A She-devil in Plain Sight

Twilight Sparkle -- wearing a lavender shirt and a black miniskirt -- slowly walked inside Canterlot High’s music room, a large leather bag hanging by her left shoulder.

“So, here I am, Sunset,” Twilight said as she walked towards Sunset Shimmer, who was sitting atop a speaker and idly whistling an unqualifiable tune. “I think I’m finally good enough to join the band as more than just the accountant.”

“Well, then, show us what’ve you got,” Sunset said as she slowly got up from her chair -- which was close to Rarity’s -- and climbed up the stage to then pick up and carry a foldable black music stand on her shoulder. “Here’s the stand if you need it.”

“It won’t be needed.” she made a sweeping gesture in the air, before scaling onto the stage and setting the bag down onto the floor, opening it to reveal a box made of varnished wood, which in turn was opened, revealing the fully-assembled flute wrapped in a red rag inside.

Rarity shifted onto her seat and bent forward, crossing her arms over her knees, eager to know what Twilight was going to play on her gifted flute.

“Alright, lemme just take a breath…” Twilight said, inhaling and exhaling loudly, before setting her tender lips onto the mouthpiece. Then, she started bowling softly, setting her fingers onto each hole, finally producing coherent notes and a structured musical piece.

It did not take long for Rarity to recognize the piece as a flute-only version of La Spagna Danza Alta, which only made her pupils get as wide as dinner plates and caused her jaw to drop as she attempted to follow each and every movement of the hand but failing spectacularly at doing so. So, as soon as Twilight had moved the flute away from her mouth, Rarity almost instinctively clapped her hands.

“Impressive... “ Sunset Shimmer said, holding onto her chin for a few seconds before briefly clapping. “Who knew you could learn to play that by heart so quickly?

Twilight blushed slightly as she inflated her chest and bowed with her right hand set on her heart, while her left one kept the grip onto the flute.

“Oh, it didn’t take me too long,” she said, as she bent down on her right knee, wrapped the flute back into the rag and placed the bundle inside the box. “It was just a matter of lots of practice… sometimes lasting from evening until dawn.”

“Still, that is rather impressive,” Rarity said with a small smile. “Even with extended practice time, learning such a complex piece in a few weeks while starting with little to no experience is a remarkable feat indeed.”

“I agree with Rarity.” Sunset pointed at Rarity and winked in compliance. “So, yeah, consider yourself part of our band. I’m not sure if we’ll be able to make you the center of attention when playing at most events, but we’ll try to get you in whenever it’s possible, alright?”

Before anything else could escape from any of the three girls’ lips, the door loudly creaked, prompting the three girls to look behind them and at whoever was currently entering the room. It was Rainbow Dash, clothed in her usual white emblazoned shirt and tar black bike shorts underneath a magenta-white striped short skirt. Her face was lightly wrinkled like a fresh batch of sheepskin, in a frown of what Rarity could only assume was tension about a matter unknown to her.

“Ah, hello there Rainbow Dash,” Rarity said in spite of her friend’s apparent mood, as she showed her side to Sunset Shimmer to look to her incoming friend. “Are you feeling ready to welcome a new member to our band?”

Rainbow Dash suddenly stopped and recoiled, then she went forward to rapidly gesture and blabber gibberish for a couple of seconds, before straightening her spine up and adjusting a few strands of her hair back into a position that was less obtrusive to her sight.

“Uhuh, I didn’t know we were adding Twi to the band just yet, but, anyways, it’s not time for that just yet,” Rainbow Dash said quickly as she walked towards Rarity, Sunset and Twilight. “To make a long story short, I’ve got over my shock about Rarity’s problem, and spent a few days trying to get AJ to go out and give her a chance to explain herself, instead of just shutting down everything.”

Rarity had to go back to her previous sitting position in order to not fall nape-first onto the floor, while Sunset gave a nervous glance to Rainbow Dash and Twilight walked on her toes towards Rarity.

“Is she going to come right here?” Rarity asked. “Or did she say she was going to meet me somewhere else at a different time?”

“She said she was gonna come here right now,” Rainbow Dash walked back at the door and turned her back to Rarity and the others. “Oh, she’s right here.”

Rarity lightly bit on her lips and clenched her right fist on a chair’s black plastic back, as she used her free hand to grip on Twilight’s shoulder -- who let out a small whimper of pain as Rarity did so. When the lip bite felt insufficient, Rarity started taking deep breaths and tried to focus on other subjects, as to not cave in to the tension that was inherent to the moment.

