Define "Maiden," Rarity Asks
I want your love and
I want your revenge
You and me could write a bad romance.
—William Shakespeare, Sonnets.
A great poet once wrote that nothing encompasses the spirit of romance better than a beautiful maiden dying. This, of course, is extremely stupid. A beautiful maiden not dying is twice as romantic, as it contains substantially more maidens.
But still, great poets only come every few hundred years, so everything they say is regarded as high wisdom. This idea was thus accepted, and it went down in History as one undisputed fact of literature, no matter what one’s beliefs were. After all, if everybody agrees with it, doesn’t it become the truth?
A sound theory. In another time, and another universe, it might have worked. But here, sadly, it had one fatal flaw.
Nopony ever thought about asking what the maidens think of all this.
This is how this particular story starts.
Fluttershy awoke with a bloodcurdling scream. It was almost audible.
Many believe that the pony changes the house, but the truth is, most of the time it’s the house that changes the pony. Having a hut by the Everfree Forest—the physical manifestation of the words “I’m Going to Die”—was a rather extreme experience, and indeed, the main reason why Fluttershy was usually as loud as a dying mime. This was, to some, counterintuitive—shouldn’t this kind of environment benefit from being able to scream? To ask for help?
Turns out, the fact that it was counterintuitive was also why nopony else lived by the Everfree. Help was nice, but also slower than whatever came from the forest. If you were loud, you could ask for help. If you were quiet, you didn’t need it.
So Fluttershy screamed, at the top of her lungs, and it didn’t manage to wake up Angel, who was sleeping peacefully two centimeters away from her face. She swiped the sweat away from her forehead, and stared at her ceiling in quiet horror.
She’d had a dream. A pleasant dream. A beautiful dream.
It’d been the most horrible thing she’d seen in years.
Rarity didn’t even have to look at the door to see who it was. “It’s open, Fluttershy, dear!” she voiced—ladies didn’t yell—from the backroom of Carousel Boutique. “I’ll be with you in a minute!”
“Oh.” The voice came from the entrance—indeed, Fluttershy. Rarity smiled to herself. “Thank you. How did you know it was me?”
“My dear, you’re the only mare I know who has discovered how to ring a doorbell quietly. Wait for me for just a moment, if you don’t mind?”
“Um. Okay.”
Everything was chic, unique, and magnifique in Carousel Boutique, but at the end of the day, it was still a business. Customers were always in the right, but this didn’t mean that they weren’t crass, loud, and completely wrong ninety percent of the time… And Rarity was just a pony. Ponies have needs.
Hence, the backroom.
“Um, sorry,” Fluttershy said once Rarity made her way to the Boutique proper. “I hope I’m not interrupting, I was just—”
“No, no, no, my dear.” Rarity waved a hoof, as if to physically throw her friend’s words to the side. “There’s absolutely no reason to worry, I wasn’t doing anything important. I was merely in the backroom, yes?”
“Oh.” Fluttershy’s face returned to normal. “The backroom.”
“The backroom!”
“What… do you do in there again?”
Rarity’s smile didn’t falter. It was pitch-perfect. Like the kind of smile you see on a statue. “Business,” she said. “Important business.”
“But you just said that you weren’t doing anything important.”
“I lied.” Not a beat missed. “Because I’m a great friend. Why are you here again, Fluttershy?”
“You, uh, hm.” Fluttershy approached Rarity ever-so-slightly and sniffed a little. “You smell a little like wine?”
“I was doing wine business.”
“And it’s ten in the morning.” Fluttershy arched an eyebrow. “Rarity.”
There was something particularly shameful about being eyebrow-arched by Fluttershy. It was like being lectured by a puppy, or bested by a ladybug. Rarity’s face didn’t drop, but she was forced to clear her throat with a cough and look to the side. “Um. Well,” she said. “I haven’t slept at all tonight, so you can say it’s really late for me. Anyway!”
“Hmmm.”
“What brings you here, my dear?” Rarity repeated. “Aside from pointing out my failures as an individual, of course. Something I can’t help but appreciate. I love good feedback.”
Fluttershy was many things. ‘Good at sarcasm’ wasn’t one of them. “I’m glad to hear that!” she said, and she actually meant it. “And, um. I sort of.” Here, her voice dropped into a whisper—virtually indistinguishable from her normal tone, but Rarity was an old friend, she was good at catching details—and lowered her head, as if to hide from the exterior. “I think I… need some advice? About private things?”
“Oh. Oh, dear.” Rarity blinked twice, then flashed her horn without moving her eyes away from Fluttershy. The curtains of Carousel Boutique drew closed, and everything went dark. “Well, doesn’t that sound juicy, now?”
