Rarity’s dreams were rarely pleasant.
Often they were stress induced nightmares of work: An army of fashionistas coming to burn down her store as an affront to their industry, or a torrent of bad reviews washing her away in a wave of papers. Other times, they were sad memories of her father’s last days, and how he had sacrificed so much to make her happy.
Tonight Rarity dreamed that she stood in a blank room, stretching to infinity with endless possibility. With her, she had a delicate wooden paintbrush. Why paint, she had no idea. She had never been much for the traditional arts, but found that in this dream, the brush created real things. Floating her brush from the bucket, she drew a floor for herself, then walls, and a ceiling. The paint changed colors to her thoughts, and soon she found herself painting what she had found most familiar: Carousel Boutique.
The walls were pink and purple, festooned with the colors of spring fashion that would bring in the customers and bring in the bits. She painted her racks and shelves and dummies, fabrics and machines, everything as she remembered it. But this wasn’t the painting of Carousel Boutique of today. This was her store from years ago, from the year after her father died. She tried to erase the painting, finding it permanent. Even painting over it didn’t help, only warping what was already there. Frustration mounted as her dreams ignored her whims.
The white unicorn painted the scene outside: A beautiful blue sky filled with soft white clouds, and a ground full of life. The buildings of Ponyville popped up at her brush points, each taking on it’s own life. If it weren’t for the soft fuzzy colors of her paint strokes, she could have sworn she was awake. Rarity complimented herself on her fantastic memory, and looked to the streets that she had painted. Just like the Ponyville she had loved since a child, but with no ponies to populate it. She tried a few strokes of her magic brush, the portrait taking the shape of her mother. The elegant white unicorn stood before her, pink and purple mane flowing down her neck.
Rarity tried to speak to her, but found that the painted unicorn did not speak back. It moved as if someone had animated a portrait. The painted unicorn’s eyes narrowed in rage and moved her mouth as if yelling at Rarity. Rarity recoiled in shock. Memories of this argument came back to her. She dashed away the cutout unicorn with her brush and galloped outside, running to escape.
She’d had this dream before, and it always brought her pain. She tried to force herself awake, finding herself trapped in her own mind. She closed her eyes, and was back in the shop. More of the painted ponies were here now, each moving silently in two dimensions. They were like animated cardboard cut outs of themselves, each talking silently, or looking at Rarity’s dresses. She looked to the crowd, and saw a line of customers waiting to purchase. Rarity sighed in misery. Even in her dreams she couldn’t escape work.
She painted herself a bottle of wine, and found it to be as pleasant as she always remembered it. Smooth, fruity, light on the tongue with a hint of flowers. She looked behind the counter to see she had already painted quite a few empty bottles back there.
Typical of that time in my life, she thought. Trying to fill the hole left by Father with wine.
Her customers came in a blur to her, the dream fast forwarding itself to the next memory. The nights of those times blurred past night clubs, and parties. The scenes shuffled by, full of fantastic dresses and evenings spent with ponies she barely knew, or cared to know. Rarity didn’t want to see this time in her life again, and she closed her eyes to make it go away. She opened them again to find herself in a bedroom. Her paintbrush was gone now; she had forgotten it back at the shop. With no way to control the dream, the memories forced themselves on her.
She rose from the bed of a pony she barely remembered. She saw his stunning, gorgeous flanks, and tousled tail peeking from beneath the rumpled sheets. Rarity’s dress from the night before hung discarded from the bedpost. She left the room in disgust at herself, and came again to Carousel Boutique. Here she was master of her fate, and no one could tell her differently. The paintbrush lay still on counter. She picked it up, and started to paint another bottle. She stopped, a memory from far away begging her not too.
Rarity threw the brush to the ground. Color exploded from the bristles, and the scene wiped away to the stark white walls of Ponyville’s clinic. A cardboard cut out of a white earth pony with a candy-floss mane stood silently speaking to her. Rarity remembered the this conversation; she burst into tears. The nurse tried to console her, but Rarity fled from the clinic, running back to her den of comfort. She hid in her room, closing the shop to customers.
The paint of the brush flowed from the tip, and filled the dream with the marching memories of those seasons.
Rarity found herself working harder than ever to make new dresses and designs. Many of them were for herself. Long flowing dresses of simplicity and practicality that were said to be for a line of casual wear that she was pursuing on a lark. She remember the smaller meals she was eating. There were stunted conversations with the animated cut out of her mother, about... something. She and Rarity argued so frequently in those days, that her conversations with her mother had become just like that cardboard cut out: all flapping of the jaw, and no context. She marched out of her mothers home and back to Carousel Boutique.
By now, the memory was moving quicker. Days flew by in the span of seconds, and summer had turned to fall outside her windows. The impressionistic portrait of the leaves reminded Rarity that she was still trapped in this dream, and still forced to relive those days.
She wore darker colors that season, never going outside without a saddle or a sweater to cover herself. She stayed in the shop most days and night, avoiding the chaotic drinking scene that she had been so much a part of earlier in the year. A few of her friends questioned her absence, but she brushed it off as growing up, and taking her life more seriously. Her so called friends dismissed her, and again she was with her work and her thoughts.
Rarity walked to a closet, and rummaged underneath a pile of fabrics she’d never use. Under that stack of fashion atrocities was a piece of downy cloth she was working on. This project was dear to her, having been made entirely by hoof. She had woven the soft virgin wool and cotton together to form textile that compared to the clouds in softness. The edges were spun in a tight whip stitch that demanded careful attention. She worked on the project as the dream wore on, the piece coming into shape as winter’s grasp had locked around her home.
Her paying customers again stood at her counter. She quickly hid her work and checked their purchases. She could remember the dresses better than the ponies, and most of the cardboard cutouts were indistinct memories. The last customer of the day warned her to be careful, as the roads in Ponyville were heavy with winter’s ice. Rarirty collected her earnings and trotted out the front door toward the bank.
The unicorn’s mind screamed in agony, trying again force her to wake up. She didn’t want to remember what came next. She didn’t want to see those stairs again, or the ice that layered thick on them. She didn’t want to feel herself slipping and losing control, tumbling endlessly down those stairs. She didn’t want to feel the crashing weight of her body on the pavement. She didn’t want the pain in her belly stabbing at her as she felt the inside light go dark.
Rarity awoke screaming in terror and tears. Luna’s moon hung in her window, illuminating the room with a soft blue light that spilled shadows over the white unicorn. Rarity reached into her nightstand through her tears and pulled from it the piece she had worked on all those years ago. She sat in the moonlight, weeping into the blanket. It was soft as a goddess’s tear, just as she had wanted it to be for a foal that never was.