The First Stitch

by Carabas

Rating: teen
Tags: Adventure, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Princess Platinum, Rarity, Clover the Clever
Length: 10834

One winter's day, before Hearth's Warming Eve, Rarity falls backwards in time. To before all the Hearth's Warming Eves to come.

One winter's day, before Hearth's Warming Eve, Rarity falls backwards in time. To before all the Hearth's Warming Eves to come.

Written for Monochromatic for the 2017 Jinglemas collab. Cover art from the gallery of Plotcore. Proofread by themaskedferret.

Published 2017-12-29 16:10:07 UTC
Last updated 2017-12-29 16:10:07 UTC

The First Stitch

Where to begin? Always a vexing question for the storytellers. But let it never be said Rarity neglected even the most vexatious tasks, and so I shan’t.

That very morning, perhaps, in the week running up to Hearth's Warming Eve. When the sun rose high and bright over a brisk winter’s day in Ponyville. When the streets and rooftops were strung with lights and decorations, and mantled with snow the weather team had let fall overnight. When dearest Twilight and Starlight Glimmer were preoccupied trying to stop space-time from eating itself. And when I had put the finishing touches to that year’s winter range in Carousel Boutique.

Forgive a moment’s digression regarding that range. It was, if I do say so myself, one of my finer collections yet. A Nouveau spirit had quite overtaken me for my first sketches, had clarified itself during testing and fitting sessions with Fluttershy’s help, and it had manifested itself marvellously in the final articles. Multiple sets of dresses and gowns and saddles, made from warm wool and velvet, dyed with naturally-hued greens and cream-tones and whites, adorned with floral patterns on the sleeves and hems, and sewn into gently-curving lines. Accompanying them were all the accoutrements winter demanded — hats, scarves, leg-warmers, boots, under-saddles, and more, all wrought in the same style and accented with bolder hues here and there.

Style and utility working hoof-in-hoof. I was quite satisfied. Although it always serves to adjust one’s expectations downwards and remain modest, I anticipated the appreciative souls running Chic and Apparel Weekly would be more than satisfied as well. I anticipated acclaim.

Not all of it was for Carousel Boutique, of course, Sassy Saddles and Plaid would receive some of the articles for display and sale in Canterlot and Manehatten respectively, and delivery would have to be conducted. Delivery, as it happens, makes for a wonderful excuse to visit either city and catch up with them both. Therefore, after aforementioned finishing touches, I spent a happy while drinking cocoa and packing away those articles destined for more urban locales, to be delivered by my own self in a whistle-stop tour that very afternoon.

As I sipped cocoa and packed, there came from outside an earth-shaking and somewhat plaintive roar. On its heels came poor Twilight’s voice, sounding very strained. “Come on, stay still. Good theropod.”

That was the other main component of the morning, you understand. Twilight and Starlight had had the idea for what they dubbed a Scryerscope, some intricate chronomantic design inspired by a potion of Zecora’s and some other writings by Starswirl, which would let them peer freely into the past. I’d excused myself from involvement there — my own skill for arcane theory and practice ends woefully short of time-based magic, alas — but was most keen to see what came of it.

Teething problems seemed to have emerged. Every so often as I worked in the boutique, there would come from outside a prolonged and bassy vwoorp sound (which I am assured is the sound of consternated space-time) and that would often then be followed by a confused bellow from some large and primeval entity. I’d gone outside earlier to see if assistance was needed, of course — the winter range could wait — and had been assured by a tousled and frantically-smiling Starlight Glimmer that everything would be fine, fine, she said, and that if I could avoid stepping into any spontaneous chronospasms, that would be more than enough help. Then one of said chronospasms had vwoorped into existence in the sky behind her, something large and green and covered in spikes had tumbled out from its aperture, and Starlight had turned to deal with that. With mixed feelings, I had turned back as well. I didn’t wish to merely get in the way, after all, and I was sure Twilight was absolutely capable of resolving the matter. But on the off-off-off-chance events grew out of hoof, one should always remain ready to intervene.

Twilight seemed to have justified all faith in her, though, and the kerfuffle seemed to be dying down. I finished packing, drained my cocoa, and donned a fetching scarlet set of boots, saddle, scarf, and ushanka to make the journey in cosy style. A train would depart Ponyville Station in the right direction in just over ten minutes, assuming the clock wasn’t lying, and so I gathered up the dozen or so large parcels and bags about me and dared the great outdoors.

Outside, upon leaving my front door, brisk air hit me. The divine sight of Ponyville under winter whiteness and crowned by a pale blue sky would have taken my breath away, as it tends to. At its forefront, though, somewhat more arresting sights compelled my attention.

At one side of the street before the boutique, there sat Starlight with what looked like a great and intricate spherical dial wrought from glowing spectral lines suspended in the air above her horn. She frantically twiddled with it, obscure arcane notation glowing and shifting in the air above her as she worked. Twilight hovered front and centre in mid-air, raising a magical shield to keep several curious onlookers out of harm’s way and calling out advice to Starlight. At the other side, Opalescence, who had ventured forth from her cushion by the stove for the first time that day, had cornered approximately ten tons of bewildered saurian and was trying to hunt it.

“Twilight?” I called out. “Are things alright, darling? Can I be of any use?”

“Rarity!” she replied, flapping to turn in my direction and smiling wearily. “Thank you, but everything’s okay … ish. Starswirl’s Sequencer just didn’t want to play nicely with Grimoire’s Constraining Dweomerlayk, that’s all. It’s, er … sequencing too hard. But we’ve managed to send back most of the incursions, and we can fix it! We just need a few more minutes. Starlight? How’s it —?”

“Almost,” Starlight said, sweat beading on her brow. “Just got to map on Milky Way’s Abstractional Syphon to clear off some of the excess, and then we’ll be able to arrest the sequence manually. Just give me a moment.”

There was a great crash at one side, and I turned to see that the saurian had flopped to the ground in surrender to Opalescence, belly presented and tiny arms waggling helplessly, inviting mercy. Opalescence, who regrettably tends to regard mercy as a four-letter word, simply escalated her efforts to try and dismember the poor thing.

“Opal!” I said sternly, trotting her way, my corona of bags rustling. “Don’t torment the poor creature, it’s already—”

“Uh-oh,” said Starlight in that moment. “Er, excess. Excess! Lots! Look out!”

“What?” Twilight and I said in unison, turning just in time to see the sphere over Starlight fizzing with agitation, and then spitting loose several magical bolts. Most of them screamed up into the empty sky, flashing out of existence with bangs and vwoorp sounds. Most save one.

A flash erupted up above, and as I instinctively turned my head up, there was a great sound like VWOO—

That moment, everything seemed to slow, the world moving like treacle all around me.

The solid lines of Ponyville melted away like frost in a furnace.

