Ribbons and Lace

Rarity had finally fallen to puttering, just wasting time with busy-work to keep herself occupied, barely paying it any attention. There were two reasons: first, the Grand Galloping Gala loomed less than twenty-four hours away. The unicorn was so excited she could hardly sit still. The second reason was sitting at the work bench, diligently pushing needle through fabric.

Fluttershy certainly had the hang of the new stitch by now, and she didn’t need Rarity pestering her and breaking her concentration. Therefore, Rarity focused on remaining silent and keeping her eyes off the pegasus’s work. Instead, she apathetically sorted a small pile of rubies by size and clarity and daydreamed of the soirée.

At long last, the pegasus gave a satisfied nod and slid the needle off of its thread. Rarity sprang to her hooves and peeked over Fluttershy’s shoulder to examine the decorative topstitch the pegasus was tying off on the hem of her ballgown.

“You were certainly right about the machine stitching, darling. That looks simply fabulous!” she gushed. “I wish I’d had the time and ponypower to hoof-stitch all the dresses I sent to Hoity Toity.”

Fluttershy tugged the knot tight with her teeth and graced Rarity with a small, proud smile. “Well, you were under a deadline. I shouldn’t have complained in the first place.” A look crept into her big, warm eyes that Rarity would have called… sly, on anyone else. “But now I’ll look just a teensy bit better than anyone else who buys one of your dresses.”

Rarity pressed a hoof to her mouth as she laughed, and Fluttershy’s mild giggle joined in. “Fluttershy, dear, you could wear a flour sack and still be the belle of the ball.”

The pegasus smiled, blushed, and mumbled a thank you.

“If it wouldn’t intrude on your day too badly,” the white mare continued, “I wonder if you could find the time to assist me with something…”

Fluttershy glanced out the window toward the setting sun and mumbled “um”. That meant no. “I suppose, if it wouldn’t take too long,” she hedged.

Rarity quickly amended the request. “Never mind, never mind!” she said airily. “I’m sure you’ve a lot to do before we leave tomorrow. It’s nothing so urgent – it will keep until after the Grand Galloping Gala.”

The evening had certainly not been very grand, and when Rarity had left, the ballroom had looked more like a war zone than a gala. There had been a good deal more galloping than expected, though.

The event had been an utter disappointment, there was no denying it. Rarity’s sky-high expectations had drained even the small satisfaction she should have felt in mingling seamlessly with nobility. Of course, an evening exploring Canterlot together – with Princess Celestia herself for a guide, no less! – was magical in its own way. She had goggled at Celestia’s enormous golden apple tree, gaped at the monstrous telescope inside the vast Royal Observatory dome, and swooned over the staggering light show refracted from the crown jewels. Rarity had lost herself in a parade of wonders, refusing to give another moment’s thought to Prince Not-At-All-Charming, but as the great clock tower tolled out ten solemn peals and the long carriage ride home loomed, a lump suddenly filled her throat and her eyes began to burn. The unicorn turned aside, allowing the rest of the party pull ahead while she pretended to smell one of the exotic flowers that thrived in the royal gardens thanks to the daily ministrations of a cadre of botanically-inclined unicorns. The Gala had been a flop, Prince Blueblood had been a boor, and every one of their lovely dresses had been ruined in the fray, but she could have absorbed all of that dry-eyed. Rarity mourned the death of her dream.

“Are you all right?” Fluttershy asked beside her.

Rarity let out a little yelp of surprise. She hadn't even noticed the quiet mare pausing with her! She quickly wiped her cheeks and mustered a brittle smile for the pegasus.

“I will be, darling. It was a silly dream, after all.” She barked a self-deprecating laugh. “Whoever heard of love at first sight, outside of a fairy tale?” A silly, foalish daydream. Yet… no less real for its absurdity. Though her head had known it was vanishingly unlikely, her heart had ever held out a tiny spark of hope that maybe, somehow, fairy tales really could come true.

“That doesn’t mean it wasn’t important to you,” Fluttershy said in a placating tone. “Maybe you just haven’t met your prince yet.”

“I’m afraid that particular dream is quite crushed,” she replied mildly, but the memories brought a flush to her face that was equal parts fury and embarrassment; a mere hour in the company of Prince Blueblood had been sufficient to not only smash her illusions, but grind them into a fine, stinging powder and blow it in her eyes just for cruelty's sake. The pragmatic part of her had been right all along.

A sob sneaked up on her and slipped out, then another, and before she knew it, Rarity was weeping openly. She felt Fluttershy embrace her and pressed her face into the offered shoulder, giving vent to her sorrow while gentle hooves held her and stroked her mane.

Oddly, for all Blueblood’s rudeness, the most ringing slap had been the way he rejected Applejack’s pastries. Implying that something so common as an apple fritter, no matter how delicious, was unworthy to even touch his lips had stung Rarity far more than he would have ever guessed. What, then, would he think of a common filly like her? A foolish girl of no noble blood, every bit as native to rustic little Ponyville as Applejack was. Perhaps the Prince's behavior had been a blessing in disguise; if he had been more debonaire and gentlecoltly, if he hadn’t repulsed her with his behavior at their first meeting, what then? Once he discovered her origins, would she have found herself spat out on the pavement next? Perhaps her dream had been doomed from the start, however well she might feign the aristocratic mien.

“There, there,” Fluttershy murmured, pulling her from her ruminations and self-pity. Rarity wrapped her arms around the pegasus and rubbed her face against Fluttershy’s neck, almost certainly smearing mascara on her coat. It was such a comfort just to have her friend there – a reality that couldn’t evaporate at the whim of an unkind word.

Concrete. Tangible. Real.

As she leaned on the pegasus both physically and emotionally, Rarity’s crying jag began to seem more and more foolish. It wasn’t as if her world were falling apart. She still had her friends, her business, her health… in fact, the only difference between yesterday and today was a bit of wisdom that she had earned the hard way.

The tears dried up of their own accord. Leaning against the pegasus’s warm chest in the moonlit royal garden, she could believe that everything was all right – and the belief made it reality. “Thank you, Fluttershy,” she murmured, sniffling softly as she got back on her hooves. She crossed her neck over the other mare’s in another firm hug. “I needed that.”

The other mare broke away with a reassuring smile. “Any time, Rarity.”

Rarity returned the smile ruefully and took a few moments to dab at her face with a handkerchief. “You always seem to see me at my worst,” she lamented.

A cheerful voice piped up a mere foot from Rarity’s ear. “That’s when you need your friends the most!”

“Pinkie found ‘em,” Applejack commented as an operatic shriek echoed across the garden.

Pinkie Pie burst from behind a shrub that was entirely too small to conceal her, never mind her voluminous gown. “Oh yeah, and Twilight says to shake a leg, ‘cause the carriage turns back into an apple at midnight!”

Rarity pressed a hoof against her chest to keep her heart from leaping out while Fluttershy disentangled her dress from the bush she had dived into. “Thank you, Pinkie,” she said, puffing out an unsteady breath while she gathered her composure. “I certainly wouldn’t want to miss the chance to thank our esteemed hostess!”