Midway through the afternoon, Celestia’s luminous charge hangs low enough that it might glance through a few windows here and there, casting long shadows and longer columns of light. Though only one in all of Equestria can comment on the Sun’s actual desire or capacity to play the voyeur, the light shines through regardless, bearing witness whatever or whomever it can illuminate. In this instance, it’s a white unicorn of sapphiric eyes and a curl to her violet mane, so wholly focused on the gown enwrapping the dress form before her that the entire world seems to have melted away.
Light, heat, sound; these concepts are but words now, faraway definitions of things outside of her sphere. Rarity is in the full grip of her special talent now, the representative trio of diamonds adorning her flanks all but glowing with the thrum of her inspiration. The energy runs a circuit throughout her alabaster body, flowing up from her cutie mark and out her horn, into the garment, and feeding back along a similar path down into the sigil that declares her passion and empowerment as a creature of harmony. Clear in her mind is a singular vision, a grand a regal feat of art before which all other endeavors she has undertaken were as a child playing in the sandbox. An outfit that shall outshine all others in its elegant simplicity. An outfit that would redefine chic in fashion circles across Equestria. An outfit that mares would weep in envy to gaze upon. In a word: perfect.
Rarity is close now. So very close. She can feel it as she leans forward, softly biting down on her lower lip, scrutinizing the pattern of the stitching from behind the wall of her spectacles. Just a few more stitches. Just a few more. Just a-
Oh. There.
She’s done.
Suddenly, like the crack of the whip, all the world comes rushing back in. Rising from downstairs is the faint “clip-clop” of Sweetie Belle crossing from one room into the next, the whiff of pine lilting in through the open window along with the light afternoon sun, kissing her shoulder in it’s pre-summer gentility. Before her sits a gown. It’s something that she has created, certainly… but to have finished what she set out to do, to cut the last thread, set down the needle and step back and regard her work is a very strange feeling. The act carries with it a tentative uncertainty. Almost as if the garment wants to ask, “What now?”
It’s a blue thing, inspired by the Lapis Orchids that the Flower Sisters are now importing. It has fewer ruffles than one might expect, the stitching in the body meant to evocate the petals more than the skirt. The skirt itself is rather short, barely drifting past the hocks. The material is satin, already giving it a catching sheen, and the trim is golden, well offset by the midnight blue of the fabric. Of her trademark glamour expressed through gems, there is almost nothing, save for the single string of faceted lapis circling the waistline dividing the barrel and haunch.
It is the single ugliest garment Rarity has ever seen in her entire life.
The very thought that anypony would be caught dead in something so gaudy, so lurid, spurs a sickening turn of the unicorn’s stomach. They’ll hate it. Everypony, everywhere would see it and laugh at how brazen it is. How presumptuous she is.
Scrambling, she wonders if perhaps such a declaration is overdramatic. There are similarities to the vision in her head, and it is largely identical to her the concepts she had sketched after racing home with a boquet of the Orchids themselves. Perhaps it is savageable?
Her alicorn gleams with the sapphire of her eyes, deftly enwrapping her needle and thread once more, as well as plucking her scissors and measuring tape from their resting spot on the desk.
It’ll be fine. She’s still close. Rarity knows it. She just has to cut a little bit here, take it in here, and…
No. Not quite. Well… perhaps a little more lace here, and-
No.
Or maybe a few more sapphires! Perhaps simplicity is not best suited to-
No. That isn’t it, either.
But what if she-
Wrong.
Or how about-
No.
Perhaps-
No.
No!
No!
NO, NO, NO, NO!
Try as she might, with every alteration, another flaw springs into light, something falls out of place. The gown all but unravels before her eyes as she tries desperately to seize upon that image in her head, but the fabric, her tools, her magic won’t cooperate. So close, yet here it is, slipping away from her.
Again.
Composure is a trait the fashionista prides herself on; it simply would not do for a lady to throw a tantrum of all things. A faint here or there is one thing, but to stomp one’s hooves and screech that they be hoof-delivered their desires on a silver platter this instant is immature and uncouth, as Prince Blueblood continues to prove time and again, or so says the Equestrian Reporter anyway. Still, Rarity is only a mortal pony, and her patience is finite. After weeks of producing drivel, utter and complete drivel, in the form of dresses, while her thoughts and dreams taunt her with aspirations of impossible creations, she has reached the end of her tether. And like anypony else, she too must at last let go.