Twilight’s face collapsed in horror and shock as she lunged towards me, horn blazing.

And then the whole world turned white.

Freefall through whirling blankness. Things screamed in through one ear, fizzled what they found, and flew out the other side as voices in reverse, and I would have screamed had everything not been quite so distant and muffled, including myself. A thunderous ticking rang out all around, and sped up and up and up as I fell. Tick. Ticktick. Tickticktickticktick—

—OORP.

The whole world turned dark and cold. Freefall ceased, and I plummeted face-first into a thick pile of snow. Bags crashed down all around me, next to where I lay fallen.

Composure was slow and effortful in the regaining, and I spent more time than was ideal spluttering snow away from my muzzle and struggling back to my hooves. All was whirling, frigid darkness, and I lifted my head and blinked around at my surroundings to restore some sense. “Twilight?” I coughed. “Twilight, are you there? It’s alright, I—”

But no sooner had I opened my mouth, there came a ghastly howling as wind slashed down at me, bringing down what felt like an extra inch or so of snow for the layer I already stood in. Huddling under my hat, I stared out at what remained wild blackness, and coaxed light to my horn. Soft blue light spilled around me, lighting up snow, fallen bags, silver flurries of snow pelting the ground. And further out...

I stared wildly around me, a ghastly suspicion becoming a certainty as I looked vainly for any sign of Ponyville. “Twilight?” I ventured once more, equally vainly.

No Ponyville. No streets, no ponies, no noon sun. Instead, the walls of a narrow and forested gully rose up around me, cragged with snow-smothered rocks and roots and small trees, all violently shaking as snow-edged winds lashed into them. Shadows danced past what small light I’d conjured, and up past it all, to where the silhouettes of trembling trees lined the gully’s lip, the dark sky roiled with clouds.

I peered up desperately, shielding my eyes with a hoof, squinting for any other light, any sign of where I might be. Nothing. Nothing but pitch-black skies, slashing down with sheets of snow. Amidst that blackness, though it may have been my imagination, it wasn’t impossible to make out vast and sinuous shapes, capering and twisting and, all but lost against the shrill howl of the wind, something faintly laughing…

Consider my position. Hurled from hearth and home, lost elsewhere (and perhaps elsewhen, considering the magics that had been in play) in an unknown wilderness, alone, at the mercy of unknown and unpleasant forces high above, and clad in garments that could only furnish so much insulation in the face of a winter worthy of the Founders.

You can understand that I was a little out of sorts. I spun around on my hooves and looked this way and that, hunting for any friendly sight. “Anypony?” No small amount of emotion coloured my voice at this unexpected turn in what had hitherto been a pleasant day. “Hello?”

“Ēalā?”

A mare’s rough voice from above, ringing out like a miracle in that moment. I spun and looked up, just as lilac light spilled across the ground from her direction as well, mixing with my blue. On the edge of the gully, high above my position, there stood a unicorn, her small shape vague and swaddled up behind a large cloak. Lilac light flared up from her horn, poking up past her cowl, illuminating what looked like a haggard face and bright, sharp eyes.

“Oh, thank heavens! Hello!” I began. Her head seemed to tilt and her gaze narrowed as I called up. “There’s … ah, been some manner of magical accident! Could you tell me where I am? Could you help me? I’d be ever-so—”

Her horn flashed and, amidst magical light and flurrying snow, she abruptly teleported right in front of me. I reflexively shied back.

The instant after, I got a good look at her. And I reflexively shied back again.

She wasn’t the most intimidating entity I’ve ever seen at close quarters, but she merits mention in the category. Diamond-hard eyes hammered into me out of what was far too gaunt a face to be healthy. Her lean features were blistered with cold, the spiral of her horn was scorched and faintly damaged by prolonged magical strain, I could tell. Her cloak and cowl were ragged, reeking, filthy things, patched and repaired many times over with as many different materials. Under her cloak, I could make out a stick-thin body corded about the legs with thin, ropey muscle and covered with matted hide.

Lilac magic flared right at me, down the length of a horn which brought to mind unfavourable comparisons with loaded crossbows, and I broke into chatter, desperate to get things moving into a somewhat more friendly mode. “Good … good day to you! My name is Rarity — perhaps, ah, the name rings a bell? Element Bearer, designer extraordinaire, that sort of thing? It is very, very nice to make your acquaintance, and may I compliment you on your lovely cloak, and may I enquire after your own na—?”

As I babbled, she looked me up and down, and when her eyes snapped back up to mine, her gaze was cold and suspicious. “Hwā ēower nama īs?”

It wasn’t spellfire, which was a reason to be thankful. But it wasn’t entirely comprehensible either. I stood, and stared, and shivered, and did other similarly useful things while the strange mare regarded me. “I … apologies, could you repeat that? Is that, ah, a Ponesylvanian accent? It’s quite —”

“Spraec māra slāwlice,” she snapped, her voice firm, her bright eyes boring into me. “Hwā ēower nama īs?”

(I detail her speech after the fact, you understand, by racking my recall of what at the time were so many terrifying syllables, consulting a relevant dictionary, and extrapolating where necessary. Let none say I don’t make the effort.)

Headway seemed stymied. I looked at her helplessly. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t understand you.”

“Spraec thu Æquisc?” she said, the hardness of her gaze softening slightly. She sounded quite puzzled. I shared the feeling.

“I … ah … yes? No? Possibly?” The words were something very nearly close to familiar, and yet so far as well. I paused, took a breath, and tried to steady myself. Panic and confusion were no excuses for losing one’s dignity if one could help it.

The glow around the mare’s horn dimmed slightly as she closed her eyes and murmured something under her breath. A thread of little glowing glyphs and lilac fragments of arcane notation unspooled from the tip of her horn, coiling out into a ring that hung in the air before us and rotated slowly. I studied them warily, trying to discern their meaning, but to little avail. Again, I grudgingly acknowledge arcane theory not being my strongest field. But I knew enough to recognise it as an intricate piece of work that only trained magical academics would entirely apprehend, let alone cast.

“Sprece tō mec,” the mare said, not ungently. The words were still strange to me, but something of the meaning came across, and I cleared my throat as she gestured with a forehoof.

“Ahem. My name is Rarity, and while I am pleased to make your acquaintance, I’m afraid I’m in a rather awkward —” I paused. The little glyphs glowed and pulsed as I spoke, and the strange mare nodded and smiled at me. A rather sad, tired-looking smile, but a smile for all that. “Gracious, is this a translation spell? And not a rote trick, one from scratch? That’s quite a complex piece of — ah, beg pardon, maybe I shouldn’t comment on it itself while it’s taking in my speech, lest I confuse it. Anyway, I’m in something of a predicament involving chronomancy. Could you help me get my bearings so that —?”

