Author's Note
~ Dedicated to my dress. ~
One day you, too, will be complete.
Perfect
She sat in the middle of her boutique, staring at her latest creation. It wasn't quite done, not quite finished, not yet concluded. Regardless, the dress was breathtaking in every way: the design was mesmerizing, the seams were strong, and the minimalistic use of gemstones added the perfect touch. It was turning out exactly as she imagined in her mind. It was flawless. It was awe-inspiring.
But it was still incomplete.
She let out an audible sigh and once again trotted over to her design plan. Here her dress was. On paper. Exactly as she had imagined. Each time she looked at it, her breath caught in her throat. She had to finish this. This could be the very dress to earn her the recognition and fame she deserved.
Taking a deep breath, she returned to the dress and continued her work. She gritted her teeth stubbornly as she folded over two sheets of fabric and sewed them together. She was going to have this finished tonight—she could feel it!
Impatience and excitement coursed through her veins, the adrenaline serving as the most effective fuel for her imagination. The design was incredibly complex, but it was sure to be everything she had imagined and more.
Another stitch, another thread. Eagerly, she began backstitching to ensure that the seams were strong. She could already hear what they would say about this dress: her friends would say how amazing it was, the social elites would remark how "unique" it was, and the journalists would gush over how sensational it was.
She was confident that this dress would break all barriers, catch all eyes, and obliterate all expectations. All she had to do was finish the dress and her dreams would finally come true.
She was interrupted by the chime of her clock. She glanced at it.
Midnight.
"My! Where has all the time run off to?" She looked back at her dress and bit her lip. She had her weekly trip to the spa with her friend first thing the next morning. "It would seem that I must continue with this tomorrow."
She didn't want to leave her work incomplete like this—again—but she had no choice. A lady should always get her beauty sleep, and nopony knew this better than her. Begrudgingly, she left her work and headed towards her bed.
I will get this dress finished tomorrow. I will.
~
"Why thank you, Rarity," her friend said as the two approached the boutique. "I had a lovely time as always. I'm sure I can find some way to repay—"
"That won't be necessary, Fluttershy," she chuckled. "You say this every week. I absolutely insist that the spa is 'on me', as it were."
Her friend smiled politely and looked away. "You're too generous sometimes."
"And you're too kind," she chided her friend. "Perhaps the afternoon next week?"
"If it's not too much of a bother…"
"Of course not," she replied. "I hope you have a good day, Fluttershy, but I really should go. I have a project that I simply must finish."
"O-okay."
She smiled and nodded before turning around to walk into the boutique. Once inside, she took a deep breath. The spa had worked wonders with relieving the pent-up stress that she didn't even know she had. She now felt relaxed, rejuvenated and more than prepared to take on her task once again.
Approaching the dress, she traced her hoof over the fabrics. It was just as amazing as she remembered. The colors, the hems, the gemstones—it was going to be breathtaking. It was going to be stunning. It was going to be her best work yet
It was going to be her magnum opus.
She danced on the spot as the thought occurred to her. This dress was going to take Equestria by storm. All she had to do was finish it.
With renewed vigor, she resumed her work on the dress. Glancing back at the design, she levitated several bolts of cloth towards herself, each a slightly different shade from the last. Just imagining the marvelous gradient gracefully complementing the fabric had her heart racing. Away her scissors chopped, slicing up sheet after sheet of cloth. The image of her perfect dress was still burned perfectly into her mind's eye.
"Rarity, you said we were going to go to the park today," a voice called.
She snapped out of her reverie and glanced up to see her little sister standing in the doorway.
"I-I did?" she asked. Quickly she racked her brains for when she might have promised such a thing and groaned as the memory swiftly resurfaced.
"Yes! On Monday. I came from class, told you about my day, and then—"
"Of course, Sweetie," she replied. "Let me just tidy up here." Inwardly she sighed at the unwanted interruption, but put away the bolts of cloth and spools of thread anyway. The dress could wait just one more day.
"One more day," she muttered to herself. "I will do this tomorrow."
~
One week later.
"Thank you, girls. It was a lovely evening," she said. "However, I'm afraid I must retire. I'm absolutely shattered. Good night!"
She walked inside, a hail of "good night"s chasing her inside. She walked through the hallway and into her bedroom. Her large bed beckoned, warm and welcoming. Out of the corner of her eye, however, she spotted a familiar sight calling her name.
"Tomorrow," she whispered. "I will do it tomorrow. I will."