Twilight leaned next to Rarity’s ear, whispering words to her, presumably also encouragements. However, all Rarity managed to understand from Twilight’s murmur was her desire for the pressure onto her shoulder to cease at once, to which Rarity complied.

Around a minute later, accompanied by the loud and heavy clacking of her boot on the ground, Applejack appeared in Rarity’s field of sight. Her boots had clear steel toes, her usual denim skirt had been swapped with a pair of prussian blue knee-length shorts, and her white and green shirt was nowhere to be seen: in its stead, a very dark gray short-sleeved shirt abundantly covered her torso.

“Ah’m here now Dash.” she said. “Ah hope fer yer and Rarity’s sake ya know what you’re doing.”

“Oh hello there Applejack,” Rarity got up, gathering all the strength to be the one to speak up first. “It has been a while since we last have seen each other, albeit in not very agreeable circumstances, so, would you mind telling me how your enterprises of all kind are doing of late?”

Applejack scoffed, as she walked forward towards Rarity’s position, her shoulder drooping down as if she had been carrying an extremely weighty burden on her large shoulders for a long time and over long distances and a matching scowl.

“Ah ain’t got time for that, Ah wanna get over this as fast as Ah can,” she said dryly, as she went on towards a seat and used her left hand to lean on as she crossed her knees and set the other hand against her side. “So, Dash told me ya got a ‘good’ reason fer yer liking of lil’ uns and she’s been pestering me on it ‘til mah apples fell off the tree, so Ah decided to give ya one more chance.”

Sunset shimmer rolled her eyes groaning and Rainbow Dash-- who was still standing at the door -- glared at Applejack, before moving towards Applejack and a finger-fidgeting Rarity and standing in-between them like a living and breathing cloistered coventry's grill.

“Just in case…” She whispered to Rarity, who answered with a gulp and a neck fixing.

“Well, actually, I also have plenty of reasons to defend Rarity,” Twilight waveringly said, before bowing and doing a few steps back. “But I’ll let you sort this out between yourselves.”

“Good.” Applejack stated, leaving behind sepulchral silence. Rarity fidgeted with her fingers, resisting with all her might to not fall back on her shirt’s sleeves as a manner of cutting anxiety’s thick fog into smaller and easily-dispersed strands.

“So? Cat got your tongue?” Applejack said as she slowly rose her head, showing her furrowed eyebrows and a deep frown. “Speak up!”

Rarity took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, as she collected her courage one more time to speak.

“Applejack, this is not a matter I like to speak of lightly, for this is no talk about luxurious clothing or somewhat outdated musical tastes, but a matter of mental health.” Rarity said slowly, emphasizing her words by using her right index like an orchestral leader’s cane. “I know it may sound rather hard to digest, given that you are brought to think that my brethrens and sisters have chosen to long for… shall we say, younger partners, and in some cases only feeling lust’s burning fire and romance’s mellow warmth only when gazing upon children.”

“Darnit Rarity, stop speakin’ fancy to confuse me!”

Rarity winced at the interruption, while her other friends gave another glare at Applejack.

“If you really need it, I can try to translate what she’s saying.” Sunset Shimmer said. “Or, better yet, just feeding you the important details.”

“No, it is fine, I will try to speak more plainly,” Rarity said to Sunset, before turning around towards her former friend. “What I was saying is, some people, people with my illness, tend to be attracted by children, and, sometimes, the attraction, both in terms of sex and in term of romance, is limited to kids only.”

“And so?” Applejack said, a grin growing on her face. “How does that connect with fiddling kids?”

“Not everyone that has this problem rationally wants to have sex with children, or even date them. In fact, some even fight it, to the bitter end in some cases.” Rarity said, before pointing her open left palm towards her. “I am among them.”

“Yeah, sure. Ya can choose to turn it off and on whenever ya want to.” She said. “Rarity, did ya mistake me for an idiot?”

“I did not. And my desires never truly shut off, I simply try to resist to going forward to kidnap and do awful things to them and attempt to use private times as manner to relieve the pressure, so to speak.” Rarity said, causing Applejack to roll her eyes.

“And ya keeping telling me that… if ya can wish so hard ya can stop yourself from touching children, how come ya can’t simply shut off and live like all of us?” Applejack asked. “Why dont’cha get help fer your problem with law ‘n’ all? Why do ya choose to want children that way? Why do ya choose to be… inhuman?”