The glyphs glowed white-hot in the air, and with a satisfied grunt, the mare bore up the rotating ring with her magic and lifted it over to my own head. I tensed as the warm thrum of its magic made my mane hairs prickle, but before I could do anything, the ring flashed down across my head. I tasted lilac for a second, my ears and throat prickled, and then the sensations passed. The mare eyed me, and then, in a rough voice that didn’t quite match the movement of her mouth, said, “Am I understood?”

“Understood … oh, yes! Yes, we’re now on speaking terms, as it were.” I laughed briefly, joy blossoming at the prospect of simply talking to another pony again in this awful place. Curiosity filled me as well, as to who this curious and dishevelled mare might be, with enough magical skill to potentially talk shop with Twilight if the two ever met. I met her gaze and smiled quite unreservedly. “Thank you! May I know your name?”

“I am Clover, aide to Her Highness,” she said, a frown asserting itself on her features once more. “What is your name, stranger?”

“...Clover?” I repeated.

“No, stranger, that is mine,” she said with much patience. “What is yours?”

I didn’t answer immediately. Clover.

Maybe it didn’t mean anything. It was a common-enough name. The festive atmosphere back in Ponyville had undoubtedly slipped it into my head. But on the other hoof, she was a skilled and powerful unicorn. She served an as-yet-unspecified Highness. There was a terrible winter blowing all about us. And I’d recently been on the wrong end of some chronomancy.

“Who exactly is Her Highness?” I stammered at last, looking for confirmation.

“Princess Platinum of Unicornkind, as you should know.” Her eyes narrowed with suspicion, and an edge to her tone betrayed incredulous bewilderment. “You are a unicorn whose face I do not know, who does not speak our tongue, wears strange garb, and does not know the name of her princess. Who are you, stranger?”

That settled it.

I didn’t slump to my haunches in the snow right then, I hasten to add, but only just. “I think I’m very, very lost,” I said, in a small voice which wasn’t quite rising to proceedings as it should. In fairness, the mind behind it wasn’t either.

Clover the Clever closed her eyes and breathed out. “Yet again then. Stranger, what is your na—”

“Rarity,” I managed. I looked up at her, and I suspect I cut a most out-of-sorts figure, there in that snowy gully. “From Ponyville. You won’t have heard of it, it’s very, very far from here. I’ve been on the receiving end of a nasty magical accident, and I’m a long way from home. Please, I know you’re in unhappy straits yourself, but could you help me? I can try my best to explain things.”

For a long moment, Clover studied me in silence, her bright eyes picking me apart with the air of a dispassionate surgeon. For my part, I just tried to maintain proper composure in front of a legend in the flesh, and tried not to shiver as wind-driven snow howled through the night.

Then the same weary smile she’d worn earlier returned to Clover’s features.

“I have acquired a knack for helping,” she said. “Walk with me somewhere warmer, Rarity of Ponyville.”

And somewhere warmer we did indeed walk — and teleport as well, at least for the slope up the gully’s sides. Clover was good enough to bear me along with her, and I found that the land atop the gully was overrun by a forest of towering trees, their blizzard-tossed canopies growling overhead, while the wide spaces between them snarled up in a mess of stone ridges, great snaking roots, and mud frozen solid. An Everfree of times past, I thought, before emphasising the ‘times past’ part to myself. It was all the Everfree.

Clover loped on through the trees, her lilac light guiding us, and I hurried along at her back. I may or may not have stumbled over what felt like every protrusion the forest floor had to offer, with diminishing dignity each time. Clover was courteous enough not to comment, though when I got caught on an especially irksome root, the magic she used to disentangle me may have had a somewhat long-suffering air to it.

I thanked her on reflex alone, my thoughts elsewhere. My mind worried at my situation like Opalescence with a saurian.

First and foremost, with regards to my own life and limb and prospects of returning home, I had settled somewhat. I had no doubt that Twilight and Starlight and everypony else capable of pitching in would be trying to track me and rescue me at that very moment — or rather, that moment well in the future, which was to say, the present, and that I, presently in the past, would best help them by staying still and awaiting their efforts, as and when they came, which might be shortly in the future. My future, that is. But also theirs, which was the present.

The point is, I had faith in my friends. But a niggling feeling, unrelated to them at all, had set in.

A reminder, once more, that I really and truly am no expert in time-based magic. I’m aware that it exists, that it is something best not meddled lightly with, and that common counsel for its use in all the associated stories and legends warns against trying to assassinate one’s grandmother. Heavens knows why this has to be specifically pointed out to time-travellers. Perhaps their lot is an unusually stressful and confusing one, filled with indiscriminate assassination. Perhaps they tend towards strained familial relations. I shan’t judge. But there are definite guidelines against meddling in the past. The reasoning for these rules that I’ve heard varies — either one’s meddling produces the exact same outcome regardless, and one has put oneself through maddening stress to no avail, or one changes events, and potentially irreversibly so.

It occured that interaction between myself, a modern pony from modern Equestria, and Clover, to whom Equestria wasn’t even yet a word, might be exactly the sort of meddling one should refrain from. It may even be worse than grandmother assassination. I couldn’t say for certain.

Best, therefore, to stay as silent and unrevealing as possible. Let me simply be a strange and confused pony to them, found in the snow one night and vanished just as quickly. They’d put me from mind, and Equestrian history wouldn’t be irreversibly damaged as a result. Most likely. Perhaps.

I mulled it over as Clover and I pressed on over what in truth was a fairly short distance, made insufferably long by the conditions and by the persistent refusal of the roots underhoof to play nicely with my gait. Lights appeared past the treeline, flickering orange in the darkness and descending down past my sight.

As we drew closer, Clover led me onto the edge of the forest, There, I found myself at the top of another rise. And below me…

Fires. Fires and tents, straddling the width and length of a small valley plunging down within the forest to afford some measure of shelter from the blizzard. And around these fires and within these tents, dozens, hundreds, countless unicorns. They huddled under antiquated cloaks and cowls, called out to one another over the crackle of the many campfires and bonfires, huddled on thin blankets spread over the earth, held foals close, shivered, bore trugs and wagons full of freshly-hewn timber and firewood. The fires roared as they were fed, each one flaring defiance up at the winter, weaving a wall of smoke between the unicorns on the ground and what waited above.

I stared mutely for a while, taking it in, taking in what it was. Tents and battered pavilions predominated, some of them sporting equally battered banners and crests, and the clothes nearly every unicorn sported were as ragged as Clover’s own. This was the Unicorn Kingdom of old, on the move through the windigo-sent winter of old. I tried to count the scores upon scores of fires, and I was sickened to realise that I could.

Unicornkind looked horribly finite at that moment.

