I.
I write now in this diary for the first time in many years, and I do so only in the hopes that it might lighten the burden on my spirit. I have no expectation that another soul shall ever read these words, and I have no desire to show them. What I will record here is, frankly, beyond the pale. It is unbelievable. It is… complicated.

Yet I swear on the honor of my house and name that every word of what I record is true. What afrighted me shall now sleep within the pages of this book, and hopefully leave nothing but closure. Much have I seen and felt, so much that it is hard sometimes to keep track of it all.

Where should I begin? Where is the best place? Where did it truly begin?

For Her, it began a very, very long time ago, and in a different land. But for myself, it began one night on the doorstep of summer, when a visitor came to our town...

When did I first see her? Think, Rarity, think. When?

If pressed, I would respond that I first saw her when the carriage pulled through town and anchored itself rather boldly right in front of the manor at dusk. It was the first chance I ever would have had. It makes sense. But that is an easy answer.

When did I first notice her? There, that’s meaningful!

Father’s footman traded a few words with the carriage’s driver, and then he went to call on my father. I heard the horses, I think. My memory is not perfect, but I remember the horses braying at something or other, and I remember looking up from my book long enough to break the spell that it had woven around me. Just long enough to hear her voice, like… Bells. No, not bells. To describe it as such cheapens the effect that it had on me.

Mark you, I had not yet laid eyes upon Her. I had only heard a voice. But it was enough to pull me from my chair and onto my feet. It was more than enough to draw me to the window.

That would be it, the moment when first I saw her. She stepped down from the carriage wrapped in a cloak, her face hidden from me as much by the failing light as by her choice of garment. Faintly, so faintly, I remember a sense of annoyance. I wanted so much to see her and to match a face to the voice.

And then, fortune was with me. There was a sudden gust of wind, and before she could pull her hood down, it fell back.

Did I know? Did I suspect? Is this… feeling that I feel, is it truly memory, or is it a later invention?

My glimpse of her was brief, but it was enough to make out her features in the weak light of the street lamps. She was frail, yet undeniably beautiful. Her cheekbones high and regal, her hair pooling over one shoulder, neat with not a one out of place. I thought that she seemed pale, like a woman who ought to be in bed, recovering from some dreadful illness.

Her hand shot up and she used it to block the already setting sun whilst re-arranging her hood and I marveled at how fragile that hand seemed! How porcelain pale it was!

I did not pay much attention to what happened next, at the time. My father met with the owner of the carriage, who was an old acquaintance. Mr. Bartleby had stayed with us before, and as a young girl he had sometimes brought me small gifts.

Ironic, that he should have brought her to me.

Father and Bartleby were talking animatedly and happily when I arrived in the dining hall. Already, the footman was bringing in the merchant’s things and storing them in his usual room, and my father was already talking about having wine brought up from the cellar for the two of them.

She was standing there, next to him.

I wanted to greet her and to hide from her in the same moment. It was not a pleasant experience. But I was, and I suppose I am still a Belle, and this has ever meant pressing forward in the face of adversity. I strode over from the grand stair and put on my brightest smile.

Bartleby intercepted me, a grin plastered on his face. “Ah! Young Miss Rarity!” he said to me, loudly as he does and says everything. “Fancy seeing you here! Afraid I don’t have a present this time around.”

Bartleby also laughs at his own barely-made jokes, but this is neither here nor there. I put on my most indulgent smile, reserved for the loudest obstacles. “It’s quite alright. Who is this with you? For shame! You should introduce us.”

He blinked at me, seemingly puzzled. For a moment, I thought he might ask what I was referring to. But then he followed my gaze and his confusion fell away.

“Ah! Dreadfully sorry. This is my lovely niece, by the name of Twilight Sparkle. She’s accompanied me on this journey since Trottingham.”

I was about to greet her, but she moved before I could. This girl, shorter than I by a few inches, doffed her hood and curtsied. “Good evening, Lady Rarity,” she said, and it was as though she were tasting my name on her lips. “Thank you for allowing me into your home.”

Those were first words she said to me. I remember managing to say something suitably polite in response, but the important thing wasn’t what she said, but what she was. Shorter, yet as soon as I could meet her gaze I felt that it was I who was dwarfed. Her voice was musical, but not like any music I had heard sung in the streets of our little town. Eyes that did not focus so much as they hunted.

