Flow My Tears, the Fashionista Said

by ponichaeism

Rating: teen
Tags: Dark, Alternate Universe, Sweetie Belle, Sad, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Rarity, Twilight Sparkle
Length: 5413

Successful fashionista Rarity is the talk of Manehattan, but when a spell goes wrong she finds herself lost in an alternate version of the city, a police state where nopony remembers her.

As the head of Manehattan's premier fashion company, Rarefaction Fashions, Rarity has it all: style, wealth, influence. She's the talk of the town, darling of the paparazzi, and icon to fillies and colts all over Equestria.

But when Twilight Sparkle drops by to catch up, an ancient magic spell from the Saddle Arabian Book of the Dead, intended to guide kings and queens on their way to the afterlife, goes awry. Once the city's favorite daughter, Rarity wakes up to discover there is no record of her existence. And not only that, but in this strange new crime-ridden Manehattan, police checkpoints cordon off the streets and anypony not possessing the proper ID is punished by indefinite detention.

But she presses on, searching for somepony who remembers her. Because if she can't find anypony, then who will remember her? She spent years leaving her hoofprints on Manehattan with the simple power of generosity, as a way to be loved and admired. But now she's anonymous and alone in a nightmarish, distorted mirage, a twisted and decaying vision of the city as it was never meant to be. And slowly but surely, it's leaving its mark on Rarity and all the other lost souls unlucky enough to live on its mean streets.

Written for the Equestria Daily Writer's Training Grounds #002 (hence the strict 7,000 wordcount). Inspired (rather obviously) by Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said.

Published 2014-01-08 08:20:04 UTC
Last updated 2014-01-08 08:20:04 UTC

PART ONE: "Oh, Manehattan, what have I done?"

Author's Note

This story is not part of the PKD story cycle I'm working on, except for the fact that I was knee-deep in The Mare in the High Castle while writing this as a lark for the contest. The other story gave me the idea, and there's some thematic cross-pollination between the two, but otherwise they're unrelated. Consider this something of a 'dry run' for High Castle.

PART ONE: "Oh, Manehattan, what have I done?"

Flash bulbs flared like lightning and cracked like thunder. Rarity was the eye of a storm of attention, and the fashionista reveled in it. Dozens of camera lenses followed her, stamping her image onto film, freezing the moment in time, rendering her fabulous forever. As the light passed through those mechanical irises, she became more than a pony. Her gorgeous ensemble and graceful poise, imprinted in celluloid memory, made her an icon, one the fillies and colts of Equestria looked up to and aspired to be. She had the power to shape them into better ponies by paying her generosity forward. Being a decent role model, and in turn a decent pony. And for the rest of history, they would look to her as emblematic of the age.

Or so she dreamed, but such a dream let her sleep better at night, surely.

Her name became a chorus as photographers begged her to look their way, give them a smile, brighten up their night. As she walked down the red carpet, she obliged. She was a generous mare by nature, and her attention was free and always in demand. She waved to her fans pressing against the velvet ropes, basking in their adoration, before walking under the marquee announcing Rarefaction Fashion's upcoming spring line.

In the lobby, a mare turned to face Rarity. “Hello.”

Rarity's heart skipped a beat. She burst out giggling and embraced Twilight Sparkle. “I haven't seen you in ages! How have you been?!”

“Oh, you know. Same bookworm as always.”

The fashionista's eye for detail spied Twilight's sun-bleached mane and coat. “But a bookworm with a tan now. I do say it's an improvement. Glad to see you're getting outside for once. But come, darling, we can catch up in my private booth.”

As Twilight followed Rarity up the grand staircase, she asked, “Gee, how much did this place cost your company?”

“Psh, Rarefaction Fashions makes plenty. But enough about me. I demand to know every little detail about your past few years, starting with that tan.”

“Well, during my stay in Roan, a letter from Celestia arrived. She asked me to extend my gran tourismo - Hehe, that's Roanan for 'grand tour' - and be the Equestrian envoy to a Saddle Arabian archeological dig. Of course I chomped at the bit. Everypony and their mother have read the tomes in Roan. But those priceless Arabian scrolls, untouched for centuries! And I did the first translations!”

Throw wings on her and make her a princess, Rarity thought, but she's still the same old Twilight.