Through her teeth slips a positively feral snarl of aggravation, a shuddering wave of fury rolling rocking her little body and rushing up the length of her alicorn. A delicate shimmer becomes a white-hot flame, angrily popping and sparking, and for a single instant, Rarity is channeling every ounce of whatever capacity for magic is contained within her osseous birthright, even as her olfactory and gustatory functions are flooded with the warning acrid tang of magic disjointed from the Hymn. The needle and the scissors both twist into useless lumps of metal, the measuring tape bursting into flame, and the gown itself splits and tears in a million places. More than simply unraveling, it is shredded down to ragged pile of scraps in the space of an instant, mangled beyond any repair. And finally, in the last instinctive throes of her fit, all that is within her power is turned upon the dress form itself. The governing laws of the world wind inward, and gravity compresses, the mannequin collapsing into a broken lump of exposed fluff and warped metal.
The whole ordeal takes only a few moments. One second all is intact and in the next: shambles. And now that her madness has passed, the flame within Rarity’s breast begins to sputter and flicker, staunched in the oily whirlpool that is her embarrassment. Her pale cheeks flood red with shame, spots dancing in front of her eyes as her temples throb painfully, compounded by the sickening taste of ozone that slithers through her tongue, her nostrils. The world recognizes magic gone wrong for just that: wrong, and goes out of its way to illuminate such dissonance wherever it arose. Hence the stench, palpable only to her fellow unicorns.
The ivory pony’s blood freezes as a gentle knock sounds at her door. “Rarity?” comes Sweetie’s Belle’s muffled squeak, “A-are you okay? I smell something burning.”
Eyes of the deepest blue fall on the evidence of her humiliation, panic breaking the waters of her ignominy. Sweetie cannot see. She cannot know Rarity is so very… immature. At first she seizes on the vain hope that she can just sweep it under the bed or into the closet, but as her magic attempts to wrap around the twisted mess, some lingering essence of disharmony snarls. Hostile aether snaps at her, a phantom sting arcing through the core of her alicorn. Before she can stop it, a hiss of pain escapes from between her lips and Sweetie speaks again, her voice tinged with worry.
“Rarity? Are you okay?
“Fine, my dear!” lies the elder unicorn, “I’m coming right out!”
Her mind races for a way to dispose of the mess, even as the errant magic continues to growl at her. The slightest touch riles the energies anew, as hostile as Opalescence, who bristles and hisses at the warped pile of fabric from her spot on the bed. In theory, she could soothe the disruption in the Hymn with an application of proper Harmonic magics. It is even the sensible and more responsible thing to do, but that would necessitate more time than she dares to spend with a fearfully inquisitive sibling waiting outside. And her pride will not let Sweetie see her failure.
So the fashionista sweeps up her yowling companion and darts into the hall, the door opening and closing as quickly as a hummingbird flutters its wings. The younger unicorn attempts a glimpse into her sister’s most revered workspace, denied by Rarity’s swiftness. Sweetie recoils as the door slams shut, as Opalescence is inelegantly deposited on the ground to tear off, spitting at everything. She regards her elder with tentative worry, not quite sure why she should be unsettled by the foul aroma seeping under the decidedly shut door.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” asks the younger pony, sea glass eyes flitting between the furtive Rarity and the finality of the door, “It smells like bad cooking in your room.”
“Oh, just a mishap with the ironing board, Sweetie,” says Rarity with a dismissive wave of her hoof, “Nothing to worry about.”
Sweetie blinks. “Your glasses are broken.”
"Pardon?”
“Your glasses. They broke.”
Safely away from the ethereal canker squatting in the next room, a shimmer of ultramarine illuminates Rarity’s alicorn, plucking from her muzzle the spectacles that had gone unnoticed in the fervor of her tantrum. Sure as Sweetie says, the left lens is a spiderweb of cracks, faintly stinking with the pain of the contorted Hymn. Her cheeks begin to color again
“It smells,” the younger unicorn notes slowly, “like grease and tar.”
A tired sigh parts Rarity’s lips, the weariness in her eyes unbefitting a lady of her youth. She is tired. Tired of banging her head against the wall trying to get this stupid idea of a gown out of her head. And she’s tired of lying to Sweetie each time she is asked, “Are you okay?”
No. No she is not okay. But it is the duty of the elder to inform the younger, and she cannot be seen cracking. A Lady should pride herself on composure as much as her beauty. And everything that vexes her is contained within this tiny pair of broken spectacles. In these fractures, as thin as the breadth of a hair, is the cruel declaration that she is bucking a tree without apples. That everything she touches just unravels in her hooves, and her grand vision is impossible.
And she simply does not have the patience to explain to her sister how everything she’s ever believed in is a lie and she’ll have to move back in with their parents so as to not starve on the street like a common vagabond that can’t even manage a darn cross-stitch.