How can I describe her? I could not at the time, and I cannot now.

Know only that I had not recovered by the time we sat down to dine. Twilight Sparkle had kept her distance, though not with any seeming ill-intent. On the contrary, she seemed to be trying very hard not to look utterly exhausted. Once or twice I spied her leaning on Master Bartleby, her small hands digging into the fabric of his shirt, as if only his flabby arm kept her from falling to the ground.

Dinner was a heavy affair, as it always is when Father has a guest over. While my parents engaged the fat, cheerful merchant, I worked up the nerve to engage Twilight.

Truth be told, I am a bit of a… gossip. No, I cannot deny it. A lady should be aware of her own proclivities! But all this to say, to convince who, myself? But to say that it has rarely if ever been difficult for me to begin a conversation. So when I say that I struggled to find a way to approach the enigma that was Twilight Sparkle, let it be understood what exactly I mean.

She bothered me. There is no way to make this sentiment that I felt “cleaner” or somehow more polite. She perturbed me. The more I try to recall if she gave me some sign by which I felt a sense of unease, the more that it seems to be that it was merely a feeling and nothing more substantial.

“You seem awfully fixated,” she said to me at last.

I snapped out of my reverie, dismayed to find myself on the defensive already. How was I supposed to puzzle out what was so strange about this new girl if she were always the one to direct the flow of conversation?

“Not at all,” I said, putting on another practiced smile, this one of indifference. “It has simply been a rather long day, that’s all. Surely after coming such a long way yourself, you can appreciate that.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “I traveled the whole way in a carriage. Do I know that it was far? I know that it took some time.”

“What do you mean?” I asked her.

“Only that I did very little traveling of my own,” she said. “There is a difference between traveling and being carried from place to place. One is not the other, Lady Rarity.”

Whenever she said my name that way, I could not tell if it was meant sincerely or not. She almost seemed to be mocking me, but when she was in mixed company Twilight never mocked anything. Yet she always twisted that word.

She did that to many things. It is what Twilight is good at, taking things and knowing them so well so quickly, and then using that knowledge to turn something simple in on itself.

But I am getting far ahead of myself, aren’t I?

“What brings you this far?” I asked her, hoping to find something to hold onto in this stranger, something a bit more normal than her pale face and her uncomfortable focused eyes.

“Hm. Adventure, I suppose you could say.” She leaned forward slightly, and it was then that I noticed that she hadn’t touched any of her food. “I’m looking for new tastes.”

I glanced at her plate, and then back to her dark, dark eyes. “And yet you’ve not touched a bite,” I said softly.

She chuckled, and then made a great show of sighing. “I am not well. I feared this might happen, actually, when my uncle told me where we were staying. I did not wish to be rude by refusing to sit at your table, yet I cannot eat.”

“What ails you?” I asked.

Another sigh. “I know not. I’ve always been sickly, ever since I was a child.”

“Forgive me,” I said, before she could continue on, “but… just how old are you?”

And then Twilight Sparkle laughed at me. For one who was ill, Twilight Sparkle managed to laugh with gusto. “Nineteen summers,” she said when she was done. “That’s how many I’ve seen in the light of day. And you, my lady?”

I huffed. “Eighteen, and I’ll not see you make light of them just because you’re older, now.”

She shook her head. “I would never. What sort of guest would I be then?”

Twilight Sparkle was an accomplished conversationalist. I learned this quickly, and never once doubted her skill. She talked circles around me with ease. She did so to my father, and she did so with Bartleby the few and far between times that she spoke to him at all. For a niece out on a long journey in foreign lands, she seemed rather independent.

As the night wore on, my father and his guest grew progressively more drunk, and I was asked to show Twilight to her quarters.

The manor of House Belle which sits above the town is divided in two. The great hall where the dining table is ends in a grand staircase that leads both right and left. If one mounted the great stair and turned right, one would find my own room and my younger sister’s room among others. If one turned left, my parents and the guest rooms.

We turned left and walked down the hallway. I do not recall what we discussed on the way, but I am sure we spoke. I am also sure that when I opened the door and stepped aside for her to enter first, I felt her hand touch my own briefly, and felt how cold her skin was to the touch. She felt… no, not even then did I think of ice or the clammy touch of the dead, as one expects from the tales. No, even then, I thought of the touch of iron on a winter night. Cold, yes, but dangerous and instantly and imminently so.