A bellhop pushed open her private booth's door. Rarity slid him a gem, a wink, and a request for the finest aged cider from the Apple Family Vineyards. The show started, but Rarity paid no mind to the ponies strutting the catwalk. She'd seen the dresses already. That was her busy, busy life: headhunting the brightest new talent, approving every design, shepherding them through production, going down to the floor to encourage her employees.

But Twilight had been gone for so long. Time Rarity remedied that. The cider bottle emptied, soon joined by another two, as the mares laughed merrily.

“....and Rainbow Dash," Rarity said, "tore big clumps of her mane out when the recruits followed Rumble and crashed into the bleachers! 'I didn't mean literally stay on the tail of the pony in front of you!' she called.”

Twilight snorted so loudly she drew looks from below. She clamped her hooves over her mouth, which only made her and Rarity laugh louder. After awhile, their gales petered out.

"I still can't believe Dash titled her autobiography Shameless," Twilight said. "Ironically, I mean."

"I know! She's the last pony I expected self-awareness from."

"Ha! Aw, I've missed so much. Don't get me wrong, it was amazing to travel. But when you travel you're a stranger. You feel life could go on without you. No one misses you if you leave.” She blushed and looked away. “Well, there may have been a stallion in Unicornia....”

“You didn't! Now, you simply must tell me, immediately!”

“Nah, there's nothing to tell.” Twilight rested her chin on the wooden railing. “We knew it wouldn't last. We had one language in common, and we read it better than we spoke it. We practically wrote each other love letters while sitting in the same room.”

“Do you....regret it?" Rarity asked, thinking of her own failed romances, sacrificed for her work.

“Ah, shoulda, coulda, woulda. No use thinking of what might've been.”

“Abol-sue-lutely,” Rarity said. She knocked the morose Twilight's side. “So go on, Miss Magic! Show me something you learned.” Her eyes widened. “Maybe an ancient magic spell from Saddle Arabia!” She waved her forelegs spookily. “Woo~oo~oo!”

Twilight shied away. “I really shouldn't. The Saddle Arabian Book of the Dead isn't something to treat lightly.”

“Come on,” Rarity said, stamping her hoof down. “It's my opening night, and I insist. Just a little trick? Please?”

“Alright.” Twilight sighed and pulled her saddlebag to the bench. “Just a little trick!” She pulled out photographs of ancient papyrus scrolls and sheaves of notes. “There's one somewhere in here for making a floral garland grow out of thin air, to ward off evil demons from Tartarus.”

Even in her cider-fueled haze, Rarity's imagination soared. It'd been so long since she came up with a design. Maybe she could make a line of ancient Saddle Arabian fashions, with Twilight as consultant, giving them ample time together.

Nah, she thought. Nice dream, but I'm simply much too busy running the company to spearhead a new line.

As Twilight rummaged, Rarity pulled a sheaf of notes over. 'In the name of traversing eternity, wanderer through this world,' she read, 'may you see mirages of a world without your sorrow'. Below, Twilight's neat writing said: 'Too literal. “Mirage”, without context, doesn't express the ancient Saddle Arabian belief in the world as an illusion of the senses.'

A life without sorrow, Rarity thought. I wish I'd had a spell like that sometimes.

But she was happy now, with her company, her fashion lines, her lifestyle. She ignited her horn, lifted her half-full glass of cider over, and sipped it, so happy. Wasn't she? True, she wished for more time to make dresses. But it was a small price to pay for success.

Her eyes went to Twilight's meticulous phonetic translation. Eyes and thoughts blurring, she squinted and haltingly read aloud, “Sha rhei paralavi bardo thodol mesh kada threipikal shanshun avaira.”

Twilight's face twisted in horror. “Rarity.”

“Yes, darling?” Rarity magically brought the glass to her lips. “You look like you've seen a ghost.”

“Your horn,” Twilight whispered.

Rarity's eyes swiveled to the hovering glass. Her horn had been ignited the whole time. But that spell was thousands of years old. She didn't even speak the language. There was no way she could trigger it, she told herself, not consciously. Until she felt a magical tug in her chest.

“Uh oh. Twilight, dear, what does that spell do?”

Twilight struggled to speak. “I don't know.”

“What does a mirage of a world without sorrows mean?”

“Uh, 'sorrow' is a literal translation of their word for 'life'.”