“Hmm-hmm.” Fluttershy nodded. She looked serious, now. “It’s… I think I’m, uh. Being.” She squinted. “Wooed?”
And to this, Rarity, beautiful Rarity, elegant Rarity, wonderful, brilliant, cosmopolitan Rarity, smiled like a wolf seeing a sheep dancing alone in the prairie, no shepherd in sight. And even though it might have been a trick of the light, something sparkled in her mouth, and a casual observer would have sworn it was a couple of fangs.
“Oh, Fluttershy,” she said, voice sultry like the kiss of velvet against your lips. “You can not imagine how long I’ve wanted to hear you say that. You and I are going to have some fun.”
Fluttershy gulped.
Although, Rarity noticed, one could have mistaken the twinkle in her eye for one of excitement.
“I… Well, I had a dream, you see?”
“Don’t we all?”
This gave Fluttershy pause. “Um. Actually, yes. Yes, we do.”
“Rhetorical question, my dear,” Rarity said, patting her hoof. “I was just setting the atmosphere. Do excuse me, I know I’m interrupting you, but just—ooooh!” she did a little dance. “I’m just so excited for this! Our little Fluttershy is finally growing up! Entering the adult world!”
“I’m older than you.”
“Oh, shush. You know it’s the principle of the thing.”
They were still in Carousel Boutique, of course, but the scene had changed slightly—for starters, now the “CLOSED” sign hung on the door, and the two mares had moved to the upper floor. Fluttershy was sitting on Rarity’s fantastic lounge. Rarity was more dramatically slouching on it.
“But by all means, go on.”
“Yes. Right. Um.” Fluttershy stopped, frowned, held her chin to think just a little harder. “I had a, um, a really… This sounds really silly when I say it out loud.”
Rarity smiled. “You had a dream,” she said. “Right?”
“Yeah, I did. And it was… It was a really beautiful dream, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Everything was really pretty. And, and comfortable, and warm.” Fluttershy pressed her hoof against her chest, and while her mouth wasn’t smiling, her eyes surely were. “It felt really, really warm. Like home. It was dark, everything was dark, full of shadows, but there were stars. Many stars. And it felt like home.”
“That’s wonderful.”
“And Big Macintosh was dead.”
Silence.
You didn’t really stay friends with Pinkie Pie for over two years without learning to expect the unexpected at all moments, though, so Rarity managed to come back to her senses relatively fast. “Well,” she eventually said. “They do say it’s always the quiet ones, I suppose—but I’ll admit, I had no idea you had it in you, Fluttershy, darling.”
Fluttershy blinked. “Wha—oh! No, no, no, I didn’t mean—”
“But I suppose, friends are friends, and I do take pride on my open-mindedness,” Rarity said, getting up from the lounge and approaching the chest lying next to her bed. “So I won’t be the one to judge. We all have some skeletons in our closets, don’t we?”
“No, no, no, no, no—”
Rarity opened the chest and started rummaging around it. “I think I still have that baseball bat here,” she said. “From when Sweetie Belle tried to get her cutie mark in hockey, yes?”
Pause.
“It’s a wonder why she never got it,” Rarity mused. Then, she went back to her search. “Anyway! Big Macintosh is a really big stallion, and I’m dreadfully sorry for Applejack, but friends are friends and you did ask for help first. Ah-hah!” She got out of the chest, triumphant, baseball bat floating right next to her. “Here it is!”
“Rarity!” Fluttershy jumped from the lounge and grabbed her friend’s shoulder. “Rarity, no.”
“Oh, darling, do not worry. I’m positive that, big as he is, if we ambush him properly—”
“No, you don’t get it.” Fluttershy shook her head, and used a hoof to lower the bat. Rarity let her do her thing. “I don’t want to, um, to… attack Big Mac.”
“Oh. Oh!” A pause. Rarity blushed. “Oh, well. Um. Me neither, of course.”
“I mean, I’m really, really glad that you jumped on the opportunity to help me,” Fluttershy said. “Instead of calling the police, which you… honestly should have done, actually?”
“Yeees, yes. Eheheh. Ahem.” Rarity, face completely red, threw the bat out of sight. The sound of broken glass shortly followed. “Of course! This was—a joke! That’s all. A joke!”
“In fact, now that I think about it, maybe I shouldn’t be glad at all,” Fluttershy said, concern in her voice. “You agreed really fast to do this. Didn’t you?”
“Let us—let us just go back to that lounge, yes?” Rarity smiled brightly and pushed Fluttershy lightly, with her head, towards the lounge. Once the pegasus sat down, she followed. “And forget this silly joke of mine.”