“This way,” said Clover, her weary voice rousing me, and she motioned down the valley slope to where one pavilion nestled up against a rock wall, faded patterns running across its surface that might have once been gaudy. An opening at its top vented smoke, and the banner by the pavilion’s entrance sported a stylised white unicorn’s head on a diamond-dusted purple background. Recognition dawned on me, as old history lessons scrabbled up through memory to earn their keep. Old lessons, and props from a play starring yours truly.

With another disorientating flash, Clover whisked us both down to the pavilion’s entrance. Most of the other tents and unicorns were at a remove from it, and those that glanced our way only spared a second or so before returning to their tasks or rest. “Follow me in,” said Clover. “Remember your courtesies.”

Obedient and wordless, I followed her, and was greeted by the interior of the royal pavilion, which proved marginally warmer than the outdoors. A small fire and an overhanging cooking pot sat at the centre of its one circular room, the flames murmuring to themselves and sending a dwindling stream of smoke up through the ceiling’s vent, trapping enough to make me cough. A couple of heavy wooden boxes lay scattered around its perimeter, as well as a trug of kindling and logs. On it leaned a jeweled and hiltless blade, scuffed as if it had been used to cut wood. And by the fire, what I initially took to be a bundle of fabric, with one purple-ish rug lying over it and the gleam of metal at one end.

Then my initial thoughts were confounded, as the metal slowly rose and twisted in our direction, revealing itself to be a silver crown studded with jewels. That triggered memories as well, but less so than the face that revealed itself under the crown’s brim and blinked unsteadily in our direction.

“Good Clover,” whispered Princess Platinum vaguely, her gaze unfocused and her voice hoarse and awfully, painfully small. “You found the … disturbance?”

If I’d thought Clover somewhat gaunt, Platinum looked positively withered. She was no older than Clover, I knew, but her frame resembled nothing so much as too-pale hide stretched over a bundle of sticks, and her eyes were bleary and red-veined. She struggled to rise from her prone position, steadying herself on her forehooves only with some effort. The crown seemed too large for her head, her famed cloak was as faded and worn as Clover’s own, and her motions were unsteady and lethargic.

Clover dropped into a bow before rushing to her. “I did, Your Highness, and all’s well. Nothing that seems a danger to us at the moment. Please, rest. You mustn’t exert yourself—”

“Is this … a supplicant?”

Clover and Platinum both turned on me, and I mastered myself sufficiently to drop into my own bow, mirroring Clover’s — the sort one may give to one of the Princesses. It seemed only reasonable to give it to any Princess at hoof.

“No, Your Highness. I believe her to be associated with the disturbance in some way. But she was alone in the snow, and I presumed to bring her back here. Both to safeguard, and to question.”

“Good.” Platinum nodded at nothing in particular. “Most good.” Her gaze turned upon me, furrowing slightly as if she was trying to think. Whatever effort she made, it petered out swiftly, and she bestowed a smile that was a shade too tired to be entirely regal and serene. “Do come closer. Your princess … is somewhat indisposed.”

I edged closer and leaned towards her, offered up another bow on the grounds it couldn’t hurt, and carefully didn’t mention that I’d once played her in a stage production. “I … ah, well-met, Your Highness.”

To one side, Clover had opened one of the wooden boxes and was rummaging. A stray tendril of her magic tossed a couple of logs onto the fire, building it up from its diminished state. As Clover busied herself, Platinum reached one hoof out towards my face and patted one of my cheeks. I remained still as it patted up towards my horn.

Apparently satisfied, Platinum let her hoof drop and re-bestowed the same almost-regal smile. “A subject. Good show.” Her gaze drifted towards my clothes, and lingered for a moment. “Such … marvellous needlework on these stitches. Very small. Commendably… even.”

It had indeed been commendable work on the part of my sewing machine, but it dawned on me as a reason to get yet more suspicious about the strange guest in their presence, and I prayed Clover wouldn’t pick up on it. “Thank you, Your Highness,” I said quickly. “I, ah, have a steady hoof and a lot of patience.”

Her gaze drifted for a moment before alighting up on me again, her eyes briefly betraying concern. “Tell us. You are … fed? Warm? Sheltered?”

I swallowed. I had breakfasted only a couple of hours ago and finished my cocoa not twenty minutes before, while square meals looked like only a distant memory for Platinum and every other unicorn here I’d seen. “Yes, Your Highness.”

She looked happy, smiling brightly before near-regality reasserted itself. “Excellent. Most excellent. If you lack, then let … Clover or ourselves know. We shall have nopony suffer ...” She coughed and broke off, and when she resumed, her voice was quieter than before, if such was even possible. “We … we have tried as well as we could … But rest assured, good pony, an … end is in sight. We are but one more day’s march from the mouth of Dream Valley.”

“You are? We are?” I rifled through dates in my head, and placed where I was. T’was the night before Hearth's Warming. T’was the night before the three tribes met at Dream Valley, the night before the last flare-up of rivalries and the last windigo onslaught. The night before the tribes finally united, once and for all.

“Indeed. There will be … shelter there.” Platinum broke off into a series of rasping coughs, each one painful enough to even hear. But she resumed. “We know it has not been … a pleasant road. Over the mountains ... and down into this land, hounded by winter all the while. But one day more, and unicornkind shall have a home again.” Her hoof fumbled forward and found mine, and pressed it as hard as I guessed she could manage. “It will not all be for nothing. Your princess swears it.”

“Settle, Your Highness,” said Clover soothingly. She had returned from her delving into the box with a little glass jar in tow, and her magic absently tucked in Platinum’s cloak. At the same time, she uncorked the jar and squinted down into it. Eyeing it myself, I saw what what could be the barest remains of some honey hiding in its corners, barely enough to spread over a toast corner. Clover didn’t look dismayed by the quantity, but just regarded it with a weary sort of stoicism, and scraped out these last few dregs with her magic to add them to the cookpot. I glanced into the cookpot, gently steaming away to itself over the fire, and came away dismayed. A small quantity of thin brose bubbled at its bottom, oats drifting in the liquid like lonely ships in a sea. The honey had vanished without a trace, and likely to no effect.

“Good Clover,” said Platinum to no-pony in particular. She blinked, and then looked up at me. “We are glad to have borne our ponies this far. Clover … has been of great help in this. She in turn has borne uswhere necessary.”

“Often literally so, Your Highness,” said Clover, with some weariness but little rancour. She had picked up a nearby wooden spoon and was busy stirring the brose, and turned towards Platinum. “Your Highness, this should now be ready,” she said gently. “Please, take a bowlful. It’ll help soothe your throat.”