I bid her goodnight, and left feeling a bit more at ease. My misgivings seemed so silly. She was a strange girl in some ways, yes, but nothing more than a bit eccentric and a bit ill. This was what I got for staying at home when my other friends had opted to spend the summer in Canterlot proper, enjoying the sights and sounds of the ancient fortress city. Ah, but I opted for a quieter season at home! I had thought to what, find some inspiration in the rustic environment? Try my hand at my being a lady of the people? It was no wonder I was bored to the point of inventing phantoms where there are none.

That night was strange.

My dreams were confused, feverish things, that I remember well. I also recall tossing and turning in my bed trying to fall asleep permanently. But nothing seemed to help me to prolong my stay in the lands of sleep, and at length I rose and found a robe to go over my nightgown. If tossing and turning would do no good, then nothing would but time, and I was not going to spend that time lying like a fool and staring at the ceiling.

I had in mind nothing more than a brief foray, a casual stroll. At most, I had in mind a light snack from the kitchen. Insomnia has ever been a struggle for me, but it is not such a fearsome enemy. Generally a short walk down to the kitchens for bread is enough to settle me for the night.

I left my room only after lighting the small candle on my desk, making sure that I brought along my matches in case a sudden draft snuffed out my only source of light.

The manor is strange, at night. Perhaps all grand structures are strange in the absence of light in a way that twists them into something else entirely. I am used to the great hall of my ancestral house being warm and well-lit, with the occasional bit of song.

It is, generally, a warm and loving place. A safe place. It is dry in every storm, sturdy against the winds and travails of time, secure against war and expropriation. I have fond memories of running along the lengths of the hall as a child, mischievous and alive. Older, I remember my mother teaching me needlework at the long table, and every time that I work with my hands I recall the warmth emanating from the great fireplace and the smell of dinner on its way.

But at night, it is different.

At night, when you leave the hallway behind and step out onto the stair, clutching the banister, nothing of that warm world remains. The moon filters in through the windows, casting the the crossbar’s shadows on the empty table of my forefathers. The stairs and the stones are cold to the touch, and cold against my bare feet.

The shadows seem fuller. No, deeper. Solid. No longer frail things cast by the sun but entities unto themselves, dependant on nothing for their being,not cast but instead present and rising up out of the masonry.

I descended the stair, clutching the banister with my right hand and holding high my lonely candle with the left. Not for the first time, I cursed my father’s luddite attitude towards the new magic and the new sciences. One of those odd pre-fabricated spells, a light one, that would have been a blessing. As it was I tread carefully, able to see only a few steps ahead.

I had made this trip many times before, and so feared nothing in the dark.

And yet, as I left the stairwell behind I grew nervous. It was not noticeable, at first. Just a passing feeling. Just a slight discomfort in the dark, alone, which is natural to man since long before Canterlot’s hallowed stones were stacked atop each other, with us since before Celestia the ever-radiant, chosen of the sun came to teach peace to our chaos-troubled lands. The fear of the dark is a natural thing. It is a healthy thing. I did not know then how perilous the dark was, and yet my mind knew, the part of it which knows without need for recourse to the thinking brain.

Perhaps it was not merely the dark, at first. Perhaps even then I knew.

Something was watching me. Someone.

Do you know the feeling of being watched? Of course you do. I doubt there is a soul who has not felt it. It starts as an idea which burrows into any train of thought, followed by a slight shiver, a feeling of unease, the compulsion to turn swiftly to face the intruder.

These I felt, and so I did, stopping and turning at the door to the manor’s kitchen. I swung my candle out as if it were some kind of sword. Ridiculous! Yet I did it, as if darkness could be challenged in such a way. But there was nothing. Of course there was nothing. It was merely my imagination, playing an unkind trick on my weary nerves.

I turned back, and entered. I had proved that there was no cause for alarm, and yet I recall that I moved swiftly, somehow not convinced. I procured bread and cheese from the larders, and sat at the small servant’s table with my candle resting in its holder as the centerpiece.