Deep down, she knew it was a lie. Deep down, she knew she was deluding herself. The perfect design was still lying on her table. Her perfect dress was still burning in her mind.
And yet…
And yet something was stopping her. She couldn't tell what it was, but it was there. Oppressive and restrictive, it took away all her determination and motivation. She looked at the dress and begged herself to finish it, but alas, she could not bring herself to do so. The void of motivation left only a cold, dark hole.
"Tomorrow," she whispered. "Tomorrow."
Tomorrow was all she could think of.
~
One month later.
She sat in the middle of her boutique, staring at her latest creation. It wasn't quite done, not quite finished, not yet concluded. Regardless, the dress was amazing in every way: the design was eye-catching, the seams were durable, and the sequins that lined the borders of the fabric gave it just the right touch of grace. It was turning out exactly as she imagined in her mind. It was impressive. It was astonishing.
But it wasn't perfect. It just wasn't the same.
This wasn't the first time that she found her gaze being dragged back over to that dress. It silently begged her to continue. She wanted to oblige and finish the dress so badly.
But she couldn't.
"What's wrong with me?" she whimpered. Not for the first time, she walked cautiously over to the dress. With an enormous amount of care, she delicately ran her hoof across it. The choice of fabric was perfect and the choice of stitching was exactly what she had in mind.
She knew exactly why she couldn't continue it. No matter how much she dreamed of completing the dress, she knew that there was no way she could allow herself.
"It's perfect," she whispered again.
She couldn't continue it because she didn't want to ruin it. It was a perfect dress. If she continued, she risked ruining it. She could not ruin it. She would not ruin it. She would not allow herself.
Eliciting another sigh, she stared sullenly at the dress.
"How are you going to make it big when you can't even finish one stupid, little dress?" she hissed in frustration.
It wasn't one stupid, little dress, however; it was her greatest project, her magnum opus. This had to be done right. This had to be done perfectly. There was simply no room for error.
And I'm not going to make that error.
She hardened her resolve. She could do this. She just had to focus and put her mind to the task. She'd many dresses before, and she was going to make many dresses more. This design may call for a high ability, but she was more than prepared to rise and meet the expectations.
"No more procrastinating."
With that thought taken care of, she grabbed her bolts fabrics and spools of threads and began to continue her work.
"Thread by thread," she murmured, weaving a thread through two strips of cloth with the utmost care. She delicately measured the stitches, ensuring they were perfectly spaced out, yet close enough together to ensure the dress had no chance of ripping. The strength in a dress came from the seams, after all.
"Snip by snip." She brought her scissors down and carefully sliced through the fabric along a line she had drawn at some point over the last month. "Stitching them together."
Bringing the next layer of fabric over to her dress, she measured the sizes, making sure the cloth was correctly facing. Everything had to be perfect.
And it was going to be perfect.
She found herself smiling. She was doing it. She was completing the dress, and it was turning out exactly as she'd hoped. If she pushed herself, she was sure she could have it done that same night.
~
A clock chimed.
3am.
"W-what? Where has all the time run off to?" she gasped in horror. There was no way that her time could be over already. "I've only just started!"
Once again, a feeling in her gut reminded herself of her lies. She wasn't even close to completing her dress; she had spent the last three hours doing little other than staring at her design, pondering its potential, imagining just how each pony she knew would react to her splendid creation. But her dress, her magnum opus, lay as incomplete as it had been when she had begun.
She wanted to cry. She wanted to be angry. She wanted to feel something. But she just felt empty. Drained. Exhausted. She couldn't even bring herself to feel anything other than apathy.
What's wrong with me?
She rubbed her hoof against her temple, trying to clear her head, but her chest still felt just as heavy. She didn't feel ill, she didn't feel stressed, and she didn't feel depressed.
I feel… empty.
She took a deep breath in, but not even a lungful of air could fill that hole. With a whimper of resignation, she dragged herself to her bed and collapsed onto it. Once upon a time, it might have been dramatic, but she couldn't be bothered with drama anymore.
Her eyelids felt like lead as they weighed down upon her. She groaned as she fell into a troubled sleep, only vaguely remembering she had to be up early the next morning.
~
One year later.
"Rarity?" a voice called. "Rarity, are you in there?"
She couldn't answer. She didn't want to.
"You don't come out much," the voice continued. "We're kinda worried about you."
Somehow, she managed to find her voice at this.
"I'm fine," she declared confidently as she continued to stare at her design.
I will finish it.
"Will you come out, Rarity?"