“We are most grateful, good Clover, but we are quite sated for the time being,” replied Platinum, her voice still small and hoarse. She waved in the approximate direction of the pavilion’s flap. “See if there is somepony else in greater need of it this night. Far be it from us to have a full pot while others go withou—”

“Your Highness, please, eat this night,” said Clover, sounding somewhat more frayed. “You’ve done all you can for your ponies, and none wish to see you starve. The rations have been shared as best they can—”

“Enough, Clover. Your … princess has spoken.”

A certain cast came to Clover’s expression. “I’ll fill a bowl for you, Princess,” she said, doing exactly that as she spoke. “You may eat it or knock it over the ground, as it please Your Highness.”

“Clover? Clover, we forbid it,” protested Platinum, her voice still feeble, as a bowl of gently-steaming brose was set down beside her along with a small wooden spoon. “Clover, this is insolence. This is rank insolence—” She stopped as she descended into another coughing fit, her thin frame shaking violently under her cloak. It passed after a few moments. “Clover?” she said plaintively, her voice on the absolute edge of hearing. “Clover, we are cold.”

“All’s well, Your Highness,” said Clover soothingly, opening one of the wooden boxes and drawing out a threadbare piece of cloth to drape over Platinum. “I’ll tend the fire. Please, eat. That’ll make it better.”

Platinum subsided, and Clover fed the fire while her princess begrudgingly picked up her spoon with her own pale magic. I watched on, still a mute observer, and that inaction had rankled. What was one meant to do in these sorts of situations? Especially when one knew how it would end. They would pull through.

And yet…

“Is there anything I may do?” I ventured, drawing Clover’s attention. Platinum seemed preoccupied with trying to navigate the spoon to her mouth. “Shall I fix anypony’s clothing, or get more firewood, or …?”

“What you may do, now that I’ve attended to my Princess, is talk to me, Rarity of Ponyville,” said Clover. The hard brightness had returned to her eyes. “Three possibilities have occured. Firstly, you are some trick, some skinchanger or unknown beast in this new region that has taken pony form in order to prey on us. And there are sufficient accounts and stories of such beings for me to give the notion credence.”

“I … what? What? I assure you, I’m not a—”

“However,” pressed Clover, “the translation spell I wrought also had some detection charms worked into it, and as far as they could reckon, your essence was that of an entirely ordinary unicorn. I assure you in turn that you would not be here had they told me otherwise.”

“Oh.” I breathed a sigh of relief. Relief, moderating mild panic. “That’s always nice to hear.”

“Secondly, you are some farflung kin of ours. One we didn’t know about, who already calls this land her home, and may not dwell in it alone.”

“That’s somewhat closer to the mark —”

“But the griffon tribes who guided us across the mountains assured us this was virgin territory, uninhabited wilderness that had been uninhabited wilderness in all living memories. If any dwell here now and have cultivated the soil and developed a civilisation, they must either be exceedingly discreet or exceedingly non-existent.”

“The — the latter. For now,” I said, and clamped my mouth shut on the last part much too late.

“Thirdly, you are one of our own, confused by the cold or some other sickness.” Clover’s eyes drifted down me, and I was aware of her regarding my intact clothes, my full and healthy frame. “But you have not shared our journey. And if you had been hoarding for yourself while others withered on the vine, you’d have been found out.”

“None of these three,” I said quietly. Enduring this round of questioning and not jeopardizing future-Equestria too much would require a deft touch, and it was proving tricky to develop one.

“So what are you, Rarity of Ponyville, wherever that may be?” Clover just looked confused. Who could fault her?

“I’m … reluctant to say.” Clover opened her mouth, and I pressed on. “Please, I know that sounds suspicious. But if you’re about to ask me why I’m reluctant to say, then I’m not altogether sure I can even explain why without doing damage.”

“Such ease that sets me at.” Clover’s voice was dry. “Can you explain why you can’t explain why, or does this way endless farcical iteration lie?”

“...I’m really not informed enough on the subject to take chances,” I managed. “On my word, I mean you no harm at all, I’ve simply been the subject of forces beyond my apprehension, and the best way of resolving it all without calamity lies in you paying me as little heed as possible.”

Clover gave me a flat look. Platinum coughed to herself. I evaluated how well that had done in easing tensions, and had to admit it wasn’t my best output.

“As it turns out, we are both unicorns who dislike taking chances on unknown subjects, Rarity of Ponyville.” Clover kneaded her brow with a forehoof. “Consider yourself detained until you decide to become more forthcoming.”

“What? You can’t do that! I’ve done nothing to —”

“Does this displease you? Then merely speak.”

“I can’t.”

“So be it.” Clover shook her head. “Maybe I should see if any of the other tribes has a notion of what you are. I had hoped to treat with them tomorrow regardless. I believe we are all bound for Dream Valley, and I … I hope we can all reach an accord —”

“No,” rasped Platinum. She threatened to totter upright, and Clover turned on her hastily. “No. There shall be no ... treating. There shall be no accord.”

“Your Highness,” began Clover, with the air of one who’d had this argument and who it hadn’t grown on. “Please—”

“Where … have they been?” hissed Platinum. As she spoke, the winds outside gathered strength, and howled across the outside of the pavilion. “Where have they been during our privations? The pegasi … pleading helplessness before the weather. Their one skill … squandered when we struggled through the high passes! When the blizzards came scything down! Where were they? Where were the earth ponies? They had provisions for all, we are certain, yet where were they while we starved? When … when the old floundered in the snow, and foals thinned, and our subjects… when so many ...”

“Your Highness, we have no choice,” said Clover desperately. “Winter is hunting us, and if we can’t reach concord with the other tribes, then we’ll surely perish, each and every —”

“Let them perish!” snarled Platinum, and now the winds all but screamed. “We shall thrive! We … we have come too far to do any less!”

Her voice had risen to become something hoarse and savage, and over the bellowing of the storm outside, I struggled to make myself heard as well. “They’re struggling as well!” Both Clover and Platinum turned on me, and I hesitated. “They’re … they’re struggling also. All of you.”

Both of them regarded me in silence, and I pressed on, racking through these old history lessons once again. “The pegasi under Hurricane? They’ve taken the route straight south from the Greycairns, and they’ve been battered left and right by the snowstorms, and they’ve got less food than you at this point. And the earth ponies under Puddinghead … I know they’re a ways north-west of you, coming through frozen marshes, and they’re on their last legs as well. I know you’ve enmity towards them, but please, they’re all suffering, and they’re not—”

“What interesting details,” said Clover suddenly. “The furthest-ranging and fittest of what scouts we have left have reported similar positions on the part of the other tribes. Which begs the question, Rarity of Ponyville, how on earth do you know of these things?”

I hesitated.

I hesitated some more, on the off-chance it would help.

It didn’t, but a third time’s supposedly the charm, and so I —

“Rarity, I have collected a few clues, and I don’t intend to let this matter drop,” said Clover. “Is it better that I start guessing what you may be and act accordingly? Would that do any less ‘damage’ than you suspect my knowledge would?”