The air thinned as Rarity's head disconnected from the world. Everything grew hazy, and not just because of the cider. She was unmoored from the booth around her, the theater, her friend.

“Rarity,” Twilight said, horrified, “that spell was used by kings and queens on their way to the afterlife!”

“Make it stop,” Rarity whispered harshly, her voice breaking. “Please.”

“I don't know how. I haven't studied it well enough.”

A burst of static, like microphone feedback, ripped through Rarity's head, gouging furrows of pain through her brain. Her hooves went to her temples as her brain roasted. The world distended and rippled, coming undone before her eyes.

“Rarity!” Twilight's scream echoed from beyond time.

Behind the world was the void. But as Rarity fell into it, she was glad. At least the pain was going away.

Unfortunately, so was everything else.

PART TWO: "And now, alone I stand"

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

PART THREE: "I'm not about to fold"

The rows of analytical machines clicked and clattered. Music to Director Sparkle's ears. Constant, concrete, predictable. Numbers in, numbers out. Results defined by input, every time. So unlike ponies. She felt a migraine coming. Just the thought of ponies clamoring for their slice of the pie, shouting 'every pony for herself', made her physically sick. She unscrewed the cap on her pill bottle, downed some, then tucked it back into her saddlebag. She loosened her police uniform, while pledging the Manehattanites would learn harmony if she had to arrest every single one.

I was so generous and compassionate once, she thought ruefully. That's what this city does to you.

Her senior detective, Lucky Clover, said, “Results are printing now." An analytical engine belched paper, which he ripped off and read. “Nothing. Her name doesn't show up in any database. The address she gave us is in the name of some fashion photographer, Photo Finish. Rarefaction Fashions isn't listed in any directory. No hoofprints on record. Barring mechanical error, she doesn't exist.”

“So how did she get here?”

“She might've slipped through the IPID census--”

“There's no way she's living off the grid. I got a look at her through the interrogation room's two-way mirror. She definitely had a pony-pedi not that long ago.”

“Maybe the crime syndicates are setting up underground fashion parlors.”

“Be serious. She got onto this island somehow.”

“It's impossible. Every way into and out of this city is patrolled, searched, and secured.”

Thinking out loud, Sparkle said, “Yet here she is, without even a forged identity card. Why do that? Even the crime rings make an attempt to forge documents. Yet this mare pretends not to know what an IPID is.” She rubbed her chin. “I think something else is going on here. Something we're not seeing.”

“You think she's playing dumb to trick us?”

“I don't know. But I'm going to release her.”

Clover neighed. “Whoa, tell me you're not buying that 'amnesia' baloney?”

“Of course not.”

“Then why release her?”

Sparkle gave him a withering look. “So we can follow her.”

A grin dawned on his face. “Riiight. I'll get the release forms printed up.”

He cantered down the row of analytical engines, but Director Sparkle lingered, enjoying the orderly sound of calculating data. She envied the machines. They only had to record the movements of the fickle and unpredictable Manehattanites, through reports phoned in from around the city. It was her impossible task to actually figure the ponies out.

Inside the lightless detention cell, time was meaningless. Just like Rarity.

She'd run out of tears and didn't bother to keep her coat off the grimy floor. It was so hard to stand in the darkness, smelling years of accumulated fear and anguish, with nothing to do but sleep and wail and waste away the unmeasurable hours.

That is, until the door opened. She winced against the blinding light as a pony stepped in. Gradually her eyes adjusted, until she saw....

“Twilight?! Are you here to get me out?”

But Twilight, in a tasteful blue uniform and matching peaked cap, held her at foreleg's length. “Whoa, there.”

“Do you know me?” Rarity's heart wrenched in anticipation.

“Should I?”

“I suppose not.” Rarity hung her head. That was it, then. In the dark, her last hope was that when she met a familiar face, recognition would set her free. Somepony would throw her a lifeline and let her pull herself out of the void and find out where she was. Rescue her from the darkness. “Wait a minute,” she called in sudden triumph, “who was the Element of Generosity when you battled Nightmare Moon, hmm?”

“You mean Cheerilee?”

Her hopes collapsing, Rarity felt like crying.

“Cheer up,” Twilight said coldly. “We went through the story you gave us again. This time, we widened our search and found a match.” She pulled a dossier from her saddlebag. “Sweetie Belle, IPID #798121. We have an address.”