Rarity felt a powerful, immense urge build up in her chest. At the beginning of the argument, it had started with a vague spark of courage and pride, but, as it dragged on, it had grown in size. And, now, it had reached its critical mass and it was going to blow up at any minute. Rarity let out a few locomotive-like hisses, she clenched her fists until her fingers’ phalanxes felt they were going to implode, and her toes were as restless as a school of seagulls furiously looking for their offspring. Her blood started to boil like molten iron, and her face reddened to the point she looked like she was wearing a grisly tribal face paint.

Finally, the chasm of her mouth opened, letting out a warcry-like roar.

“I did not choose any of this!” She shouted, as she jumped forward hands-first, stopped a few millimeters from Applejack’s taurine neck only by Rainbow Dash’s strong arms. “I did not choose to be attracted to children and ‘normal’ boys alike just as much you did not choose to lust on men your age! I did not ‘choose to do evil’ because I am mentally ill! I am not ‘born evil,’ nor I will ever, ever resign to let myself be considered as such!”

Applejack nearly crashed against the seat’s back, curling up slightly at the almost incredible sight of Rarity’s wrothful response.

“If I could do that I would rip this mental illness away from my soul and stomp on it! I would go through what we have put through old Sunset Shimmer, the Sirens and Midnight Sparkle in order to free myself from this!” Rarity shouted, stretching her arms forward towards applejack, as Rainbow Dash used all her strength to keep her away from her target. “But, you know what?! I cannot do that! I shall be forever always wishing for a young boy’s naked look until the day I will be put to rest underground, but you, you and your values deem me and my kin a mass of lesser human beings due to a fault in our minds! Why do you think some people like me prefer to molest and then be jailed and raped to death in prison? Why do you think people build up paper-mache masks they plan to wear all their lives? On a lesser note, why do you think Lemon Turner deemed appropriate to storm a villa in order to crash a party and overpower two people he felt they had damaged him? He was blinded by rage, yes, but against whom and why?”

Applejack scurried herself up and sat onto the seat, instead of just curling up on it, while Sunset ran behind Rarity to aid Rainbow Dash as she kept on trying to be an obstacle to the white girl’s fury.

“A-Ah dunno…” Applejack said, vigorously shaking her head. “Roseluck and Sunset Ah guess?”

“But why was he furious at them?” Rarity said, feeling the sensation die down a little at the sight of a retreating Applejack. “Lemon Turner experienced the full might of exclusion for something he could not and cannot help, and he resorted to retreat and contemptu mundi to properly deal with it. Yes, he did wrong and that is undeniable still, but he had his motivation to do so. And, while I do not plan to fall back on such a plan in case of your refusal to accept me, I just want to let you know how utterly important it is for me to be morally supported. Was I clear enough?”

Applejack nodded, as Rarity -- with a deep, deep sigh that expelled days upon days of anguish in one warm breeze -- limply rested on Rainbow Dash’s arms for a couple of seconds, before getting back up on her legs again, casually dusting and fixing up her wrinkled shirt.

“Sorry for my previous outburst.” Rarity said, as she started to adjusted her hair, which had been turned into a snarl of strands of hair by her own fiery rage. “But, as they say, once a year it is legit to go mad.”

“And to remind me how does working out really hard feels?” Rainbow Dash whined, as she used her left arm to massage her biceps, then switched arms to do the same action. “I haven’t been feeling like this since… I dunno!”

“That is a side effect I am sorry I provoked.” Rarity said. “It was not my wish to inflict that pain upon you.”

“Wow… Never expected you to see react like that.” Sunset muttered, her widened eyes fixed on Rarity in an emotion that could only be described like awe mixed with bafflement. As for Twilight, she was adjusting her glasses and holding on her temples at alternate times as if she was having an headache.

Meanwhile, Applejack silently wriggled and scurried away from the room, keeping her profile low and holding on her hat with one hand as she ran away from the music room, thusly leaving an awkward silence behind, as Rarity was stared at by the remaining people in the room.

Feeling the sense of wrath and pride fully subsidize, Rarity felt her friends’ stares feeling as heavy as giant blocks of limestones placed onto her chest. She soon realized what she had done, and also quickly understood what was the only sane way to rectify her mistake.

“I think should depart and let her know I am still ready to let her stay, even if she treated me badly before.” Rarity said, as she also set off towards the door and following Applejack’s footsteps, no matter how arrow-like in their speed and direction were.