Take this as the foremost lesson from my tale, if nothing else; know how time travel works. Then you might be able to answer these sorts of questions with some authority. For my part, I could only feel helpless and wretched. I looked up at Clover, and her eyes were hard and bright, as they so often were.

And weary as well. Which they were even more frequently.

I considered my position. Had she not just said that she was planning on treating with the other tribes regardless? Unification was on the cards regardless, for all that Clover didn’t seem optimistic. All I had to do in an answer was not jeopardise that, to not stoke wrath or undermine whatever negotiations would come tomorrow. So long I could control what Clover concluded, and not leave her guessing at random.

Consider the subject matter I was dancing around, as well. Was Clover not the foremost magic-wielder of her time? Was she not notoriously the Clever? Was she not sensible? Could she not be trusted?

One more bout of hesitation then, just for good luck, and then I said, “Clover, how much do you know about chronomancy?”

Clover opened her mouth.

Then she closed it. She looked at my clothes, and the mechanically-precise stitching that Princess Platinum so gratifyingly commended. She looked at my frame, and then back up at my face.

“Some details,” she said slowly, lowly. “Scraps of the theory. Why do you bring it up?”

In for a bit, in for a … larger amount of bits, as the proverb goes. “Because I’ve been subject to it. I’ve been thrown backwards in time. And I’m waiting for my friends to save me, but until then, I can’t do anything here that threatens the timeline. I don’t know how much harm I might do.”

It all came out as one breath, and when I stopped, Clover looked at me in perfect silence. Platinum hovered over her bowl of brose, only approximately in touch with current events. Outside, the wind billowed and things clattered

Platinum spoke first, with the air of one who was only loosely in touch with the conversational thread. “We … back home, we once saw a play with time travel in it.”

Clover released a breath. “I, ah, think I remember that play as well, Your Highness.”

“We found the plot too convoluted to follow,” Platinum said vaguely after staring briefly into space. “We did like the two comic gravediggers, though. We commanded that there be a follow-up play putting them at the forefront.”

“I … I do recall the playwright biting through his quill before promising his best effort, Your Highness,” said Clover, tucking the rug over Platinum. “Why don’t you get some more rest? Your ponies shall need you at your best on the morrow.”

“We are that customarily, though,” mumbled Platinum, sounding somewhat disgruntled but putting up little resistance. Clover saw to her, and then turned back to me. For the first time since seeing her in the flesh, she seemed almost trepid.

“I believe you. That would explain the magical disturbance from before. And I have seen much stranger things.” She started slowly. “But I understood time to be a ... fixed loop. That what might be done by a chrononaut was meant to be done, that their present already depended on whatever malarkey they wrought.”

“Sometimes. There is apparently disagreement on this, as I can make out. Making too great a change in the past can imperil what comes after, and though I’m not clear on the existential implications of that, I know enough to be wary.”

Clover looked me over, and I wondered what she was looking at. At the whole of the apparently hale and hearty unicorn from centuries on in the future? At my garb to glean what we considered the height of fashion? At my mannerisms?

At the horn on my head? Her eyes seemed to fixate there, turn briefly back to Platinum, and then swivel back towards me. Her mouth opened and closed, and questions piled up behind her staring eyes, I could tell. She all but hopped from hoof to hoof, so great was her sudden agitation.

“What happens?” she whispered. “I … we live, plainly, but how? How many? How do we do it? Do we turn back, or head eastwards instead? What happens to us? Do we make unity or war? Does something unforeseen interfere? What happens?”

I took a step back and tried my best to speak gently. “Clover, I mustn’t answer that.”

“What do I do?” she hissed, taking two steps forward. “What’s best? We’ve been wandering in the dark for so long, with little hope to speak of. Give me something! Some certainty!”

“I can’t —”

“Please!”

“I can’t!”

Hush then, as she stared at me and breathed heavily, trembling where she stood. I stared back, forcing myself to maintain eye contact with the simmering well of emotion before me. Platinum looked up and between the pair of us, apparently unsure what the shouting was in aid of. “Cease this loudness,” she murmured at the world in general.

Clover took a long, deep breath, studied the space between her forehooves for a moment.

“I understand,” she said, trying to put on as brave a face as possible when the consequences a thousand years down the line were staring her in the face, shorn of any context. “You know how it’ll go. You don’t wish to invoke the … what is it now? The ‘killing your own grand-dam’ problem.”

“That’s a concept you have as well?”

“Yes. I shall not query the base ethics of chrononauts, if they don’t query mine.” Clover studied the floor between her forehooves. “And I understand you don’t want me to query you. Lest the knowledge I gain prejudice my future actions, to the detriment of all you know in your own time.”

“I’m sorry,” I replied. What else was there to say?

“Tomorrow, I intend to seek peace and friendship with the other tribes,” she said slowly, carefully, like someone testing the waters with a hoof. “If they have more knowledge than I on how to drive back the demons behind this winter, then we may all yet live. There’s a few who think like me. But if Platinum and those who think like her have their way, and the Chancellor and Commander are as unyielding when last we saw them … then I don’t know what follows. Maybe the winter continues. Maybe it stops in time, once the demons have had their sport. Either way, I don’t see a way it ends without more strife, more conflict, maybe war to the finish. But I’m sure there’s others in the tribes who don’t want that. If we can all work on our leaders … if we can all find a better way ...”

She inspected my features, desperately looking for any sign, any tell-tale give, and it was all I could do to maintain complete composure, much as I wished to reassure her. Eventually, she relented.

“When do you believe your friends will come for you?” she said.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “There are exact mechanics involved, I assume, but I don’t know what they are. I do hope soon.”

Clover nodded. “If they’re delayed, you may bide the night here. Borrow my spot by the fire. I’ll doubt I’ll be getting much rest tonight.”

When coming from a pony who didn’t have much in the world besides that spot by the fire, it was an offer to make one feel distinctly unworthy, and to make one hang one’s head. Especially after what I’d just had to deny her.

A night without rest. How long would that night be for her, dark and frigid and storm-wracked as it was, with a whole nation’s fates potentially resting in your hooves on the morrow and not a word of consolation offered up by what was to come? And how hopeful did she feel? Whatever she’d said regarding the next day had been peppered with ‘ifs’ at every turn, and every smile she’d worn had been weary or put-upon or both. Scant optimism about her efforts, for all she felt they needed attempting.

The wind howled outside the pavilion’s walls, and my thoughts went to all the unicorns out there as well. All of them huddled around hungry fires, under the eyes of the windigos themselves, dressed in rags and tatters and with little filling their bellies, if Platinum’s own provisions had been any measure. And past them, to all the earth ponies and pegasi, shivering wherever they rested as well.