Chuckling, as much from the sudden outburst as from the scene, I thought to myself that it was a rather lovely romantic candle-lit dinner for one. How emblematic of my own life, I thought, that I should enjoy it not only alone, but burdened by my own imagination. I was a great lover of stories of romance, yet I had nary a suitor. It was a bitter moment. Also, a self-indulgent one.

The universe grew bored with my self-pity, it seemed, for it sent to me a curious and ironic gift.

There were soft footfalls, and I paused mid-bite to listen with bated breath. In the day, such a sound would have meant nothing at all to me. Company, merely that. But somewhere between my door and that table I had lost my poise.

And who arrived to accompany me that night but Twilight Sparkle herself, in a nightgown not unlike my own--I found out later it was in fact my own, borrowed by my mother’s insistence--watching from the door way. She offered no greeting, and did not smile the knowing smile she had worn at dinner. No, she watched.

I swallowed. Why did she say nothing? Was she ill? So I spoke first, and cursed the sound of my voice. “Having trouble with sleep?”

“Not at all,” she said. And then at last her face shifted. She smiled. She looked, I remember thinking, more human. “Mainly because I never really tried. Some nights I am unable to sleep.”

“Ah, because of your sickness?” I asked.

“Yes. It is not contagious, again I feel I must say that it is not, but it is vexing. Might I sit with you?”

I both did and did not wish that she would. But a lady is never rude to a guest. I nodded, and gestured to the other seat.

She did not walk over so much as glide, and we faced each other around the rough, circular table.

She smiled, and her eyes never left mine. “Hungry?” she asked.

“Not particularly,” I answered. “But food sometimes has a somnolent effect, I find. Insomnia is a curse.”

“Indeed it is, though as curses run it is rather mild. Some of the things I’ve seen…” she chuckled. “I would rather insomnia be the worst of our troubles.”

I balked a bit. “Pray tell?”

Her smile turned sad, or did I imagine it? I know it was, now. “Yes. Did I tell you of my tutelage and trade at dinner?”

“You did not.”

“I studied under the Princess. She tutored me rigorously in the magical arts, and I daresay that I am proficient. I am, in fact, technically still her student.”

I started at this. “Truly? A student of the Celestia, princess and all? My word! I had no idea that we played host to a mage in the making!”

“Aye.” She chuckled. “Something of that nature.”

I took another bite of my late-night sandwich and thought. “Ah, my friend, I do have a question. If you are here, then how can you be a student?”

“All students of magic wander. Eventually, anyhow. Have you heard of a journeyman? It is like that. Some leave for only a few months. My own wanderings have lasted seven so far. Seven long, long months.”

“Ah! That explains why you would travel while seeming so weak,” I said, before I could think better of it. I probably flushed in horror and tried to temper what I had said, but she waved it off.

“Do I seem weak? Ah, I suppose I do. I assure you that I am not, not in the way that you are thinking. At any rate, I do not find that my magic suffers for it.”

And then she worked magic for me. The first true magic that I had ever seen, not something pre-fabricated or bought from a trader in scrolls, but honest mage’s power. Smirking, Twilight snapped her fingers and called up fire like a prophet out of the age of legends.

I regretfully admit that I fell from my chair in shock and that she moved with an almost catlike grace to catch me in mid fall. I was beyond mortified, but she seemed rather calm. The fire hung in mid-air, unattended, but this did not seem to bother her.

She set me up again, and I beheld her work. “By the stars… you must think me a country rube,” I said. “Some shabby country gentry, that knows nothing of the world. But I tell you the truth, we have no workers of miracles such as you in this town of ours, nor in all my father’s holdings.”

She snuffed out the flame and only when we were in total darkness did I realize that my bumbling had killed the fire of my candle. I shivered.

“You would be hardpressed, I think, to find one such as I,” Twilight Sparkle said.

“Friend, might I trouble you to relight my…” But she already had. I offered her a smile. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

I sighed. “Truly, I find myself for the first time utterly outmatched. You are a fascinating person. I’ve always wanted to go to Canterlot and see the beautiful streets and the miracles that the mages work, and now you’ve traipsed into my own manor to tell me that you have learned at the foot of the Princess herself. Next you will tell me that you were born there!”

“Ah, but I was.”

I leaned in. I had quite forgotten all thoughts of food or sleep. No, I was wide awake. “Then darling, you simply must tell me all about it. Every detail that you can bring to mind! I had so hoped to stay there this summer with my friends, but I was unable to persuade them.” I paused. “Funny. Ironic, perhaps. I am only here at all because I wished so fervently to go, and yet I find that Canterlot has come to me, instead.”