Sweetie Belle lives here? she thought. Of course, mother and father always talked about moving to Manehattan. But they never did, because....because they thought Ponyville was a better place to raise me.

“Can I....talk to her?”

“Sure.” Twilight smiled. “We'll issue you a temporary IPID passport, so you can pass checkpoints. But of course, this is only while we get this sorted out. You'll still be expected to present yourself when we need you.”

Rarity was nervous, but she trusted Twilight's smile.

The police showers lacked her hair care essentials, but as she walked through cold, bright sunlight, Rarity was just glad to be clean. Even if her mane was as dull and lifeless as this town. No photographers raced over to snap photos, freeze her in time, make her forever young. Create an icon out of her. Nopony even looked at her. They walked with eyes forward, necks stiff. No smiles, nods, waves. This strange Manehattan was a loveless town, and this was the affluent part. She'd never been so lonely. Ignored. Ordinary, even.

But I never thought of myself as above other ponies! But she realized she relished others looking to her for guidance. Wanting to emulate her. It drove her, and now it was gone. She had no voice or agency and wouldn't be remembered. By anypony.

Yet Surrey Polomare would. Fruit of the mind is as distinct as a signature, and Surrey's fruit, hanging from the cityfolk, was rotten. Severe and drab. Safe and boring. No emotional texture. Just a big, bland nothing. Were the clothes drab because the ponies were unhappy, or were the ponies unhappy because the clothes were drab? Idle foolishness, she knew, but she couldn't help it. Designing clothes was her destiny.

This can't be where she lives.

Rarity edged down the filthy hallway, past broken furniture and peeling wallpaper. She knocked on apartment #912 and waited until the deadbolt thumped. It was an eternity before the door opened, but as soon as it did, Rarity wished it hadn't. Her mouth gaped open. The young mare on the other side was disheveled and unkempt, her baggy eyes sullen and full of fury.

“What do you want?”

“I, uh, I'm a cousin,” Rarity lied. “From your mother's side of the family. I'm researching the family genealogy.”

“She's gone. So's my dad.”

“Yes, I know,” Rarity said sadly. “May I come in anyway?”

Sweetie Belle shrugged and stepped aside. Rarity crossed the threshold into a landfill-like living room filled with cardboard boxes and newspapers, worn out clothes, food wrappers, empty cider bottles. A phonograph turned silently in the corner, stuck in an end groove, spitting out infinite crackling static.

“You live by yourself?” Rarity asked, horrified. This apartment wasn't like her sister at all. Where was the optimism? The cheer?

Defensively, Sweetie Belle snapped, “Where else would I live?”

“Don't you have any family?”

Her sister pulled cider bottles out of a cabinet. “I was an only child, and I was never close to my extended family."

Oh, my poor sister. Nopony helped her after our parents passed away. Because she didn't have me.

“What's your name, anyway?” Sweetie Belle asked, pulling a bottlecap off.

“Rarity.”

“Pretty name.”

“Sweetie Belle isn't so bad, either.”

Her sister dropped onto the worn, fraying couch. She gestured to the room. “It's such a lie. What's so sweet about all this?”

“Don't you have a job?”

“Ha! They're all taken, and none of them pay well enough for me to move out. This isn't a very generous place.”

Rarity almost offered to look after her sister before remembering she had no home. No friends. No money. A looming police inquisition. She had no way to make a mark on this world. For the first time, the horrifying thought that she'd never existed really, truly set in. Seeing her innocent, trusting sister warped into a miserable cynic who downed bottles of cider at ten in the afternoon made Rarity want to scream. This distorted world wore on her heavily, like a funeral shroud.

“I'm sorry, I don't feel well.” Swooning, Rarity staggered to the door. “I have to go.”

“Later,” Sweetie Belle called, her voice devoid of emotion.

Rarity ran out before her sister saw her break into tears.

“Has she moved?” Director Sparkle asked, parting her office's blinds to stare at the skyline. Manehattan, the city she swore to protect; the city she had to put her hoofprints on in order to stamp out its crime.

Clover poured over the phoned-in reports. “The follow teams say she's still sitting in the park, and I don't like it.”

She rolled her eyes as she turned away from the window. “That's a change. You're usually so trusting.”

