Nothing is actually a rarity. We tend to not think about it, but most, if not all people have never seen it, touched it or experienced it. As little sense as it might sound to make: nothing is always something.
The same can be said about Equestria and its inhabitants.
And in the middle of those inhabitants was Rarity, who was doing something, and then got interrupted by the sound of the door of her boutique and the raspy voice of one of her friends. A blue one with wings.
“Hey Rarity! It’s me, I’ve got something to ask you.” Rainbow Dash shouted through the boutique.
The white unicorn sighed, smiled at the idea of having an opportunity of being of help to one of her friends, and abandoned her work to go greet the pegasus in need.
“But of course, Rainbow Dash, what is it you want to inquire about?” she asked.
“Well, I… Ooooooooh.” was the response she obtained.
Rarity stopped and looked around to try to find out what had provoked such a reaction, but saw nothing. Or to be more precise, she could see one thing: the very weird and awkward expression Rainbow Dash had while looking at her.
“Are you…” the pegasus began, hesitant. “Are you feeling okay?”
It was Rarity’s turn to hesitate. What kind of question was that? Of course she was feeling “okay”. Why would her friend even wonder about it? Things were taking such an unexpected turn the unicorn had difficulties knowing how to handle it all.
“Why?” she asked. “Is something wrong?”
By reflex, she levitated a mirror all around her to judge by herself, but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary and certainly no cause for alarm.
“No, no…” Rainbow Dash replied with a very unconvincing tone. “It’s nothing, nothing at all.”
Still, at the same time, the pegasus had begun slowly backing away in the direction of the door, while still looking directly at Rarity’s face with nothing but fear and a bit of disgust.
“What is it?” Rarity asked again, now pretty worried. “What is going on? Didn’t you have a question you wanted to ask me?”
“It was nothing important. I… suddenly remembered I… have to go somewhere.” obviously lied the pegasus. “Like right now.”
And without any more warning, Rainbow Dash fled the boutique in a hurry, taking off outside as if her life depended on it, leaving only a cloud of dust and a very confused Rarity.
The unicorn thought about what had just happened, looked once again in her mirror, and saw nothing to be alarmed about. Whatever had impacted Rainbow Dash so much had had to have vanished. Or maybe there was nothing to begin with, just like Rainbow Dash herself had said.
Rarity left the mirror on a table and went back to her work. She still had a lot to do and very little time for such silliness. In fact, the dress she was working on was requiring quite a lot of effort from her part, as she had decided to tackle quite a challenge this time and creating the needed harmony from the different color schemes and types of fabric was taking every little bit of talent she had.
And still, she couldn’t feel otherwise but as if there was something wrong with some details on the dress. Or maybe with the dress itself. Or its design.
Or its designer.
Rarity stopped and noticed her heart was beating way too fast for it to be normal. In fact, she could feel something heavy bugging her from the inside, near her stomach, and even thought for a second she had begun to sweat.
Just to be sure, she went to a mural mirror and examined her face, mane and fur in details. But no matter with what scrutiny she searched, she didn’t find anything.
She was fine.
Everything was just fine.
She went back to work and put a few pieces of fabric together to form a new motif, before deciding it would be better to change it. She took the pieces of fabric away and put them back in the form of another motif and still felt unsatisfied. A third attempt didn’t bring any better result.
She went back to the mirror, then to another mirror because the first ones might have been faulty, and then to another one because she still couldn’t see what was wrong.
At the seventh mirror, she just shouted a loud “come on!” out of anger and, unaware of it, out of anxiety. She could feel there was something wrong, but didn’t have the analytic capacity to realize the logical part of her mind was facing a cognitive problem with seemingly only illogical solutions, which was impossible and incredibly frustrating.
On one hoof, she could clearly see there was nothing wrong with her. Rainbow Dash had even said so herself. But on the other hoof, the same Rainbow Dash had been frightened by something, something so horrid she didn’t even dare say it directly. And knowing how insensitive and direct Rainbow Dash could be, that was telling a lot about the gravity of the situation.
Rarity had to know. It was very easy. If she couldn’t see it herself, another one of her friend would. And that other friend would tell her that everything was fine, that she had nothing to worry about. Or maybe that there was something wrong with her indeed. Something very, very wrong.
Rarity gulped at the idea and rushed outside to find somepony, even tripping in the dirt and deciding to ignore it as she was in such a hurry she had stopped looking where she was putting her hooves.