On the grandest of levels, on this night of all nights, one had to consider the destiny of Equestria. All the souls within it yet to come, who would live with the consequences of a stray word here or there. The night might have been dark and starved of hope, but it would pass and turn out for the better. Surely it would. What place of mine was it to interfere?

On a night like this, what place wasn’t it?

My head rose.

“Oh, stars take it,” I said aloud. “I can do something. I’ll do something. Hang on here, I’ll be back presently.”

“What? Rarity —” said Clover, a second too late, as Platinum lifted her groggy head. I was already turning and rushing for the pavilion flap, pushing out into the pelting blizzard beyond. Darkness overcame me, and I summoned light to see by, the whole world turning into a torrent of silver flakes.

Back up the rock wall behind the pavilion I went, scrabbling and puffing and scraping myself on things until I was up and clear. Back into the wild woods, over root and ridge and what felt like every slick impediment in the world. There were distant calls at my back, I thought, and cruel laughter from the sky, but no matter. I was committed.

After interminable minutes, back down into the gully where I’d first found myself, where my quarry still rested in piles all around, dusted with fresh snowfall. I swept it all up with one magical motion and caught my breath for a moment. Then I turned around and tore back the way.

Envisage a return journey much like the first, albeit with less teleportation, less assistance, more distraction and encumbrance, and significantly more tripping and yelping. Thankfully, it passed, and ere long I skidded back down the slope of the rock wall and made for the waiting pavilion.

“Rarity?” exclaimed Clover as I stumbled back through the pavilion’s flap. Princess Platinum blinked in my direction as well, as befuddled as a pony could get. “What in the Creator’s name was that? You charged off with scarcely any warning —”

“I went retrieving,” I panted, and I drew in all the bags I’d gathered up from the gully and bundled them into the pavilion. My entire winter range.

“What on earth —”

“I shan’t go into the design details, as I don’t think any of the terms so much as exist,” I said, still breathless, as I pulled them out of the bags and folded them up into neat piles that started to fill the pavilion. “But they’re all made for beauty and utility both. Dresses, see? And hats, saddles, scarves, boots, leg-warmers, all sorts. There’s not an abundance, I appreciate, but, ah, let them go to wherever they’re needed the most. Nothing in a foal’s size, alas, but if one needs any of them, do feel free to cut them down and repurpose the spare material. Keep the bags as well, they’re good canvas. Some of the materials might be a shade tougher than you’re used to, so if scissors don’t work when refitting, use a doughtier blade and punch hard with your needle. As for —”

Clover stared at the collection, wide-eyed. Platinum seemed faintly curious, and her pale magic lifted over a gown, which she inspected for a moment. “What odd-looking garments,” she said amiably.

As self-effacing and modest as I may usually be, and as delirious on the giving spirit I was, that off-hoof ‘odd’ rankled. Even in the face of heroes of antiquity, one must defend the honour of one’s craftmareship. “I anticipated them being received very well indeed by Chic magazine, if you must know, Your Highness,” I said, a smidge frigidly.

“Chick what-now?” Platinum studied the gown. “Most snug, though. Clover, are there any outside in need of clothes?”

Clover swallowed. “I … some families come to mind. Others. I … I shall see them garbed before time passes.” She looked to me, to the winter range again, and then back to me. Her voice came out a bit hoarse. “How? And why?”

“When I crossed paths with chronomancy, I’d just finished making these and was in the middle of delivering them. As for why …” I hunted for the answer for a moment, and decided on, “...it’s a cold night. And I suspect a scarf or two here and there won’t change the destiny of Equestria too much.”

Clover didn’t speak, and lifted over some of the clothes to study them for herself, turning them this way and that to inspect the fabric.

“Good pony,” rasped Platinum suddenly. “We were distracted earlier. Remind us of your name.”

“Rarity, Your Highness,” I said, turning to her.

She smiled, and for all it was drained, it was entirely genuine. “You are … a credit to the dressmaking profession. We shall be pleased to offer you a royal commission once we are … settled again.”

It wasn’t my first royal commission, but it was my earliest, and I glowed. And I would have answered, had there not come a choke from Clover. I turned and beheld her staring down at a dress within her magic. Whatever about the dress had startled her wasn’t clear for a moment, until I studied it more closely and realised one crucial aspect about the design.

There were openings at the back, to accommodate a pegasus’s wings.

Clover looked directly at me, and I realised there were tears in her eyes.

“Oh,” I said, in an entirely un-discomfited manner, I assure you. “Oh, fie. Fiddle. I, um —”

“Don’t say anything,” said Clover, her voice thick with what I realised was joy. “You don’t have to. And you don’t have to worry about things being ruined. There will be unity, like there was already going to be. You don’t have to nod. And you don’t have to worry that I’ll talk. If you like, these were found in an old crate somewhere we’d been lugging along all this time, and goodness knows who the competent maker was.”

I stared round at Platinum, who was engrossed with a boot. “What about ...” I whispered, nodding at her.

“Don’t worry,” Clover coughed, scuffing at her eyes. “She can be … suggestible, especially in her current state. This can all have been a fever dream, if I persuade her of it.”

I nodded. Anxiety twisted a knot in my stomach, before I forced it down. If I’d not inspired anything that wasn’t already going to happen, surely Equestria as I knew it would live. If Clover was a canny mare who’d keep what needed to be hushed hushed, then surely the impact would be minimal.

And if all I’d done was make a few ponies happier for one night, on a night when happiness was sorely needed … then that would be enough.

Conversation ceased for a while, as everybody stopped trusting themselves to speak and as Platinum cooed at the boot. Off in the distance, past winter’s roar, there was a sound.

The sound was vwoorp.

I coughed and rose. “I believe that’s my faith being justified.” A novelty though the deep past could be, I ached to hear my friends’ voices, to see Sweetie Belle, Ponyville, my boutique, everything long on from here.

“Your rescuers?” Clover glanced in the direction of the vwoorp. “That’s from the forest at our backs, if I’m not mistaken. You’ll be going, then?”

“Yes. Yes, and quickly too, lest they wander over here, and time risks getting in even more of a muddle.” I drew myself up and prepared to give them both the respectful bow that heroes of antiquity deserved. “Well. Farewell, both of —”

“Come here,” said Clover roughly, and drew me into a sudden hug. I froze, then yielded, and embraced her unreservedly for a long moment.

“Well,” I said, as we both pulled back. “Ah. Happy Hearth's Warming.”

Clover’s tearful smile tilted. “Happy what?”

“First of many,” I replied. “Possibly I shouldn’t have said it, but it seemed to need saying. Best of luck tomorrow.”

“And to you.” Clover bowed briefly. “In whatever your tomorrow may hold.”