“I mean, what if somepony asked you to attack me? Would you agree, too?”
“Oh, don’t be foolish, my dear.” Rarity pouted. “It was merely a prank, wasn’t it? Now, you were telling me about your dream. And dead Big Macintosh.”
“You really didn’t make it sound like a joke at all.”
“Fluttershy. Focus.” Rarity rolled her eyes. “So why did this dream catch you unprepared, again? Who was the wonderful stallion who swept you off your hooves?”
“Um. That’s the—I didn’t say he… swept me off… mumble mumble…”
Rarity patted her on the back. “There, there, my dear. No need to be coy here. I can read you like an open book, you know that.” Her face curled up in a grin, and she went from patting to elbowing. “So? Who’s the charming gentlecolt?”
Fluttershy was red enough to irradiate heat. “It—hm.” Then, she whispered: “Big Mac. It—it was Big Mac.”
This made Rarity blink. “Big Mac,” she said. “Big Mac? What? Wasn’t he dead?” A pause. “Oh, dear. So, dead ponies, then? Is that what you…? Well, they do say it’s always the quiet ones, but I never thought you had it in—”
Miraculously enough, this managed to annoy the embarrassment straight out of Fluttershy. “Rarity,” she said. “Stop assuming I’m weird, please.”
“Sorry! Sorry.” Rarity frowned. “But he was dead, was he not? So…”
“Hmm.” Back again with the flush, Fluttershy looked down and nodded. “He was. But he was… That’s the thing. Um.” And here, she turned to Rarity, eyes wide as plates, twinkle of excitement unmistakable. “He… Rarity, he was a dead maiden!”
Rarity gasped.
“AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.”
Rarity made a pout, clearly annoyed. “Why,” she said. “This is just uncouth, my dear.”
“AHAHAHA. AHAH. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.”
“Hmmm.” Fluttershy was looking at the ground, fiddling with her hooves. “Maybe… Maybe we should just go…”
“No, no.” Rarity patted Fluttershy on the back, then glared back at Applejack. “Do not even think of that, darling. We’re here for a reason. Applejack is just being terrible.”
“AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.”
“Applejack, please.”
“Aaah.” Applejack wiped a tear off her face. “Ah’m sorry, Ah’m sorry. It’s just, Big Mac as a dead maideeehehehEHEHEHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH—”
Rarity rolled her eyes.
Sweet Apple Acres was beautiful this time of the day. Applejack had found them as soon as they’d approached the farm, but apparently, Big Macintosh was busy at the other side of the orchard. Kicking trees and whatnot.
“—AHAHAHAHAHA—”
“Well, darling, this is simply hopeless,” Rarity said with a huff, turning around and grabbing Fluttershy by the shoulders. “Let us leave and go look for Big Macintosh ourselves. And you,” and here she glared at Applejack, “I hope that you’re happy. You’ve scared poor Fluttershy, and made her feel like a joke. Good morning, my dear.”
“Aaah. Aaw, Rares, no need to be so haughty.” Applejack swallowed, shook her head, and then grabbed Rarity by the tail—earning a heartfelt eep! from her—and tugged till she turned around. “Just thought it was funny, is all. Hope Ah didn’t offend you, Fluttershy.”
Fluttershy was still looking at the ground, red as beetroot. “Hmm.”
“Same to you, Rares.” Applejack winked at her. “Also, you smell like wine.”
Rarity’s mouth was a thin hard line. “Charming, Applejack. Charming.”
“Hey, never said it wasn’t pleasant, did Ah? Ah like wine. It’s classy.” Applejack tapped her muzzle. “Sophisticated. It suits you!”
The line softened. “Okay. Good save.”
“Thanks.”
“But you still shouldn’t have laughed at Fluttershy for what she said.”
“Aw, c’mon. Ah wasn’t laughin’ at Fluttershy.” Applejack frowned, but she was still smiling. “Ah was laughin’ at my brother! You called him a maiden!”
“Well.” Fluttershy managed to speak. Her voice wasn’t quieter than usual, because otherwise they wouldn’t have understood her, but she still managed to make it sound soft. “He was a maiden. A—an alicorn.”
Applejack’s smile got bigger. “An alicorn,” she said.
“Yeah…” Fluttershy was rubbing her foreleg. She tried a hesitant look at Applejack. “Like… Like, when we went into the dream realm? To save Princess Luna from Tantabus? Big Mac was like that. He was an alicorn, he looked like, like a princess—”
“AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH—”
“Applejack!” Rarity hit AJ’s Stetson downwards, covering the mare’s face with it. “Shush!”
