The waiting room was quiet when she entered.
The room, beige and sunlight, was as inoffensive as she was and just as forgettable. The mare with the wide-brimmed hat strolled by the waiting chairs, past the piled magazines on the wood endtable, and up to the counter where the receptionist sat leafing idly through a fashion magazine.
“Find anything interesting?” asked the mare with the hat. Her voice was bright, aged obviously but one could hear the hint of a younger mare somewhere in there.
The young receptionist startled, dropping her magazine. But the mare with the hat caught it in a burst of magic, her horn obviously hidden beneath the headwear.
“Sorry, ma’am,” the receptionist said, squirming. “I didn’t see you come in.”
“It’s quite alright.”
“Is that, ah… Is that you, miss?”
“It is.”
“Right. I’m terribly sorry…”
The mare with the hat chuckled. “It’s quite alright, didn’t I say? Am I the last patient for the day?”
The receptionist looked down at the little book in front of her for a moment and then back up. She nodded. “Yes, I think so.”
“Why don’t you take the rest of the day off?” remarked the mare softly. “It’s a lovely day outside, and we’re going to run late today. I already know we will.”
The reaction this news brought was hard to parse. The receptionist’s eyebrows raise in surprise that became something like dismay, but quickly she caught herself. She looked away, awkward, and nodded. “I think I will. Did… did something happen?”
The mare with the hat sighed. “Not exactly.”
“Sorry! I shouldn’t… Uh, I’ll go.”
“It’s fine, Melody. And don’t forget your magazine,” she added, levitating it over to the retreating receptionist.
The mare with the hat watched her go with a sigh. It was becoming more difficult to have normal interactions. Even dressed as she was, it was hard to feel normal. Especially when certain ponies were already in the know.
She walked behind the counter and through the door marked Dr. Peony, PhD. Past the hallway with the cheap-but-nice still lifes and the soft carpet, past the coffee machine and the bathroom on the right, she came at last to the open doorway and the room beyond.
It was a very different room. The lights were low, and there was a long couch and a few comfortable chairs. A desk in the corner. An earth pony reading something off of a clipboard in a plush chair, his hair still wild as the last time she saw him.
“Good afternoon, Doctor,” she said.
He looked up and nodded, greeting her with a little hmph and returned to his examination.
“And which are you?” he asked.
Her form shook and then glowed with a bright white light before it was replaced by Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship and coincidentally also of Ponyville. The hat remained the same, and Twilight removed it before straightening her hair.
“Ah, the young one.”
“In a matter of speaking,” Twilight said with a smirk. She plopped down without much ceremony on the couch and then laid there for a moment before sitting up and adjusting herself.
“It’s a good couch,” she said at last.
Dr. Peony hummed. “It is. Your appointment wasn’t supposed to be for another few days, Miss Sparkle. I presume something is the matter.”
“Everything is.”
He snorted softly. “Of course it is.”
“I’m serious.”
“And I know you are. Lie back and tell me. Or don’t lie back, and tell me.”
*
I wonder, sometimes, about change. Have you ever heard of Mareclitus? He told a story once, about a mare and a river. The mare crossed the river, but when she came back the feat was impossible. It was a different mare, and a different river. Everything flows, and nothing stays. He also said that life was a game played beautifully by foals, but that’s another matter.
When Celestia first took me aside and told me about you, Rarity and I were still engaged. I had just talked to her about how feasible it might be for me to find a counselor or therapist of some sort with my newfound status, as I had visited as a much younger mare when still at her school. To find out that there was an arrangement such as this one was surprising, to say the least. Or it was surprising then. I would not be surprised now. I know better.
Rarity and I were always happy.
No, I shouldn’t lie. Sorry.
No pony who has ever lived has been “always happy”. The words thrust together in this way are incoherent and cruel, whether they mean to be such or not. “Always” and “happy” when welded together in this bizarre matrimony--whoever thought the two fit?--do nothing more than to excite our hopes. They make us long for something that won’t happen, that can’t happen, that is impossible because of the very natures of both of the constituent halves.
But we were often happy, and that is generally enough. I adored her and she adored me. From gentle, chaste courtship centered around quiet teas deepened before I had truly realized it. In fact, I have wondered before if that lack of awareness was not in part why it was possible for me to fall in love at all. Who knows what I would have done if I had foreseen it? I can only imagine that self-destructive stupidity. I can, but I don’t want to.
Sometimes… Sometimes we weren’t happy because I wasn’t happy. I would fall into what my mother calls a “funk”. I’ve tried not to think of it in terms of words. They all felt like they fell short of the reality of what it was. Of all of the things before me waiting to be studied and thought about, the one that most directly touched me the most is the one I avoided! It’s ironic.