“Sweetie,” says the decidedly former fashionista, “I find myself entirely too restless for the boutique this afternoon and inexplicably in need of a new pair of glasses. Shall we go out for a bit? We can even get you something from Sugarcube Corner.
A cutie mark in hard-nosed detecting skills the younger unicorn does not have. At the mere insinuation of various confections, any fearful suspicion evaporates from Sweetie Belle, excitement taking it’s place. “Okay!” she cries happily, all but levitating off the ground through sheer force of enthusiasm, before racing down the stairs as quickly as her tiny legs will carry her.
Rarity trails after the filly, pausing to set aside her cracked glasses. They sit there, mocking, promising to await her swift return. A flicker of irritation passes through Rarity, a thought that she should finish what she started and smash the horrid thing to dust. But it’s only an echo of her former ire, more a notion than a want. And she has her composure now, if not always.
The unicorn turns her nose upward and haughtily stalks away from the spectacles, after her sister.
***
The eyes surround on all sides.
As the sisters step back out into the street, replacement supplies secure in the elder’s saddlebag, Rarity can feel the stares of her fellow unicorns. She catches furtive glances cast in her direction, muzzles wrinkling in distaste as she passes by other magically inclined ponies. She grins sheepishly, sweetly asking those few who dare to comment on the scent of burnt metal, “How do you care for my new perfume, darling? It’s called ‘Disarray’, fresh from Fleur de Lis’s new line.”
The last shopkeeper had frowned at that, arching a curious eyebrow even as Rarity’s eyes flitted, so very briefly, to her befuddled sister.
“I think you should get your money back, Rarity,” Sweetie suggested, sticking out her tongue in distaste, “It smells awful.”
The younger unicorn had earned a sharp glare from her elder for that, compounded by an aggrieved sigh. “One of these days, dear, you shall learn the ins and outs of sophistication.”
That is, of course, assuming that she can claim to know anything about sophistication. The eyes find her on all sides, so curious, so invasive, plainly wondering what could have driven the regal unicorn to upset her ties to the Hymn so violently. How they would laugh if they could see it was over something so trivial. How they would scoff if they could see her fumbling attempts at churning out anything of quality.
Some naïve flame of hope, of pride, tells her that she was close. The answer to what was wrong with it is just hovering inches out of sight. But as Lyra stops in mid conversation with Bon Bon to curiously look in her direction, Rarity’s cheeks flush and the flame sputters out. No. She wasn’t close. She had been wasting her time on impossibilities.
“Rarityyyy,” Sweetie whines, shocking her sister from her thoughts, “You said we could go to Sugarcube Corner!”
The fashionista chuckles humorlessly. “I did, didn’t I? Yes. You’ve been very patient; we’ll go there right now.”
The eyes of all the square whip around again, though this time they focus on Sweetie Belle and the enthused squeal she emits, shrill as a whistle, before zipping towards the bakery. Then they find Rarity, at first to judge for her failure to contain her sibling’s delight and after to recoil at the haze of the odor surrounding her. Her cheeks color again. Even unicorns as young as Sweetie know better than to misuse their powers for something so brutish.
At the very least, she can take solace in the fact that her shame is noticeable only by other unicorns. She holds onto this thought as she strolls into the bakery. Streamers and lanterns adorn every arch and table, insisting the brightness and of the place even further with the promise of some coming celebration as Luna’s moon would rise. Throughout it all is the mistress of revelry herself, flowing about the room like a fluffy pink river of adrenaline and giggles. The bell chimes to announce a customer as Rarity crosses the threshold and Pinkie Pie looks does from the ladder she teeters upon to fix on the sisters Belle with a grin as wide and as warm as a sunny day.
“Hiya, Rarity!” she beams at them, “Hi, Sweetie Belle!”
“Hello, Pinkie,” Rarity replies with as much grace as she can muster. It’s a bit of an effort between the gloom of her failure and befuddlement as to how a pony as soft as the baker can be nimble enough to pull triple backflip off the top of a rickety ladder to land on all four of her hooves without any detectable effort.
“Hi, Pinkie!” cries Sweetie as she stands with her fore hooves on the glass of the front counter, greedily licking her lips as her emerald eyes roam over the sugary confections begging for consumption. Rarity rolls her eyes, gently ushering her sister down.
“Sweetie,” she says, “Hooves off the glass.”
The earth pony giggles at the younger pony’s enthusiasm. “Somebody’s got a sweet tooth today! What can I getcha?”
“Gimme, a milkshake,” demands Sweetie, “No, wait! One of those cupcakes. No, wait! One of those canoodles!”
“Canolis, dear,” sighs Rarity, “Pinkie, might I trouble you for some coffee?”