“The world does, on occasion, have a sense of humor,” said the young prodigy who sat so casually before me, reclined and almost lazy. Lazy in the way that a tiger who knows that it need not expend much energy to catch its prey is lazy. Indolent, even. “But I would not be so quick to assume that it not… ah, a wicked sense of humor,” she finished with a tight smile.

And she told me of Canterlot. She did not seem impressed, it is true, but to me? To a girl of the country manor, it was all wonderful. A many-tiered city of ancient walks and high society. What she described as boring and shallow I imagined as the height of the sophistication I had so often dreamed of, embedded as I was in environs that were decidedly not befitting one with a temperament such as mine.

At least, that was what I thought.

She asked me in return to tell her of my own life, what little there was to tell. I spun a tale or two, but it was when I mentioned my work that she paused.

“Truly now?” she said.

“Yes,” I replied, feeling suddenly exposed. “I admit that it is not the most… noble of things, using that term to refer to station. It is honest work, though, and my father has approved. The Belle family maintains business connections in many cities, and he says that as his heir I should have some knowledge of the ways of the world.”

“Dresses? Might I see some of your designs? I confess I know little of such things.”

“But surely—”

She shook her head. “House Sparkle was never one for ostentation, and in this I live up to its legacy.”

Oddly, this made me feel rather more at ease with letting her see what I had created on my own. I bit my lip, debating. It was rather late, and yet as I gazed into her beautiful, dark eyes, I could not imagine denying her this. Certainly not when it meant a chance to show off my work!

So I stood and gave her my most winning smile. “Come, then, and I’ll show you.”

I reached for the candle, only for it to float towards me of its own accord. I stared at it, open-mouthed and bewildered, until Twilight laughed.

“You truly haven’t seen much magic. I can carry this, if you like.”

“Certainly!” I said, and strode off into the darkness with her to light the way.

Twilight was a silent companion. The feeling of being watched did not return, but I was constantly aware of her presence by my side.

I think that she made me nervous. Not in a fearful way, but in the way that one feels with nothing to say standing before a Princess. At least, that is how I imagine such a situation would feel. I filled the air with mindless, empty talk, and she nodded or smiled in turn as was appropriate, but I cannot recall a word of it.

At my own room, I halted and momentarily panicked. Was it tidy? How could I let such a refined Canterlonian see my apartments in disarray? I knew they would be, for I had no other place to work my art and I have ever worked best in a sort of comfortable chaos.

But before I could warn her, Twilight Sparkle coughed. “Well? Aren’t you going to invite me in?” she asked with a smile more like the ones at dinner, knowing with just the slightest touch of mockery, not of a malicious sort but rather as if some ridiculous foible were being put to scrutiny.

“Do go in,” I said in a huff. “Are all in Canterlot as formal as you?”

She strode ahead of me. “No, not all.”

I followed her, and went straight to the desk. I motioned for her Twilight to set the candle down, and I lit my second one. Not that it would provide enough light, but one did what one could.

“I am sorry that there isn’t more light,” I said. “But…”

Twilight snapped her fingers, and it was day again.

Or, rather, my room itself was lit by a great light that Twilight held in her hands. “The snapping,” she told me, “is just a bit of showmanship. I find that it comforts people to be able to attach some physical action to magic.”

“So you don’t need to do that?” I asked, averting my eyes from the light.

“Not at all. I need only a working mind to cast magic. It is mostly a silent art.” She had taken a place on my bed, and sat almost catlike atop it. She was beautiful, stunningly so. I had thought so before, but it occurred to me all over again, it seemed, alone here in her company. She was almost… statuesque. That was the word I struggled to bring to mind at the time. She seemed less a woman and more an artist’s dream of one.

I turned quickly, feeling rather silly for having lingered staring. No doubt she thought me rude. Besides, I had a sketchbook to find. And find it I did, buried under a bolt of fabric, for goddesses above only knew what reason. Quickly, I turned and sat on my floor, skimming through the pages.

Few things can prompt me to throw off my studied propriety and manners, but art has always been one of them. A lady does this and does that, but when I am talking of art, of work, I am not a lady but merely Rarity Belle, and I need not stand on ceremony.