“I'm serious. That park overlooks the harbor. She could be studying the ships coming in off the river. A prelude to an attack.”

“An attack? By who?”

“Who knows? Point is, she's been staring at the harbor for hours now. Studying it. We need to bring her in and take off the kiddie mittens. Enhanced interrogation.”

Director Sparkle sighed. “You know I hate doing that.”

“Extreme times.”

Director Sparkle thought long and hard before she nodded in assent, thinking, I used to be so kind....

Batterneigh Park was a beautiful slice of countryside overlooking the waterfront. As Rarity sat on the bench, she refused to look back and admit the city existed. It was only a terrible illusion, a mirage, like that magic spell from her dream. Except it wasn't a dream. She thought long and hard about what could have done this, and her thoughts kept coming back to the spell being real. Kings and queens used it on their way to the afterlife, obviously so they could see the impact their rule had. So did that mean dying a natural death was the only way out of this alternate world for her?

She shuddered and suppressed the thought.

Instead, she thought about life. Specifically, hers. She never considered herself anything more than a fashionista, but this world proved her small acts of generosity transformed everything. Like ripples turning into waves akin to the ones lapping the shoreline below. Her absence created this world, and she was stuck with it. Like those ruins in Saddle Arabia, meant to last for thousands of years, torn down by the ravages of time and turned to sand.

But some things exist beyond time. Her other life taught her that.

Archetypes, like the Elements of Harmony. The harder she stared at the horizon, the more she fancied she saw the abstract form of generosity shining beyond it. And that insight revitalized her. I'm still the Element of Generosity. So she didn't have a company, hordes of assistants, an adoring public. She didn't start with any of those either. She built them up, dress by dress, couture by couture, act of generosity by act of generosity. She could forge a new identity and put this city back the way it used to be. With a new spring in her gait, Rarity put the sunset behind her and walked out of the park.

But when she set hoof on concrete, two stallions in plain clothes brusquely cantered up to her. One said, “Manehattan Crime Control. Come with us, please.”

“C-certainly. Is there a problem?”

They silently motioned for her to walk with them. But as soon as Rarity fell into step, they hustled her away and tried to slap chains on her legs.

“You're under arrest for conspiracy to commit sabotage."

“What?” she shouted, bucking against them. “I did no such thing! I demand to speak to Twilight!”

“Director Sparkle ordered this. Stop resisting!”

A revelation struck Rarity: she'd trusted Twilight's smile too quickly. This wasn't her Twilight. This one was colder and meaner. The mirage of Manehattan turned everypony cold, and now they would throw her in jail for something she didn't do. But she had her purpose back. She had a destiny again, and she refused to be jailed, because it's call was as strong as that long-ago day she got her cutie mark.

She cast her eyes out for something to defend herself with. A pegasus policepony swooped down to help the plainclothes officers, past a flagpole mounted on a building holding an Equestrian flag. Idea! Rarity thought. She ignited her horn and sent a burst of magic at the flag. It ripped free and wrapped itself around the pegasus with a fancy bow. The plainclothes officers watched her drop like a stone into a fruit cart. Rarity bucked wildly, wriggled out of the unfastened hoofcuffs, and broke free of their grasp. They stared her down, but she stood her ground, overcome with triumph.

“Sorry, boys, but this is getting a little unseemly!”

She cast her unseaming spell and ripped the thread out of their clothes, which unraveled and tripped them up. She lowered her head and streamlined her body, racing headlong into the dusk, towards an unknown future.

PART FOUR: "Call me the smile patrol"

A shaft of light came through the abandoned building's cracked ceiling and illuminated the brass statue holding Rarity's masterpiece. Its fabric, taken from the trash, painstakingly cleaned and made usable by pure talent, gleamed. She giggled, half-starved and half-mad. For three days, she'd subsisted on food from garbage cans. For three nights, she'd woken after an hour of sleep, terrified the police were closing in. But the creative will to transform discarded garbage into something divine honed her concentration into razor-sharp focus. Her hooves worked as if possessed, striving to grasp the archetype of generosity crouched just beyond the horizon. Her lodestar. Whenever she was cold and lonely, it shone through the seams of reality. Her destiny was to give that archetype shape. Bring it into the material world. Create beautiful things that revealed a deeper truth.

And as she surveyed her work, she saw it was good.