“Your Highness,” I said, turning to Platinum. “It was an honour to meet you. I’m afraid I must go.”

“So … soon?” Platinum frowned, and then nodded graciously up at me. “We were pleased to receive you, good Rarity, and you … will be welcome to seek court at any time.”

One last farewell bow, and I backed towards Clover. “Between you and me,” I murmured, as I drew close to her, “now that you’ve guessed our situation, at one point in the future, I play the role of her on-stage. In a traditional historical production we put on most years. A dramatisation of events here, you understand.”

Clover looked from me to Platinum, and the notion seemed to entertain her. “Hah! She becomes a figure of note in history, then?”

“Indeed she does. And a much better pony than I plays you.”

Clover boggled, and that seemed like a perfect note on which to depart. I slipped out the pavilion flap and headed back out into the last wild night for a long while.

Though one last realisation seized me, and I whipped off my scarlet garb, leaned back into the pavilion, lobbed them at the existing piles and called out to their startled faces, “These’ll help clothe somepony as well!” Then I was off. Brisk it may have been, but I was sure a minute or so’s unclothedness wouldn’t do me too much harm.

Up the rock wall once more, clambering and slipping and shivering, and as I sprackled up into the woods once more, I heard voices in the distance.

“...and so, my faithful student and student’s student, I hope a valuable lesson about experimental chronomancy has been learned.” That voice was Princess Celestia’s. No effort had been spared in my retrieval, and I felt rather touched.

“We’re sorry, Princess Celestia.” That was Twilight. “The books’ll be going back to the protected wing in Canterlot Palace and staying there, you have my word.”

A pause, and then Starlight. “I’m sure if we’d just invested a little more power into Grimoire’s Dweomerlayk, we’d have — ow!”

“Not the time, Starlight!”

“I’d be much more severe,” said Celestia, “if during my own younger days, I myself hadn’t imperiled Creation several times. In my defence, though, I was tipsy most of said times. Luna will be delighted to dispense the details, I’m sure. Now please search for Rarity while I hold the portal open. And should either of you catch sight of your grandmothers, please refrain from —”

And it was at that moment, half-delirious with the sheer blistering cold, that I stumbled into the clearing where they’d emerged. Twilight and Starlight, bundled up in my own designs, and an unclothed Celestia behind them, casually holding a great oval-shaped portal in time open with her magic. I sighted Ponyville on the other sight and stumbled vaguely onwards as my legs threatened to simply freeze off.

Then warm hooves and magical auras caught me, matters became a bit of a blur, and home we apparently went.

Upon returning, after the initial volley of hugs and how-are-yous and I’m-fines and what-happeneds, I interrogated everypony I met, grabbed hold of every paper and magazine and current-events periodical and read them in furious detail, and consulted every history textbook Twilight’s palace’s library had on hand until my eyes ached.

Succumbing to a sneezing fit as the nastiest cold I’ve ever had overcame me didn’t help matters either. A minute or so’s unclothedness exacted its price, and took my dignity as interest.

But everypony was as they were. The research had failed to turn up any glaring discrepancies. The world was ticking by in the same style as I’d left it. Equestria had not been irrevocably changed by my actions, which is always a commendable outcome for any time-traveller.

There was one rather major problem that needed to be addressed, though.

“And, ah, in essence, that’s why stock for the winter range may be a little more limited than anticipated,” I told Sassy Saddles and Plaid Stripes the day after, concluding with a thunderous sneeze. We were all mustered in an upmarket Manehattan coffeehouse, wrapped around various warm liquids. Espresso for Sassy, a towering hot chocolate for Plaid, and a pot holding approximately all the chamomile tea in the world for myself.

Plaid looked agog. Sassy looked mixed parts intrigued and exasperated. I shifted in my chair, embarrassed under her regard. “I’m very, very sorry about this, you two.”

“It sounds like it was done in a worthy cause, at least,” sighed Sassy. “I suppose I knew you were based in Ponyville when I took up the job; this sort of event must be factored in. In any case, I’m sure there are some suitably festive-looking items I can fish out of storage.”

“Keep them there for now. I’ll send you what I’d reserved for Ponyville on the first train tomorrow,” I said before turning to Plaid. “Plaid darling, if you have anything in storage that’s suitable for the season —”

“It’s alright, Miss Rarity, I’m a step ahead of you.” Plaid leaned in with a conspiratorial smile. “Remember how I had that idea for decorating dresses with baubles? And how I then thought, ‘wait, what if I just made the whole of the dress out of lots of little baubles?’”

“I … have indelible memories of that particular conversation, Plaid.” One does not simply forget that sort of thing. In my nightmares, I sometimes still hear her prototype jangling.

“Yeah! You screamed with joy when I showed you my sketches, remember? And you said that if I made the dresses, we could call putting them on display ‘Plan B’?”

“I, er.”

Plaid beamed. “Plan B’s here to save the day, Miss Rarity!”

I didn’t burst into tears, let it be noted. And I managed to disguise my one involuntary sob as a cough, I think.

“A one-shop range, then,” said Sassy. She looked concerned. “Are you certain you don’t wish to keep your own stock for yourself, Rarity? I can get by in Canterlot, I’m sure.”

“More exposure to be had for it in Canterlot,” I replied, possibly a shade too breezily. Having nothing for the boutique stung. “More chance of a Chic reporter stopping by, which is always important. If I work like the clappers for the next few days, I can recreate some of the designs, I’m sure.”

Sassy Saddles hesitated. “Rarity, with all respect, you’re in no position to work like the clappers.”

“You’ve brought up your own weight in phlegm into these tissues since we got in here. You need to rest,” said Plaid, somewhat less diplomatically.

I would have protested, had a bassoon-like sneeze not thundered out of me that instant, and so I begrudgingly conceded the point. “It is a pity,” I muttered to myself. “I was so very proud of the designs.”

“Do you have the sketches?” said Plaid. “Could we see them?”

“I do indeed, and why not?” I dipped into my saddlebags, and brought out the sheets on which I’d sketched the initial designs. “Have a look.”

The papers unfolded, and the pair obligingly had a look. “Hmm,” said Sassy, nodding with approval. “Taking notes from antiquity?”

“I … Nouveau was my intention. Do they not —?”

“Yeah, they’re a lot like the dresses you see ponies wearing in old paintings and tapestries and such, just after Equestria was made.” Plaid leaned closer. “See? They all went in for those sorts of floral-patterned sleeves back then.”

I opened my mouth to protest, to query, and then realised. Bewilderment, vertigo, and some frustration at originality scuppered flared up in my mind … and then all subsided. I instead leaned back, and sipped at my tea as Sassy and Plaid’s features creased with realisation, and animated discussion commenced.

Possibly I would get into trouble once Twilight and others found out about it. But for now, I could be content with that change.