We’ve talked about all that before. We’ve talked all about my melancholic spells, how time and time again Rarity has been there to walk beside me at the low, dark points. I’ve tried to do the same!
I’m just not sure how.
Let me tell you a story. If I may.
Did you know once that I was convinced she was going to break things off? Back when we were dating still, perhaps a year or so before the engagement. It was one of my worst spells. I sequestered myself in work at first, finding some solace in work. But that solace faded and it was replaced as it always is by a mindless avoidance of what is and what could be and what, with time, I convinced myself must be!
I almost forgot our anniversary, you know.
She took me out on a lovely dinner, and we went to our favorite little hill where we still stargaze when we have the energy and time, and… and I just… I guess you could say I had a meltdown of sorts. I was convinced that she was being an angel, letting me down gently, working me up to acceptance of the inevitable. And I was so sure it was inevitable then!
Another.
She was working on a dress. She has been for some time. When we were younger she was always working on dresses. Sometimes, I would read in and amongst the creative chaos of her process. Without speaking we were always… I’m sorry. I’m getting caught up in old memories. You know, Celestia told me that I would, eventually. It happens to all of us, she said. I think she said that half a decade ago. Maybe more.
But this dress was a special dress. She worked on it here and there as she had time. It wasn’t a thing to be sold. No! This wasn’t a commission or a prototype for some assembly line of young seamstresses. That dress was--is--ours.
It’s… it’s hard to describe in a way that does it justice. I think the things that are important are, generally, hard to describe. But I can try! I certainly can try.
Usually, I would start with something more academic. I certainly could try to speculate in regards to my wife’s inspirations. She has always enjoyed styles and fashions from Equestria’s early modern period, but this eschewed the more ornate and busy designs common of the era. It was much more modern in taste. Sleeker. Less complicated. No, not less complicated. More subtle.
White and Purple. White, swan white, pure as driven snow, pristine as the mountaintops high above Highest Canterlot. Purple of the darkest royal sort, purchased at great cost. Somehow, with magic of such a fine touch it pains me just to imagine it, she had blended the colors together so that one flowed seamlessly into the other. White and Purple interwoven. Do you see where I am going with this? I hope so. It had intricate pattern work that snaked down the breast, and…
And I don’t know what else, because it isn’t done.
Not that I minded. It was always a long-term project, one she began during our engagement years ago. Business picked up, life intervened. The universe had other plans. It always does! And every now and then she worked on it and I sat beside her and read or watched and we were together.
But she hasn’t worked on it in a long time.
More and more, I look back at those times and they seem rosier. Surely we had troubles then, but I can hardly recall them. And the present seems so… Flat. Long. I see Rarity three days, perhaps. At most I see her that much in a week. Sometimes, we barely speak to each other. We aren’t angry, there isn’t any coldness to it. It’s not neglect. Those nights we don’t talk much, our energy drained and our hoove sore from the busy day, those nights are usually wonderful. I have Rarity to come to, after all. How could they not? Smiling, even when she’s tired. Sometimes when I’ve been on my hooves all day she will be there on the couch in our sitting room, reading the paper or a novel. She’ll pat the couch and beckon me over, and run a brush through my mane. She hums such lovely songs.
It isn’t the present I’m afraid of, I guess. It’s the future. It’s what might come. I can’t tell how much of this gnawing anxiety is the old dragon woken up again, the old flaw that kept me hiding inside afraid of everything and everyone… or if it’s real.
How long can we go like this? Busy and tired and strung along a dozen different fronts? Working and working until we slump home pyrrhically victorious only to be an inch farther apart than we were before? How long until the tiny distances, the ones that are okay in the moment, the ones you shrug off because by the end of the night you’re just happy to see them again, how long until those add up into a great heap and you could have tried to fix it, you could have done something but you put it off and you put it off, you were too tired, or you were too worried that you would cause an argument, or you didn’t know what to say and then… and then…
Sorry.
Visualize? Well.
I think about… I think about studying in Princess Celestia’s office. I’m not sure when. I have a lot of memories just like that. Describe… Alright. The ah, the… the floor. Carpet. Soft. I have a book. I always had books. Celestia’s study smells like old books and vanilla. I don’t know why. I hear the page turning, one by one. Celestia’s tea cup clanking softly against the saucer.
Okay. I’m breathing normally again.
What if she stops loving me?
What if I deserve it?
*
A figure strode into the waiting room.