“Mmmf!” Applejack put the Stetson back in place. “Uh. Sorry. Just, Ah couldn’t help it.” She swallowed, trying her best to keep serious… But the corners of her mouth were clearly going up. “Ah just, Princess MacccckkkggghhhhhaahahahAHAHAH—”
Stetson down. “We’re going away. I’m serious.”
“Mmmf.” Stetson up. “Sorry. Sorry. Ahem.” This time, AJ took a deep breath. “So. Fluttershy.”
“…Yes?”
“You dreamed of Princeee-eh-heh-heeeh, hm. Princess Mac.” Another deep breath. “And…” She blinked. “Ah mean, don’t get me wrong. That’s hilarious. But, why are you here again?”
“Why,” Rarity said, hugging Fluttershy by the shoulders and bringing her closer. “So Fluttershy can properly reply to your brother’s feelings, of course!”
“Uh-huh.” Applejack nodded, face—finally!—completely serious. “Ah see. Ah don’t follow.”
Rarity rolled her eyes. “Applejack, dear—this was obviously Princess Luna’s work.” She looked at Fluttershy, whom she was still hugging by the shoulders. “Was it not?”
“It was… very vivid,” Fluttershy admitted. “The dream. It felt real. And everything was dark, black. Full of, of shadows. And stars.” She looked at Applejack. “It didn’t feel like a dream. I could feel Princess Luna’s presence.”
Applejack scratched her head. “If you say so. So you want to… Confront Big Mac?”
Fluttershy nodded.
“’Bout how he crossdresses? As an alicorn princess?”
Stetson down. “Applejack. Please.” Rarity let Fluttershy go. “You’re missing the point entirely. Fluttershy, do you mind?”
“Hmm.” Fluttershy nodded, then made an effort to remember.
Usually, she forgot all her dreams. But not this one.
Not this one.
“It was,” she started, “dark. I—I know I’ve said this already, but it was really dark. And it felt really warm, and the stars were beautiful. I was alone, and then I saw a table, and… And I walked to it.” She nodded to herself. “Then I saw it.”
Neither Applejack—Stetson up—or Rarity said a thing. They just looked at her, and nodded.
Fluttershy continued. “It was Big Mac, but I didn’t recognize him at first. The shadows were dancing over him, and he didn’t really look like himself. His fur was darkened, covered in something. Something black, he looked black and red and—”
Fluttershy shuddered.
“Darling?” Rarity asked, softly. “You don’t have to continue if you don’t want to.”
“Yeah.” Applejack was looking at Shy with scared eyes, now. “Want me to go and punch my brother? Would that make you feel better?”
Rarity glared. “Now, how on Equestria would that help?”
“Well, he scared her, didn’t he? Ah can punch’im for that!”
“You are missing the point again!”
“He did scare me,” Fluttershy admitted. “He—he was dead. It was blood. He was an alicorn, and red, and black, and he was covered in blood, and he was dead, and—”
“Oh, come here, darling.” Rarity just grabbed Fluttershy and hugged her head against her chest. “There, there. It was just a dream, yes? Big Mac probably asked Princess Luna to show you that, but—”
“I, I know.” Fluttershy rubbed her face against Rarity’s chest. She was trembling a little. “I know, and I’m glad, but it was really…” She hiccupped, then got away from Rarity. “I’m sorry,” she said, swallowing. “Applejack, can I use your bathroom for a second?”
“Yeah, of course. Want me to walk you?”
“No, no. I’d rather some time alone, please.”
“Sure.”
Rarity and Applejack watched her go, in silence, until she was out of sight.
“Geez.” Applejack scratched the back of her neck. “Yeah, this sounds serious. Sorry for laughin’. So you say my brother did this?”
“It was surely him,” Rarity said, matter-of-factly. “Princess Luna can’t create dreams, she can only guard them, can she? That was Big Macintosh in Fluttershy’s dream. He probably asked Luna to join their dreams so she could see it.”
“Now, why in tarnation would he do that?”
Rarity blinked, surprise in her face. “Why,” she said. “To confess his feelings, of course!”
And here, Applejack just stood there.
Seconds passed.
“What the what now?”
“Applejack, I’m appalled.” Rarity pressed a hoof against her chest. “You surely understand—Big Macintosh was a beautiful—well, relatively—maiden! Nothing encompasses the spirit of romance better than a beautiful maiden dying!” She poked Applejack. “He,” she said, “was being romantic!”
“What? How is that—Fluttershy was terrified!”