“Fluttershy!” Rarity shouted at the same time she opened the cottage’s door.
In a quarter of second, all of the animals in the cottage found refuge at the other side of the room and only after a few seconds did the head of the yellow pegasus emerged from the pile of animals she had hidden behind.
“Rarity?” the pegasus asked, with the tone of somepony who has difficulties recognizing the pony who just entered.
“Fluttershy, you have to tell me: is there anything wrong with me? Can you see anything, anything at all?” Rarity asked in a hurry.
“You want to know if…” slowly began Fluttershy, to Rarity’s displeasure as the unicorn wanted to know immediately and to avoid copouts.
“Tell me if there is anything wrong with me! Now!” she demanded with authority, grabbing her yellow friend by the shoulders.
“Yes, I mean no, I mean, I don’t know…” Fluttershy replied, closing her eyes and looking away, as if to avoid looking at Rarity’s face.
“What is it?” Rarity asked. “You said yes. tell me what it is: I need to know!”
“It’s… it’s nothing. Please let go of me.” Fluttershy asked, clearly afraid and still unwilling to look at Rarity’s face.
Rarity knew she could press the issue and obtain an answer by forcing it out of her shy friend. But she also understood she was causing more harm than she was really willing to in order to obtain that same answer. Even now, she wasn’t a monster. At least not yet.
She let go of Fluttershy who quickly fled the room to find refuge in the kitchen.
It didn’t matter. Twilight Sparkle did however.
She would know what was going on. She would find the answer.
In less time than is needed to say it, Rarity had left the cottage and, with some precautions to be seen by as few ponies as possible, she reached the castle and entered it. The sooner she would be able to speak with Twilight, the sooner she would be fixed on the whole thing. That was a pretty comforting thought.
Rarity relaxed a bit and focused on advancing through the castle while still making sure she wouldn’t make any undesired encounter in case she really was looking so horribly bad. But if everything went right, she could go back home her head high and maybe go back to Fluttershy’s cottage and apologize.
In fact, she was beginning to believe she might have overreacted a tiny bit.
“But I can’t tell Rarity!” said the raspy voice of Rainbow Dash from another room, stopping Rarity in her track.
“You’ll have to. Or one of us will have to at some point.” said Twilight’s voice in response, as Rarity, put in the position of ear dropping stood still.
“What if we just ignore it?” proposed Rainbow Dash’s voice with a mix of hope and anxiety. “She doesn’t have to ever learn about it. If she doesn’t know, it won’t hurt her, right? Right?”
“And how long will it be before she discovers it by herself? I know the truth can hurt, but she is our friend, your friend and she does deserve that truth.”
“I know, I know… It’s just… I never expected it to become so big so fast. It’s out of control. If you had only seen it yourself. I felt so bad for her. Do you think it can be fixed?”
“I don’t know…”
Rarity had heard enough. Or more precisely, she just didn’t want to hear any more about it. Twilight was right: the truth can hurt. And in that case, it was hurting very badly. So badly that Rarity began to cry. She tried to stop the tears, to be strong, to face her newly found fate with courage and determination, but she cracked and the flow of tears only intensified.
She wouldn’t be able to show herself in society anymore. She would have to get accustomed of the disgusted looks of the other ponies looking at her and turning away. And to have stallions avoid her. And Spike too. And maybe her own parents.
She had no idea what was going to happen. Her whole world had been built on being able to offer beauty and amazement all around her, through a lot of hard work that she always found to be more than worth it.
And now what?
Things were going to change. She didn’t want those things to change. Her friends would probably pity her enough to stand by her side, but how good could it feel to be the subject of pity?
There was one solution however: to begin everything all over again, with those new circumstances, but somewhere else, doing something else, and with other ponies.
She had to go.
And those thoughts leading her body, she was already preparing her suitcase, trying to figure out what clothes a monster should wear when she heard her bedroom’s door open and the voice of her little sister calling for her.
She quickly hid under her bed sheet and shouted:
“Don’t look at me Sweetie Belle! I don’t want you to see me like that.”
“What’s going on big sis’?” asked Sweetie Belle’s voice, seemingly very worried from the sound of it.
“It’s nothing. I just don’t want you to look at my face.”
“Come on now… it can’t be that bad. Did you put too much mascara or something?”