She was poised, perfect. This was a mare in her prime years, with grace far beyond the ken of any peer. Her entrance managed somehow to be grand and eye-catching even as it was obvious she did not wish to be seen. Perhaps it was the subtle sway of hips long used to a confident, flirtatious gait. Perhaps it was the way her bright blue eyes flashed beneath the overly-floppy hat right at the receptionist, again reading her magazine. Perhaps it was because she was the only client present at the end of a long day.
This time the receptionist noticed her entrance and stared. “You’re--”
The mare made a shushing gesture and smiled. “Yes. Do be a dear and don’t say it aloud, would you?”
“Of course, ma’am. Are you, uh, Miss Sunny Days today?”
“That I am! Shall I wait? I believe this is the first time I’ve been here, after all, and I’m sure I have some sort of paperwork.”
“Ah, no, ma’am. Miss Sunny Day always goes on ahead.” The receptionist shifted nervously in her seat, smiling. “You, ah… haven’t come before, so I guess you wouldn’t know. We’ll get your records later.”
The mare smiled at her. “Thank you. I suppose I’ll just let myself in, then?”
With a nod, the receptionist gestured towards the door. The mare didn’t see, but she was watched until the door closed.
The client knocked on the office door at the end of the hallway and then let herself in.
Dr. Peony was writing at his desk as he always was at this time of the day, recording his thoughts and impressions in peace. It hadn’t been so long since the last of Miss Sunny Day’s appointments, and so he was startled when someone waltzed in and sat primly upon his couch. But he recognized the hat.
But the good doctor was a sanguine sort. He simply smiled and nodded and finished his daily summation before turning to begin.
“You’ve not worn this form before,” he said. “Go on and change, then.”
“Change? Dear, this is the only form I have.”
He blinked. “Ah. Ah! Oh, Miss Rarity. I assumed because of the hat…”
“So I was right. They do employ some sort of illusion. Fascinating. I do so wish I was better at such things.”
Mr. Peony nodded and settled deeper into his chair. “It has been some time since one of Miss Sunny Day’s family walked in my door, but you are of course welcome to come during her usual appointment time. I would ask you to sit, but I see that you’ve gotten a step ahead of me.” He chuckled. “Now. What are we talking about today?”
“A lot of things.”
*
I guess it started a long time ago.
It is one thing to comfort a friend. At the end of the day, most often, you do not have to go home to them, if you understand me. It is so relatively easy to comfort a friend in distress! I know just what to do. I always had just the right words and just the… Well. I could go on.
It is a very different matter to comfort someone who you do, in fact, have to go home to.
It is such a different matter, comforting one’s beloved.
Resent? No, not at all. How could I? It is not merely a duty but a heavy delight to be of use to one’s partner! But it is difficult. Very difficult. Just as most anything joyful or needful is, supporting the weight of another even only for awhile is exhausting. More than testing one’s strength, it drains it away. What is taken can be replaced, but not all at once. Time is required.
And I suppose we have time, don’t we? All the time in the world. At least, my dearest Twilight does. I’ll only live as long as I’m allotted, not that it bothers me most days. And it really doesn’t weigh on me at all.
I’m sorry. Let me go back and start again.
Our marriage has been a happy one, as such things go. I think it is possible to be happy at every point, but it is difficult and rare. We do not have much in the way of arguments. To be honest, we sometimes have little in the way of interaction at all.
No, that’s not fair. We see each other. We are in each other’s presence. There are moments of dazzling quiet intimacy. But the words come with greater spaces in between.
We used to spend so much time together. The world was so much wider then, I think. There was more room for such things, time for her and myself, time for us and whatever we wanted to do. Twilight and I used to talk so much. We would talk for hours, you know.
Sometimes, I would work and she would keep me company. Sometimes we would have tea when I needed a break and looking at a dress for even another moment was a torturous prospect. For a while, she was learning bits of my craft. Frankly, it was adorable. She was so fascinated!
I had this dress, you know. It was our dress, to be specific. Everything about it was different, just as everything about us was different. You know, Twilight and I? In some ways it is such an odd pairing. It always was. Our friends certainly thought so, though--bless them--they didn’t say as much.
Think about it honestly for a second. I am… well. I shan’t be coy about it: I am a bit louder than Twilight. Oh, I can be genteel and collected when I need to be! But I know myself well enough now to know that my enthusiasm is hard to contain. I am a mare of the ponies, at home in the throng and the crowd, preferably at the center of it with ten dozen pairs of eyes at least and a nice spotlight. I am the mare you always manage to run into at the party with an extra flute of wine just for you, a smile wide as the room, a spring in her inimitable step, and a few deceptively innocuous questions to get you to be more honest than you ever intended. The best dressed, the shining, sparkling gem that’s always just a hair late, the kind of mare who spends several minutes straight talking about herself in the middle of a long speech she’s half-prepared on the train ride from her home to Canterlot.
