at her again. “No problem, Rarity! It’s just what I do, helping unicorns in need. No big deal.”
Rarity’s smile faltered. From what she remembered of Spike’s mannerisms back from the glory days of her youth, he would also play things cool in an adorable attempt to act more mature than he was as a baby dragon, much like he did now. But this felt different. “Still, I feel like I should reward you for your efforts. Perhaps a belated and borrowed birthday present will suffice?” She turned to her vanity mirror and opened the drawer, fishing through her jewelry.
Spike’s eyes widened. “Rarity, I… you’re serious?”
“Well, I realize that it’s a bit of a faux pas to send a gift back to the original giver, but my budget is rather tight at the moment, so I can think of nothing better.” She retrieved a periapt from her drawer, built around a brilliant, heart-shaped red gemstone the size of her hoof.
“No, it’s not that!” Spike bit his lip and looked down at the floor. Was he tempted by the taste of the gemstone in question? “You were really happy to get that ruby, and you made a beautiful setting and choker for it. I thought you were going to keep that for life.”
She turned back at Spike and gave him a wistful smile. “And I did. Don’t you remember?”
Spike’s jaw dropped and he tumbled backward onto his tail. “Wh-what? You really… I mean… I’m not dreaming?” His voice rose in pitch, though Rarity couldn’t tell whether it was from panic or excitement.
Rarity shook her head and walked over to Spike, levitating over the periapt from her jewelry drawer around his neck.
He looked down at the ruby, rubbing it with his claws. To her surprise, he made no move to bite into it or even give it a nibble. Instead, he took the periapt back off, letting it dangle from his claws. “Rarity, I can’t. It’s yours. You should have it as long as-” He shook his head and set it down, leaving it at that. No point in saying ‘as long as you want’ when she made it clear that she didn’t, after all.
As Spike looked into her eyes, Rarity sighed, wondering what he saw in them. “Spike, why did you give me that gem to begin with? To appease the object of a boyish crush?”
“No!” Spike took a step forward. “Well, yeah, but can you blame me? You we- you are the most beautiful unicorn in Ponyville!”
“Didn’t you live in Canterlot prior to moving here? Hadn’t you seen plenty of mares with far more radiant beauty than me?”
It took a moment for Spike to work through frustration and think of an answer. For a moment he almost looked like a pouting child again. “They weren’t like you. You’re more real! You have talent and drive and… and… you’re the most generous pony I’ve ever known! You’ve gone so far to help all of your friends and your sister, over and over again, no matter how out of the way you have to go.” He smiled at her, an earnest, friendly smile that burned her eyes. “Life wouldn’t be the same without you. I can’t think of any better place for this to be than around your neck.”
He bent down to retrieve the periapt, only for Rarity to fling it away with your magic. “Maybe once I was the mare you described, but no longer,” she muttered. The volume of the voice fell far below her normal range. “My talents and drive have been squandered driving ponies to violence, my much-vaunted generosity led me to pay unfathomable prices for diminishing returns, and the last time I tried aiding a friend I condemned her to a cruel fate. Now she wants nothing to do with me, the sister I want to apologize to is gone forever, and I’m so selfless and dedicated that I gave up on my friends after Fluttershy and spent the rest of the day gazing into a mirror and trying to reclaim past glory.” Her tone remained steely and bitter, her gaze locked on the corner of a floor tile. “Does that sound like a mare who deserves a magnificent gemstone gift?”
She clenched her jaw and concentrated on breathing, back in, back out. Her face froze in anger and she felt Spike deserved her gaze as much as a basilisk’s. She could only see his feet, which remained still for the first time that day. He sounded hurt and confused when he finally spoke up again. “But Sweetie Belle’s still here. I saw her at-”
“She remembers nothing.” Rarity glanced up at his face.
“Oh.” Spike clasped his hands together, wringing one then the other like dishcloths. “So… it’s just us? Or the others, too?”
She sighed and shared with Spike what she had seen that morning, which Spike had slept through entirely, barely hearing any voices from the floor below and certainly not noticing anything wrong with the complication. When Spike realized just how heavily he’d slept, his face crumpled in pain, as if the words had impaled him. From then on he began to look like a trapped animal, keeping himself there to hear one thing in particular.
Rarity decided to cut to the chase. “Twilight teleported away. I have no idea where she went.” She covered her face with a hoof. “I could have traced her. We would know-”
“You wouldn’t. She’s better than that. Sorry.” Spike slumped back into a posture he could move in, and did so, away from Rarity. “It was nice seeing you, Rarity,” he said, without the slightest ounce of conviction. “I’ve got… I’ve got a letter to write.”
He left without any further conversation. She couldn’t think of anything else to say or do. The weight of her eyelids proved too distracting for her to think. Just as she began to turn, trudging off to bed, she spotted the periapt lying discarded on the floor.
Gleams of light danced on the surface of its facets as Rarity turned her head to watch it. It truly was a marvelously cut work of art, for once a piece she could only claim to add an attachment to for functionality. Much like her wings, she felt too coarse and vile to be worthy of it. Not now.
She lifted it back into the jewelry drawer and closed it. Maybe some other day, after a good night’s sleep.
Author's Note
Thanks once again to Seraphem and Snow for helping to edit this chapter.