She also sensed she might be crazy from lack of sleep, but if she was, she was glad; she hadn't felt this alive in years. In the basement, a bowl caught water leaking from a pipe. She got to work making herself glow using nothing but nearly-empty tubes of beauty products lifted from the trash. As she cleaned herself up she stared at a flyer on the wall, taken from a construction site fence. Even this cold, uncaring Manehattan had its own sort of generosity.

The lights of the theater once owned by Rarity shined in the night like a temple. The bitter wind carried distant flash bulbs and cheering crowds. Rarity tightened her cloak – even now, she refused to reveal a masterpiece before its official unveiling – and dreamed of her old life. Now she crouched on a chilly rooftop, a fugitive with no identity . But she would make them remember her, even if she spent her life in prison. That was her gift of generosity. She'd give Manehattan one last dazzling display of talent.

A policepony soared past, keeping an eye on the checkpoint below. She waited until he flew over the roof, then magically ripped curtains off a window across the street, trussed him up tight, and finished with a fancy bow. She'd been practicing her combat dressmaking, and dared to say she was a deft hoof now. The pegasus rolled on the ground and struggled to shout through the fabric in his mouth.

As Rarity slipped past, she whispered, “Dreadfully sorry.”

Director Sparkle downed the last of her pills. She ran a hoof through her mane, only for clumps of it to fall out. She sighed. Not only was her hair falling out, she had a meeting with the mayor in an hour, which would ratchet up her stress even more. Sitting down heavily in her chair, her eyes went to the illuminated cityscape through the window. She wanted to bring out its best, but her effort was useless. The city resisted her attempts to creating harmony. She entertained thoughts about retiring. The 'princess' thing was getting to her. Maybe she'd work with her hooves at Sweet Apple Acres....

Clover burst into her office. “Twilight, checkpoint twenty-three just phoned in. An officer was incapacitated by being trussed up with a fancy bow.”

Twilight wanted to laugh at the absurdity of his words, but truthfully, she was too tired. “You think she's targeting Surrey Polomare's spring fashion expo?”

“It's packed with ponies.”

“Let's ride," Sparkle said.

As Rarity scarpered across the theater roof, police wagons rolled up the street and ponies in riot gear jumped out and shouted at each other. Airships lazily floated towards the building. She felt the dragnet closing in, but relished it. This was a one-way trip. Better to have them at her back, to drive her forward.

Sparkle stormed into the theater lobby, thinking how much of her career as a princess she could salvage from this as she led her officers upstairs.

“Fan out. Check the building from top to bottom.”

Rarity smashed a glass skylight. Airship spotlights swept across the roof behind her, poking and prodding every nook. She ducked down into the hole right before one illuminated her.

Sparkle strode into the auditorium. Repetitive music with heavy drumbeats and rumbling bass pounded her ears and made her temples throb. The upbeat warbeat got into her blood and made her restless and agitated. They didn't have time to evacuate all these ponies. They'd have to catch the fugitive in the act.

“If you see her,” she called over the noise, “take her down.”

As Rarity stalked the white hallways, the pulsing and lively music called to her. She lost herself in it until somepony shouted behind her. A policepony was framed by the doorway. She took off running and hooked around the first corner she saw, heading for the source of the music.

“They got her,” Clover said. “Upper hallways. Let's go.”

“No.” Sparkle gesturing to the crowd, all oblivious to the fugitive. “She's coming here.”

Rarity ran like she had wings, flying down corridors she knew from another Manehattan. The rational remnant of her mind said she was insane, but this whole city was insane, and going crazy in response seemed perfectly rational. She had nothing to lose, and the winds of destiny filled her sails and pushed her onward. All she could do was dream and dare, like when she was a young, unknown fashionista.

The door to the flies was just ahead. She barreled through it and onto the lighting catwalk, dogged by policeponies, but she used her magic to pull a stowed drop curtain off its pole and drape it over them. She paused at the railing, directly over the electric chandelier suspended by cables over the runway.

The policeponies pulled themselves out from under the curtain, shouting menacingly, and lunged for her.

She leapt over the railing. The chandelier swayed with her weight. She looked down, saw the runway was empty. Then she grinned madly up at the policeponies and, with a burst of magic, cut the chandelier's cables.