And my sweet, sweet Twilight is not any of those things.
Let me tell you about her. You already know. I just… I just want hear it out loud. Is that alright?
Thank you.
Twilight is… quiet. Not in the way that Fluttershy is, not in a frail or wilting way, but in a focused way. Twilight is always about some task or another. Even when she is relaxed, Twilight’s mind is on the move. She pours over texts so dense that I can make neither head nor tail of what’s written, in more languages that I even knew existed. She does not like crowds and parties. No longer shy of them, true, but she’ll never like them or find them interesting in of themselves. Individuals, yes, but groups? The ponies all become faceless and shifting, and they stop being real. She likes to talk but about different things. She bores dignitaries only sometimes on purpose. She snorts when she laughs. She likes to wear nice things but she won’t admit it. Twilight is the kind of pony who memorizes things hoping one day somepony might need to know so she can joyously spread her wealth of knowledge.
It isn’t that we’re opposite. I could deal with that. We’re just… different.
And I don’t really care? I didn’t before. I don’t now, I mean. I don’t care in that I don’t think it’s very important and I don’t mind it, but sometimes I wonder if it was okay, if it was a mistake, if we’re going to run out of things to talk about and then what comes after?
What are we going to do?
I keep thinking about that dress. I know she’s thinking about it. It’s sitting in the corner of our room. The dress sits there. It sits and sits and sits and it has to be finished but I just… I just don’t have time! No, I have time, just no energy. Not for that. Not the right kind of energy. It needs more than just business. It needs… it deserves something more but I don’t know what!
Forget the dress, we need something more. Or maybe we don’t need something more so much as we need something at all. What if we run out of things to say? We’re so tired. All the time we’re so tired. I don’t know how to be there for her. I don’t think she knows how to be there for me all the time. I’m just…
Tired.
*
Rarity came home late.
The train had been held up by mechanical problems. Nopony’s fault, really. Maybe somepony’s, but an older Rarity had grown more patient with time. She would just have to wait. And she had waited.
It had been torture. Just herself, alone in the sunset station on a bench as the rough stallions in stained coats toiled in the background. The occasional tired businesspony would trudge by, and none at all stopped or sat. She had no one at all but herself for company.
How dismal.
Just… Rarity. Just herself and the Rarity on the couch spilling out all of those secrets.
She sniffed and shivered as she stepped off the train into the cold winter air of Ponyville. Winter had already arrived, and while she was glad for the boost in sales that came with the rush for scarves and whatnot, the cold did start to wear on one’s fortitude. Had she always been this way? Had that changed with time?
Rarity began her walk home. She smiled at the guard on the platform, and he tipped his hat to her as he always did.
“Good evening, Stalwart.”
“Same to you, Lady Rarity. Long day in Canterlot?”
She stopped and nodded, still smiling. The smile for Stalwart was not as forced as it was for so many in Canterlot. He was an old veteran, the grizzled sort of stallion too old to be of use but still trying his best. “You wouldn’t believe,” she said. “The silly train went caput! I had to wait at the station for an hour or so whilst they located the problem. It is so good to be back in Ponyville again.”
“Ponyville’s glad to have you back as well,” the old guard replied, beaming. He looked around for a moment, as if there were even a remote chance somepony might be there to listen in after dark in Ponyville. “Between you and I, Lady Rarity… I’ve actually been waiting for you.”
Rarity blinked and cocked her head to the side. “Oh? And whatever for, my good stallion?”
He flushed slightly, and while Rarity quietly enjoyed still having that effect on ponies, he fumbled about in his armor before pulling out a small sack.
Rarity squinted at it, and took it with her magic when he offered it sheepishly. “What is this?”
“Well… alright, this assignment is sort of for those of us who need a break. Or for those like me who are too old to do much else. I know it, it’s alright, don’t get lookin’ defensive on my behalf, Lady Rarity. But we do what we can! We’re Princess Twilight’s finest and, uh, only. She’s been so ragged the last few days. Young Bonnie Blue in the Household guard convinced a few of us to go in together on somethin’ for her. Just somethin’ to show her ponies appreciate what she does for us.”
Rarity, not sure what to say, managed to keep her composure. “Stalwart, that’s very kind of you all.”
He shook his head. “No, ma’am, it’s only a fraction of what y’all deserve. We just want her to be happy, you know? But, anyhow,” he coughed, looking away for a moment. “It’s coffee. Straight from Saddle Arabia, if you believe it! Household guard and I went in for it together, and let me tell you it wasn’t easy to find! But find it we did. We know she loves that stuff. She told me once.”