She considered the proposal. It seemed so tempting—a chance to see her friends again. She really did love her friends…
But that would mean less time spent completing this dress… and I can't do that.
"I'm afraid I'm rather busy with my orders at the moment," she replied. "Perhaps tomorrow?"
There was a moment of silence as the pony considered her counter-proposal.
"Do you promise you'll be there?"
"Of course." She responded with a hint of hesitance.
Another few seconds of silence passed before a sigh of resignation came from the other side of the door.
"Okay," the pony sighed.
She closed her eyes and counted the hoofsteps as they faded away down the hall.
I promise you that I'll come out as soon as I've finished this dress.
She longed for something dramatic to follow that statement: a single tear to roll down her cheek, her heartbeat to quicken, adrenaline to race—jaw clenched, eyes squeezed shut—
Nothing.
She felt nothing.
She let out another sigh of defeat, the same one she'd let out a hundred times before but which had somehow managed to find its way back into her lungs again. Walking over to the paper design, she traced a hoof along the contours. It was truly a spectacle. A remarkable phenomenon that only she would ever know. The perfect dress existed only in her imagination. She knew that now.
She trotted towards her dress and eyed the perfect design enviously. How could her past self be more skilled than she was now? That didn't make any sense. She considered destroying it, burning it, starting over and designing the perfect dress from scratch—surely there was no better way to ignite the dead spark within her—but the idea was dismissed as quickly as it was summoned. She could not bring herself to destroy her own work.
It was the same reason why she hadn't given up. She couldn't give up her work. To do so would mean that all that time would be wasted, that the past year had all been for naught.
She could not let that happen.
So instead, she did what she always did: she stared. She watched her dress with hungry eyes, hoping that one day it would rise up and finish itself, just like it did in her imagination.
Everything seemed to be better in her imagination. Reality was brutal with its cruel revelation that life isn't fair and nopony was spared any mercy.
She let out another sigh and trotted over to her bed. Perhaps some shuteye would help clear her head? It was another lie she'd told herself a hundred times before. Each time, she'd lain down on the bed and hours of her life flashed by.
She lay on her back, staring up at the ceiling of her room. Unfortunately, there was no inspiration up there to be found. She had already checked.
Instead, she emptied her mind of all thoughts. She could have closed her eyes, but the white ceiling had filled her vision and she found it most pleasant. She let her mind wander, as it usually did. It usually went to some strange places, but all of those places were far away from the world, her friends, her family, her work—everything.
It was her little escape.
Something felt different this time, however. As she stared up at the ceiling, a design floated in front of her mind's eye. The familiar pattern was unmistakable; it was the same design that had haunted her for over a year now. Even after all this time, the image had burned so much that it had left a scar in her mind. It was never going to leave her.
Once again, she found her hoof tracing across the contours, carefully measuring each angle. She tasted each color with her imagination, testing to see what went best together.
And then suddenly it hit her.
"I've got it!" she cried. "I've got it! I've got it! I've got it! By Celestia, I've got it!"
She leaped out of bed and dashed towards her design sheet, her mind abuzz, her heart pumping erratically. Within seconds, she felt more alive than she had ever done in the last year. It was all so clear now.
"Purple, not blue!" she gasped. "What was I thinking?"
Multitudes of thread floated off the floor and pooled together on her desk. Dozens of bolts of fabric flung out and arranged themselves in the air. Her magic only seemed to grow stronger as she became more and more determined. Within seconds, her room was brimming with fabrics, threads and magic.
"More violet!" she cried, furiously taking measurements and slicing great sections of fabric. They raced around the room in a furious tempest, and erratic fibers darted through the air, piercing the fabrics in a frantic dance.
"Yes!"
Five more pieces of fabric joined the first, and together they swirled around to become one with her dress. Two spools of thread waltzed over to the dress and began to stitch each part together. Her magic turned the pieces inside out, forming perfect hems.
Perfect fabric.
Perfect stitches.
"This will be perfect!"
She couldn't hold her delight any longer. She let it fill her up, filling the dark hole inside her. In an instant the hole was gone, and she was free. A genuine smile, wider than any other, threatened to stretch her perfect skin. It was perhaps on par with even Pinkie Pie.
She was so close now. Another few stitches, another few hems. In and out the fibers weaved. A dozen tiny amethysts floated past her head. With surgical precision, she placed them in neat rows, just like it was in her design, just like it was in her imagination.
Her breath came in short gasps. She'd never felt so alive.
Finally she could say she had achieved perfection. Finally she could say her magnum opus was ready. Finally she could say that her dress was