Nopony expected the chandelier to magically drop onto the runway, least of all the model ready to strut out onto it. But the audience, inured to attention-grabbing stunts, remained sitting. Only Director Sparkle knew what was happening. She spread her wings and launched herself into the air, then dived for the cloaked figure riding the chandelier.

Sorry to take you down like this, she thought, fixing the fugitive in her sights. But it's every pony for herself.

When the chandelier hit the stage, the cloaked pony declared, “I am Rarity, hear me roar!” With a graceful flourish, she ripped the cloak off and threw it into the air. “In an outfit that's too loud to ignore!”

And as Sparkle flew closer, the light played off the dress beautifully. The white dress, with intricate purple accents and ruffles, wasn't ostentatious, but its mediated perfection caught her eye. Its shape and form, complimented by the graceful mare, was magnificent. The work of a superior dressmaker. And in the dress, shimmering like a distant sun, Sparkle glimpsed something transcendent. She dropped to the floor in front of the stage and watched the mare poised atop the chandelier, transfixed. The archetype of generosity could be seen through the dress's artistry, like a tunnel out of reality, and nopony with evil intentions could imbue a dress with such splendor. The audience went breathless at the sight. Everything froze, because the moment was fragile and nopony dared to move for fear of shattering it.

Except one filly who, with trepidation, approached the stage. “Your dress is so beautiful.”

The silver mare hopped off the chandelier and walked to the stage's edge. From on high, she looked into the awed filly's eyes. To Director Sparkle, everything but those two ponies, and the archetype of generosity behind them, fell away, out of focus. She swayed, like in an electric trance. The air was pregnant, awaiting the spark that'd set the world back in motion.

Rarity looked down at the couture she wore, then swiftly pulled off the beautiful dress and tossed it to the filly. “It's yours.”

The mists of perception dissipated, and the world snapped into focus. Around Twilight, audience members roused and murmured. A photographer slowly lifted his camera up and snapped a photo, like he'd never done it before. Then he wound the film reel and snapped another, and another, coming out of his trance. More photographers snapped photos until the auditorium was alive with flashing bulbs and the whir of winding film reels.

“Rarity's done it again.” Hoity-Toity stomped the ground, and everypony else joined in applause. “Bravo! Good show!”

“That was amazing!” Twilight called.

Rarity looked down at her, frowning. “What happened to your uniform?”

Twilight cocked her head. “What uniform?”

“Your police uniform.”

Twilight narrowed her eyes. “I....don't have one?” But a memory gleamed in her mind's eye. Wasn't she just wearing a uniform? And wasn't Lucky Clover with her? She looked around, didn't see him, and wrote the memory off as a trick of the mind. It faded like a dream.

“Am I back?” Rarity whispered, her eyes wide, her voice strained.

“And better than ever, I say!” Hoity-Toity declared.

Rarity burst into squeals of insane laughter. She hopped off the stage and embraced Twilight, crying, “I missed you so much!”

“We just saw each other,” Twilight said, surprised. “We were talking about the Saddle Arabian Book of the Dead when you disappeared.”

“I did?”

“You got up and walked out all of a sudden. But I'm glad you didn't ruin this great surprise, Rarity!”

Rarity pulled away and looked at the chandelier resting on the stage, untold thoughts shining behind her eyes. “A stunt, yes. That's what it was.”

The filly clutching Rarity's dress trotted over. “Thank you so much! When I grow up, I wanna be a fashionista like you!”

Giggling, Rarity scooped her up and twirled around with her. "Don't be a fashionista like me. The hours are long and the work is boring. Be somepony who makes beautiful things, forever and ever." With a mysterious smile, she set the dizzy filly down and, her eyes dazzling, turned to the lobby doors. “Twilight, I have some dresses to make. Will you accompany me?”

“I'm not a good seamstress....”

Rarity offered her a warm smile, said, “As long as we're together, it doesn't matter,” and galloped out of the auditorium, ablaze with delight.

Twilight followed, struggling to shake off that dreaming feeling. But then, according to the ancient Saddle Arabians, all of life was a dream. An illusion pulled over a pony's eyes, occasionally allowing something divine to shine through.

Heavy stuff.

Then Twilight turned her thoughts to life's other great mystery, even more unfathomable and bizarre: where the mind one of those crazy ponies she called friends was at. Breaking into a smile, she galloped to keep pace with Rarity, eager to find out where she was going.