I found some of the newer ones, the better ones, and rose to sit on my bed beside her. I held the book out, feeling the familiar rush that one feels when unveiling a beloved creation. “Go on!”

“Can I look at the other pages?” she asked, taking the book in both hands.

“Of course. Of course! In fact, nothing would make me happier.” I gushed at each page as she looked through the little book, ecstatic. Occasionally she would hum or comment appreciatively, but she said little until at last she looked up. I had not noticed just how close I had moved to her until we were face to face, only a few inches apart.

“Your draughtmanship is superb. Are you self-taught?” she asked.

Feeling, again, ridiculous, I moved back a bit. “Ah, no. I mean, to an extent I am. One of my father’s friends patronizes a young artist who father paid to teach me the basics. But from there I simply honed my skill in private.”

She nodded. “I am impressed. You should be proud of that skill. Might I see your charcoal for a moment?”

“Hm? Oh! Yes, certainly.” And so I fumbled like a fool looking for it.

As soon as it was in her hand, Twilight found a new page and went to work.

I had, for a brief and foolish moment, thought that I had found some art or skill or anything that I could confidently say that I had bested Twilight in, but that was dashed. She worked swiftly, with nary a pause, and I leaned in until I was touching her as I watched in awe. She worked with such skill, such precision! Surely she was an artist.

It was a bit like watching creation, if I might be dramatic here, where no one shall scoff. Before my very eyes she willed a winding city street, populated with people and lined with shops. Some of them were human, but others had wings, and still others were nothing at all, too far from the vantage of her art, mere shadows to suggest a thrumming, living crowd.

I do not know how long I leaned against her, watching in rapt attention, but it was only after she had finished and set my charcoal aside and let me stare that I felt her cheek against my own, cold as ice, yet strangely pleasant. Not like ice, no. Like a cool breeze that comes in the window on a scorching day.

I drew back, startled. “Oh, I’m dreadfully sorry!”

She smiled that easy, casual smile. “Why? You were warm.”

My mouth worked, but no response to that was forthcoming. “What a forward thing to say,” I said at last, and I am quite sure that my face was practically aflame.

“And it was not forward to do what you did?” she teased.

“I… My word.” I looked away. “I was simply excited. It has been so long since I could share this side of myself with anyone that I became overexcited.”

“I rather liked it. It’s a street in Canterlot near my favorite donut place. Do you like it?”

“A… pray tell, a what?”

I knew that she was hiding a smile behind her hand, but at least I was spared another bout of laughter. “It’s a pastry of sorts. They come from Griffonia. I’ll have to show you one sometimes. I think you would like them. Of course, I’m of the mind that everyone would like them.”

“Curious,” I said softly, and held my book, returning my gaze to the street. “This is really quite lovely.”

“Not as much as yourself.”

I clutched the book to my chest. “Honestly! I apologized, Twilight, there is no need to tease me so!”

She chuckled. “Of course. Thank you. I’m glad that you like it. I thought you might appreciate a bit of Canterlot scenery. Perhaps I could draw more for you, ‘ere I leave. I might not hold my birthplace with quite the same regard as you, but your ardor for it is… endearing.”

I couldn’t stay annoyed with her for long. The gift was too perfect for that. “Thank you, darling. I will treasure this. You have no idea how happy I am.”

She only smiled. “Your designs are wonderful. Might I show you the ones I liked the best?”

I gave her back the book, and she pointed them out. A few, she said, bore remarkable similarity to dresses she had seen at formal functions at the palace, and while I was annoyed that they were not quite as original as I would have liked, to be so close to the real thing! Oh, it was a heady draught, and I was drunk on the excitement in short order.

And Twilight, through it all, did not take her eyes off of me for very long.

Author's Note

From the Gdoc:

Words words words channel Stoker a bit

I write now in this diary for the first time in many years. All the energetic sex really takes it out of you for writing. And since I’ve been having absolutely SINFUL banging on the regular, I’ve not really had the time to leave my orgasmic haze to do, well, anything. That would require clothes, for one, and frankly I’ve forgotten how or why clothes were a thing. How did I live before all of this absolutely bitchin’ lesbianoge was happening Seriously, I think all the incredible sex has wiped my memory. Is that a thing? Oh man how would I even know??