Sweetie Belle was coming nearer and nearer. Rarity could hear the sound of her hooves on the floor. The encounter was inevitable.
“Please don’t look at me!” she implored her little sister. “I want you to remember me the way I was before, when you could look up to me. When you could be proud to call me your big sister.”
The hooves sounds stopped.
“Is it really that bad?” Sweetie Belle asked. “What happened? What can I do?”
“I… I don’t know.”
“Please big sister. Tell me what is going on…”
Rarity was crying again, because she loved her little sister very much, and Sweetie Belle had begun crying too, because she loved her big sister very much.
“I don’t care!” suddenly said the little filly to the mare. “You’re my family. And you will always be my big sister, not matter what you look like.”
And having said those words, Sweetie Belle jumped on the bed and touched Rarity’s back through the bed sheet with her hoof.
Feeling her sibling’s comforting hoof, Rarity cracked and turned her monstrous and tears covered face to her little sister who, as expected, did back away from the sight. But unexpectedly, Sweetie Belle immediately changed her attitude and hugged Rarity with all her might and love.
Overwhelmed by the joy she was feeling, Rarity also hugged her little sister feeling more grateful than she could have ever thought possible.
“You see.” said Sweetie Belle. “It’s not nearly that bad.”
“I guess you’re right.” Rarity happily replied.
“No, I mean… it’s not nearly as bad as you seemed to say it was.” Sweetie Belle explained.
Rarity’s mind stopped for a second or two.
“What do you mean?” she finally asked the little filly.
“Well, you do look like you’ve been crying a lot, but you do look fine to me.”
“But I’ve become terribly deformed… or something!” almost complained Rarity, unable to understand what had already become obvious.
At that moment, somepony knocked on the door of the house and Twilight Sparkle’s voice called for Rarity, saying that Rainbow Dash had something to say.
“I’m sorry…” the pegasus said. “I didn’t think you would get all worked up about it like that. I just wanted to see if it would work…”
“I don’t understand…” Rarity replied, confused beyond limit. “What do you mean?”
“She is trying to explain that she made one bad joke on you.” Twilight explained, understanding some corners would have to be cut short.
“A joke?”
“Pinkie Pie did it first to me by making me believe I was losing all my feathers, so I thought I would try to prank you seeing how you always care so much about how you look.” Rainbow Dash quickly said. “And it worked fine at first, you should have seen your face!”
The pegasus of course quickly realized that last remark was misplaced and she apologized.
“But when I saw you exit your boutique, all worried and all, I understood the joke had gone too far, so I went to Twilight and she told me I should tell you and there we are…”
“So, you have come to tell me what is wrong with me?” Rarity asked, still confused.
“No. There is nothing wrong with you. It was all just a joke.” Rainbow Dash explained. “A bad joke. I’m sorry.”
“But…” Rarity began to reply, as her mind still had difficulties understanding that she had made such a fuss over nothing whatsoever.
“Actually, if you look in a mirror, you’ll be able to see it.” Twilight said, deciding to take the matter in her own hooves. “Your mane could need a bit of brushing and your face is a bit of a mess. Also, you have a few traces of dirt on your fur.”
Rarity took the mirror Twilight was providing to her and saw that it was all true. It all made sense then and she knew what she could do to correct it.
“Oh dear! Please excuse me.” Rarity said with glee in her voice. “I need a quick minute to take care of myself.”
A second later, she was in the bathroom, under the shower, efficiently correcting every little mistake to regain the perfect look she always worked so hard to achieve.
“What?” Twilight asked, as Rainbow Dash was looking at her weirdly. “I just told her what she wanted to hear, that’s all.”
At that moment, the house door opened and, after a little bit of time, Fluttershy slowly and carefully entered, happy to have finally found Twilight.
“I’m sorry to intrude…” she began. “But I was told I could find you here and I need to talk with you about Rarity. I… I think… I mean… She came to my home earlier and I think there might be something wrong with her….”
Twilight and Dash looked at each other and suddenly burst out laughing.
“Don’t worry.” Dash replied:
“It’s nothing.”
THE END
Author's Note
The cutie mark crusaders just got their cutie marks, and I celebrate by writing a story that has nothing to do with that fact and about nothing...
Given that it is the second time I do it, I probably just like writing about nothing.
I'm not even really sure to know what the story is actually supposed to be about...