Rarity cradled the little sack of coffee beans tightly to her. “Thank you, Stalwart. Thank you.” She sniffed, and then she too looked away. “I’m not sure I can express how much this means to me, and will mean to her. You’re very kind. All of you are.”
“It’s what any neighbor would do,” the old pony said.
“But you did it,” she replied quickly but softly, and then surprised him with a hug and a continued on her way.
Ponyville had grown, but not so much as to be unrecognizable. The streets were mostly still the same, though they were paved with cobblestone now. The thatched roofs were still thatched, and the extent of the night life was confined to the bar, though there were two now instead of one. Ponyville at night was quiet and peaceful.
But Rarity, walking in that calm, was anything but peaceful. She kept the gift tightly held to her chest, and her eyes brimmed with tears. She hated it. She hated this swelling of emotion out of nowhere. She hated how urgent it was, and how it refused to go away.
“It’s been a long day,” she told the air defensively, sniffling. “It’s just been a long, emotional day.”
It had. But there was more to it.
They’d tried so hard. They’d given a lot, hadn’t they? To each other and to these ponies and to so many others. Always giving, and never complaining about how much they gave.
She had to stop. That damned statue of Spike the Empire had donated was as good a place as any, and so she stopped next to it, sat down on her haunches, and rubbed her eyes. The tears, not really caring what she did to stop them, kept coming.
She did not seize up or sob. She couched, a lump in her throat, but otherwise she was silent. Rarity’s composure was not so easily cracked when she had a mind to keep it pristine. But…
She could just see Twilight smiling exhaustedly at her from the dinner table, having waited. She could see herself walking in, giving that same practiced smile and having it returned and then the routine would begin. The farce would start. No, not that.
The language was pointless. It was dead and and it was hollow and it banged around in her exhausted mind and in that moment she didn’t care at all about what she had to do the next day or the day after. She did not care a wit about any number of new orders and elaborate designs and payroll and what not. She only cared about seeing Twilight, and not wearing that smile. Anything else but that. Crying would be better.
Time went soft for a while, and then she came back to herself, straightened her coat and let there be one last undignified eye-wiping before she continued on.
The windows were lit, as they often were in winter. Not all of them, but some. The public chambers, no doubt, the great hall and such. Rarity paused at the door and bit her lip.
Twilight would be in there. Why did that thought make her anxious? Why did it make her pause?
She pushed the door open.
Twilight did not greet her in the great hall. Rarity, blinking and silent, walked in and wandered. Twilight was not in the dining room, but there was a covered dish there with dinner from the kitchens and a note from the cook apologizing, but Twilight had insisted he leave her food out here.
She was not on the steps, and not in the library.
Rarity wandered what felt forever, but she could not find Twilight anywhere.
There would be some note somewhere, perhaps on their door or on the night stand. A deep, bitter disappointment filled her. Of course, with all of that buildup, Twilight wouldn’t be home.
It figured. Well. Nothing for it. She would eat and then go to bed. There would be a full day tomorrow, Twilight or no Twilight. She returned to the dining room and sat down heavily on the chair. It figured. Of course. She cursed herself.
Until, just barely, she heard a very, very familiar sound. Twilight’s unmistakable light snores. Her heart fluttered in her chest like a caged bird. She gently rose and quietly tiptoed to the kitchen door, and opened it with the lightest touch of her hoof.
And found Twilight, asleep on the counter top next to an empty coffee pot, clutching an empty bag of coffee grounds.
Rarity stared. And then she laughed. Softly at first, trying not to wake her wife, and then louder until she had to put her gift on the counter to avoid dropping it.
Twilight stirred and groaned before looking up blearily at her. “You’re home,” she said, or tried to say around a massive yawn.
Rarity didn’t say anything at all. She stepped forward, wrapped herself around a bewildered Twilight, and kissed her deeply before saying: “I am, and I brought a gift.”
She pulled the coffee up and opened the little pack so that Twilight could smell its contents. Loving the way her beloved’s eyes lit up with delight, she pulled it away and kissed her again.
“Make us some coffee, darling,” she said with a smile. “If you’re up for it, I think I might pull an all nighter. I have a dress to finish.”
Author's Note
Dedicated to Monochromatic, she of Great Heart, may she reach the Top and find what there is there to find
Proofread and added to by the beautiful, gracious maskedferret, who I should talk to more because she is good
also read by Jordanis, SPark, and ScarletWeather who are all good