Pinkie clucks her tongue in disapproval. “ ‘Trouble me’? I dunno, Rares. I mean, I’d have to go aaaaaaaall the way over here…”
Pinkie takes three steps to the left, putting her within reach of a row of liquid dispensers. Rarity frowns.
“Heft one of these great, big cups…”
She plucks a paper receptacle from under the counter. Rarity scowls.
“And punch in the correct activation sequence for this here complicated doohickey.”
She flips the nozzle, filling the cup nearly to the brim before capping it with a lid and sliding it onto the counter.
“The sarcasm, Pinkie?” Rarity growls, setting the appropriate bits on the counter, “Not appreciated.”
The earth pony snickers. “You say. Made me laugh. Whatcha say, Sweetie; figured out what you’d like?”
Sweetie Belle perks up at being addressed, the tiny wheels in her head at last having churned out a suitable want. “Can I have a banana split, please?”
She recoils as Pinkie’s lips split wide to reveal a crescent moon of excitement, far beyond what should have been the capacity for any normal pony.
“OOH, FUN!” cries the earth pony, “I get to make that for you!”
Rarity honestly doesn't want to trouble the earth pony, despite the apparent amusement she gleans from such an insinuation. Sweetie needs only a quick treat, something that can be swiftly munched as they bade a hasty retreat back to the boutique, and away from the invasive stares of her fellow unicorns. But before Rarity can protest, Pinkie sets the laws of physics and general logic to spluttering in offense as she catapults herself back into the kitchen with all the force of a speeding cannonball. What follows is raucous and possibly destructive flurry of confetti and ice cream, as the baker calls upon ancient and eldritch forces, all in the name of dessert. Though Sweetie cranes to look over the countertop and see just what in the hayseed the earth pony is doing, Rarity ushers her over to one of the booths. Part of it is because she isn't positive that staring into the pink vortex won't strike them both instantly blind, but the ever shrinking part of her brain governed by logical reasoning knows better than to interrupt the flow of a pony caught in the glorious throes of exercising their special talent. During those fugue states when she was consumed by her single-minded drive, to be disrupted in the flow of her work was as dire as upsets of the Hymn.
And on that note, her mind returns to the ruined gown, the smashed dress form, and the invading eyes of all those ponies that could see how out of touch with the rest of the world she plainly was. The melancholy persists all the way through to the moment when the cacophony ceases, and Pinkie Pie emerges with mountain of ice cream and bananas balanced precariously upon the tip of her muzzle. With her eyes closed. Rarity’s horn lights in alarm, prepared to catch the wobbling dessert should gravity at last slam down its hoof and finally decree enough was enough from the defiant baker. But today is not that day. Pinkie trots over to where the sisters rest, and slips the confection down before the younger. Sweetie’s tongue lolls out over her lips, eyes wide as saucers as she greedily salivates in anticipation to the approaching sweetness. Even Rarity, though the rankling of her sibling’s poor table manners and the bellicose staring on behalf of all Ponyville, cannot help but marvel over the rolling hills of the ice cream, the glittering ocean of fudge, expansive plains of the bananas, all the way up to the towering peaks of the spiraling whipped cream.
“My word, Pinkie,” breathes the fashionista, “There’s dessert and then there’s artwork, and yours is most certainly amongst the latter.”
The baker snickered with a barely noticeable flush of her cheeks. “Aw shucks, Rarity. It isn’t anything special.”
“Not anything special?” Rarity cries, “Darling, before us sits the Canterlot of Cremes! I’m of a mind to take it from Sweetie Belle lest she despoil its magnificence!”
The smaller unicorn balks at that, wrenching the dessert over to her side of the table with a suspiciously baleful eye pointed at her sister.
“Not literally, of course,” the fashionista sighs.
Pinkie blinks. “Gosh, Rarity, if you like it that much, I can whip one up for you too.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t ask you to do that, dear. Especially considering what ice cream does to one’s flank.”
Sweetie, chops midway closed upon a spoon loaded with the frozen delight, halts in shock. She drops the spoon back into the bowl, twisting around to regard her rear.
“I simply mean to say,” Rarity continues, oblivious, “You fit into baking as easily as Rainbow Dash does the sky. You’re so comfortable in doing what you were meant to do. I’m a little envious, honestly. I just feel artistically drained these days. Everything I create just turns out horrid in the end, and I’m terrified that if anypony even catches a glimpse of it… they’ll laugh at me.”
“Gosh, Rarity,” Pinkie replies, “That’s quite the conundrum on your cranium. I mean, I don’t feel like I’m doing anything special. I just make what I think would be tasty.”