“Well, of course she was. She saw your brother dying.” Rarity frowned. “If she harbors feelings for him, and I think she does, that must have been traumatic. The poor girl…”
“And that’s romantic? Hmpf.” Applejack crossed her legs. “Next time Ah get Big Mac alone, Ah’m gonna—”
Stetson down. “Now, don’t be uncouth, please,” Rarity said. “My dear Applejack, haven’t you read any poetry?”
Stetson up. “Now why would Ah ever do that?”
“Well, that explains it.” Rarity sighed, then patted Applejack’s shoulder. “If you were a little more well-versed—literally—you would understand. What your brother did was extremely romantic.”
“Dressin’ up as a princess and dyin’.”
“Yes.”
“That’s romantic.”
“Yes.”
“That's really not romantic.”
Rarity arched an eyebrow. “Well. I must say, I do agree with you—but who are we to speak against the world and rules of literature? Surely, the great poets know better.” She sighed. “The world would be a better place for us beautiful maidens if Fluttershy had been part of that pantheon.”
Applejack cracked a smile despise herself. “Mighty humble thing, you just said.”
“Shush.”
“Not sayin’ it’s a lie, mind you.”
And Rarity smiled too. “Good save.” And she put the Stetson down on AJ’s face anyway.
Applejack actually laughed at this, and put it up again. “Rares, you’re a riot.”
“You’re great company too, Applejack, if I say so.” Rarity frowned, then, and looked to her right. “Say, Fluttershy is taking a long time. Do you think we should go see her?” She scratched her chin. “Then again, maybe she wants some privacy…”
“Well,” Applejack said. “Ah guess—” And she stopped.
Rarity noticed, and looked at her. “Applejack?”
“Rarity.”
“Yes?”
“Fluttershy went that way, right?”
Rarity looked in the direction Applejack was pointing. “Why, yes.”
“But the bathroom’s not that way,” Applejack said. “That’s a path to the orchard. That’s where Big Mac is.”
“Oh.”
Silence. Both mares were thinking so hard one could practically hear the gears turning.
“Say,” Applejack eventually said. “When Fluttershy recalled that dream… Y’know, she wasn’t cryin’, actually.”
“No,” Rarity said. “She wasn’t.”
“And she was kind of blushin’.”
“Obviously because she was trying to hold back the tears.”
“Hmm.” Applejack glanced at Rarity. Rarity glanced at Applejack. “’Cause, uh, Fluttershy knows about poetry. You wouldn’t think she was… turned—”
“Applejack, please,” Rarity chastised… but she didn’t put the Stetson down. “Fluttershy was clearly terrified, she’s classier than that.”
And that’s when they heard it.
Fluttershy lived near the Everfree, where being silent was a matter of survival. She was the best at being quiet—her screams were barely audible even for dogs, and Applejack and Rarity had heard her scream many times. In terror, more often than not. And the sound had never carried over more than a couple meters.
Fluttershy was completely out of sight, now. But they could hear her. They could hear her clearly.
Turns out, she could really scream, if she wanted to. Just, not out of terror.
“Well,” Applejack said, as by her side Rarity was getting redder and redder by the second. “That solves that. She is with Big Mac.”
“I—I just—uh.” Rarity looked at Applejack, wide-eyed. “I did not think she had it in her!” she said.
Applejack just shook her head. “It’s always the quiet ones,” she said. “Say. Should we give’em some privacy?”
“Yes.” Rarity blinked, still red. “Yes, obviously. Unless—”
“My brother, Rares. No peepin’.”
“No, no. Of course.”
“Hmm.” Applejack stretched, then looked around with a satisfied face. “Well, Ah’ve finished my work for the mornin’, actually. Ah could take a break. D’you still have some of that wine?”
Rarity eyed her. “It’s not even noon, darling.”
“Oh, Ah’m sure none of us cares.”
“Well.” Rarity shrugged, and then started walking. Applejack followed. “I can’t argue with that, can I? Say, have I ever showed you my Boutique’s little backroom?”
“Can’t say you have!”
“Only one way to fix that, then.”
And they walked away, smiling to themselves, sharing what could have very well been an inside joke that only they shared. Slowly but surely, they left Sweet Apple Acres, and Applejack didn’t return for a long time.
And in the distance, Fluttershy’s screams could still be heard, loud enough to startle one or two flock of birds into flying away from the trees. They were particularly pleasant screams.
There is a reason
they say I’m a genius.
Seriously: Dead maidens.
—Edgar Allan Poe, Apocrypha.
Author's Note
Fluttershy got wooed by a red-and-black alicorn!
Written in around three hours, because I found the idea cute. I'm a simple man.
