Rainbow Dash chuckled mischievously to herself as she hovered in place, rubbing her forehooves together. “This is gonna be rich!”
The pegasus was currently clad in a black body suit and spying on her quarry through their bedroom window in the dead of night, ensuring that the conditions were optimal for the prank that Rainbow Dash was preparing to spring on her unsuspecting friend. Through the window pane, Rarity was fast asleep, a sleep mask worn around her eyes that to Rainbow’s mind might as well have been a glowing neon sign with multiple arrows that read “Prank me.”
Another tirade of laughter threatened to burst out from her, and Rainbow Dash covered her lips to stifle it. This prank isn't too much on the creepy side, right? Rainbow scoffed at her own conscience. As if! It’s totally not creepy enough.
“Let’s do this!” the mare exclaimed under her breath, her confidence boosted by Rarity’s deep and quite audible snores, which managed to ring clearly even through the window.
Rainbow Dash smirked as she flew to another side of the Carousel Boutique’s second story, looking over her shoulder to make sure that nobody was present on the street who could potentially spot her. It simply wouldn't do to be mistook for a nefarious burglar on the prowl. She was greeted by yet another identical window, this one opening up to another bedroom. Rainbow smiled when she saw that the room’s bed was empty.
Sweetie Bell was almost certainly back home with Rarity’s parents, which meant that this night was apparently going in Rainbow Dash’s favour.
The window opened up with an innocent enough sounding creak of wood, too low in volume to have alerted any but the most paranoid or energetic of ponies. Rainbow Dash slipped into the room, careful not to disturb any of its contents too much as she ominously floated through to the hallway.
Rainbow scanned both ways, one leading to Rarity’s bedroom, and the other leading to a closet and bathroom.
“All clear,” she whispered to herself. “Time to check on our little friends downstairs.” With that, Rainbow Dash confidently ghosted her way down the stairs and into Carousel Boutique itself like some silent terror of the night. Upon reaching the front room, she saw them instantly.
The ponyquins.
Some were festooned with smartly designed outfits in varying stages of completion, while others were left bare and forlorn looking in the darkness of the room. Either way, they were all as they usually were, standing stock-still in their positions around the room and staring.
Always staring.
Taking to hovering with her wings once again, Rainbow Dash tried her strength and hefted one of them experimentally. To her satisfaction, the ponyquin proved to be much lighter than it initially seemed.
“Sweet,” Rainbow Dash said. “You’ll all do quite nicely.”
The weight factor had proven to also be in Rainbow Dash’s favour. By now, she was positively beaming with impish delight, a grin splitting her face almost from ear to ear in a display that could put a quite disturbed Twilight to shame. However, Rainbow’s grin faltered away as a thought crossed her mind. Before she could proceed any further with her plan, there was just one final thing she had to double-check, or everything could be for naught.
With her ears flicking around with pent up anticipation, Rainbow Dash quietly made her way back upstairs to Rarity’s room and reached for the knob.
“Darn it!” Rarity’s bedroom door opened with an audible creak, causing Rainbow Dash to scold the door with a whispering hiss for its attempts to betray her plan to its owner. “Stupid door. Stupid old hinges!”
The door responded in kind by rapping against the side of Rarity’s wardrobe with greater force than Rainbow Dash had intended. The contents on the dresser top began to wobble with the wardrobe itself as a consequence, threatening to tumble over onto the ground and ruin her element of surprise forever.
Rainbow Dash stole a nervous glance at her friend and gulped as she stood in the threshold of the door. Rarity stirred lightly in her sleep, gave out a particularly loud snore, and twitched a hind leg a bit as it was exposed out from the covers, but she otherwise gave no indication at having been disturbed.
As the cupful of drawing utensils, reels of fabric, spools of yarn, and collection of sewing needles wobbled about, Rainbow Dash’s heart rate increased. “No…no-no, don’t you dare!”
The others thankfully stopped save for the fabric reels and the cup of utensils, which was dangerously close to toppling over and producing an almighty clatter on the stylish pink wooden floor. Rainbow Dash shot a hoof up and averted disaster on that end, but unfortunately opened up a path for the reels of fabric to come tumbling down in a hail of treachery that gravity and inanimate objects were infamous for.
Rainbow watched helplessly as the reels went on their merry way onto the floor and produced a dull thud, the weight of the fabric muffling the impact with the oak floor. The pegasus braced herself for the worst. Rarity stirred again and turned onto her side from the auditory disruption.