Sweetie’s ears perk up, standing on her seat to scrutinize how soft the earth pony is around her own rump and belly.
“Yes, but,” Rarity insists, gesturing to the as of yet barely mined eyrie of ice cream, “The way it all comes together makes it look irresistible! I’d be on it as fiercely as Spike on a gemstone if I wasn’t so concerned with my figure!”
Sweetie takes on a haunted look, gently squishing her stomach with her forehooves.
“Maybe that’s your problem,” Pinkie suggests, “You’re thinking too much about what other ponies think. For me, I just want them all to have super fun happy times all the live-long-day. So I think to myself, ‘Pinkie what makes you have a super fun happy time all the live-long-day?’ And voila: Mount Neopolititan von Bananaschmitt!”
Silence.
“I think it’s important that all your creative babies get names to show how much love and attention you put into them,” Pinkie beams.
Rarity isn’t sure how to respond to that.
“So, Rares,” the baker continues on, “Why don’t you ask yourself, ‘What do I want to wear?”
“But… but what if they don’t like it?” Rarity protests feebly.
Pinkie shrugs. “Whatever. They don’t know your life. All that’s important is that you like it.”
The fashionista considers that advice. It’s true that every gown she’s attempted to stitch together these last few weeks had been done so with the intention of presenting it before a wider audience. Her designs were amalgams, a series of Frankenstallion’s Monster consisting of elements taken from other, successfully proven design lines. Thinks that would look good on other ponies, Fleur de Lis, Fluttershy, the Flower Sisters, but nothing quite for her.
And just like that, her mind is running amok with new ideas, new designs, her cutie mark already thrumming.
“Pinkie,” the older unicorn says, smiling, “Thank you. I needed to hear that.”
The smile returns to Pinkie, once again setting the laws of physics and biology to grousing and griping. But Rarity is no longer unnerved by it. Mostly. They both turn to Sweetie Belle, who miserably scowls at the delectable tower.
“Sweetie, aren’t you going to finish?” asks her sister.
“ ‘m not hungry,” the filly mutters.
“Ooh!” cries Pinkie, “More for me, then!”
It’s significantly more disturbing when the earth pony’s jaw unhinges and out rolls a tongue easily twice her length to serpentine around Mount Neopolitan and drag the confection, possibly screaming, into the depths of her cavernous maw. After a moment’s consideration, Pinkie spits the bowl back out, followed swiftly by the spoon.
Rarity blinks.
“Well, we shan’t keep you any longer. I am properly rejuvenated now, and the boutique calls. Sweetie, shall we away?”
The smaller unicorn drops down from her seat to sullenly trail after her spontaneously chipper older sister. Steps from the door, she speaks up, tiny voice full of dread.
“Rarity, am I getting pudgy?”
The fashionista can only giggle. “Oh, don’t be ridiculous, darling; that’s just your baby fat you keep feeling.”
Outside, the eyes find her again. Muzzles wrinkle. Her friends and neighbors take note of her violation of the Hymn. Of course, she does shy slightly. Fear is persistent like that. But she is a Lady, and composure is something she prides herself on. As Pinkie had said, “They don’t know her life”.
Besides, most of them are staring at her wailing sister.
***
The cracks speak in volumes. Even long after the smell of shattered magics has dissipated, the cracks in her last pair of glasses have much to say. Commentary on fear, on the desperate folly of attempting to impress. They are a mocking laugh before a frightened girl, maliciously whispering all her fears into the darkness.
Rarity wants to throw them away, as she had done with the other ruins of this afternoon’s earlier tirade, but it strikes her that it would be far more prudent to hold onto them. As embarrassing a memory they call up, they serve to remind her of a fair lesson. Her art is hers alone. Nopony can take that away from her, nor create it in her stead.
Signed,
Your Loyal Subject,
Rarity
The fashionista chuckles lightly as she sets the broken spectacles on her desk, now of a mind to fetch Twilight’s darling little assistant and pen a friendship report. Perhaps she will, once she’s completed. For now, the sun watches as she takes to her sketch pad once more, drawing into her circuit of inspirational energy. It’s light and warmth fail to reach her, and once again all is right with the world.
Barring the momentary upset of her craft when the lower floor reverberates with the combined shouting of Sweetie Belle and her comrades in crusading.
“CUTIE MARK CRUSADER PERSONAL TRAINERS, YAY!”
Author's Note
Evidence of what happens when a project runs away from you. This was an attempt to be meta, but it sorta devolved as soon as Pinkie hopped onto the scene. Unlike Rarity, I'm not quite pleased with the end result of this little jaunt, but to each his or her own, no?