Rarity then mumbled something with a distressed voice. “Uhh…No, no uh, anything but drab olive!” She snored, and her leg twitched again, as her drowsy mumbling continued. “Dear Gods in heaven…that tacky embroidery. What was I thinking? Sweet Celestia, it’s a-a fashion abomination…uhh…” It would seem even her manner of speech in the Dreamworld was a modicum on the dramatic side.
Nevertheless, Rainbow Dash’s stomach was now doing jumping jacks all throughout the ordeal. Rarity must have no longer been in a deep sleep any longer, if her murmurings were any indication. At any moment now, Rarity’s eyes would shoot open without warning, she’d take off her sleep mask, and Rainbow would be discovered, rooted to the spot with tension as she was.
Rarity let out an unladylike snort and started gesturing her forelegs lightly in the air. “Pinkie Pie, darling, please don’t touch it! It’s-it’s-it’s…too hideous! I must burnt it at once! Burn it with fire! Yes…” She was bound to wake up any second, now. Surely this is the end of Rainbow’s prank for good…
In a final second that made Rainbow Dash sigh quietly with relief, Rarity’s restless stirring ceased and she became tranquil again. Her dream-induced murmuring ceased and her regular, relaxed and thundering snores returned.
“Heh-heh. Wow, Rarity could probably sleep through an artillery barrage…” Rainbow Dash plastered her devious grin back on her face and wrung her hooves conspiratorially. “Deep sleep, and we’re back in business!”
Wasting no time, Rainbow Dash departed the room and headed back downstairs and grabbed the nearest ponyquin. She made several silent trips up and down the stairs that night, barely able to contain her chuckling as she set up her prank.
Rarity awoke from her sleep with a long, boisterous yawn.
After taking a moment to stretch her muscles, the stirring clothier idly ran a hoof through her soft and silky mane. The violet-indigo hair was loose and flowing, still untouched and awaiting yet another daily round of styling despite its already natural beauty.
Satisfied that her hair was just the right amount of pleasant silkiness to indicate the likelihood of a pleasant day ahead, Rarity finally motioned to remove the sleep mask and take in the pleasant visage of sunlight as it filtered in through her window. She could even hear the birds chirping just outside.
Unfortunately for her, a different scene was lying in wait to greet her instead. When the sleep mask came off, Rarity could only blink at her surroundings as her heart began beating in her throat.
They were everywhere.
Ponyquins.
Staring.
Silently.
All twelve of them from the shop below were positioned in a rough semicircle around Rarity’s bed, peering into her soul with piercing, non-existent eyes. To make matters worse, someone had shuttered the curtains and darkened the room in the night, leaving only just enough morning sunlight now to make out the small army of pony-shaped silhouettes that stood like demonic wraiths straight out of Tartarus.
Naturally, Rarity did the only thing anyone could do when greeted with such a sight.
Rarity’s subsequent screams were loud enough that they carried out into the surrounding marketplace, frightening away several patrons from the stalls that had opened for the morning.
The screaming was easily heard by Rainbow Dash, who ended up breaking into so much laughter that she was exhausted enough after the fit to want to take a nap on a flat cloud bank, and so she did.
When she finally awoke from her catnap later in the day, it was not a voluntary action. Somepony was nudging her with a hoof, trying to get her attention.
“Ughhh…five more minutes, then I’ll get started on the northern sky, I swear!” Rainbow Dash muttered to no one in particular, not bothering to open her eyes as she curled herself up like a cat, since the source of the nudging hadn’t even uttered her name yet. If they spoke her name, they must have meant business, but instead they remained silent.
Whomever the nudging pony was, they were being quite insistent about it too, for they tried tapping on her nearest wing, next. Apparently, that was enough.
Rainbow Dash finally lifted one eye open lazily to regard the annoyance, but then promptly opened both and widened them when her mind registered what it was.
Two dozen ponyquins greeted her, their bodies fully animate now, and glowing with a light-blue aura. They were all standing atop the cloud before her as if it were the most natural thing in the world, looking at her with their heads tilted expectantly, as if waiting for her response.
They were not disappointed.
Back down to earth, Rarity felt a smug grin overtake her fair features as she browsed through the Ponyville market, humming a merry tune.
It sounded as if a goddess had just stubbed her divine toe on something in Elysium above, for a loud bout of screaming was rippling down from the heavens, much to the merchants’ absolute bewilderment, and a large cloud bank had just been disrupted as a pegasus darted away from it with a rainbow blur.
Rarity greeted the spectacle with a satisfied huff, and giggled as she laid some bits down at a produce stall, accepting a bag of tomatoes and carrots from the stupefied salespony. “A bit rusty…but I’ve still got it!”
