It was quiet at Carousel Boutique. The faintest janglings of the school bell had spread far out over Ponyville and reached Rarity’s ears in her workshop quarter of an hour ago, a sound that she used to listen out for as it meant she would have to tidy away anything that she was working on before her little sister could burst in and find it, suddenly having an accident of some kind in her small hooves.
She had of course reacted as a matter of conditioned reflex, but once she had risen, given a sad sigh and sat back down to work again. Sweetie Belle wasn’t coming back this afternoon, or any other time.
The little filly who had always looked up to her, who had been gifted with equal talents for singing and getting in a mess would never set hoof in her home ever again.
The number of times the white mare had wished her sister further due to some unfortunate, and to her mind totally foreseeable accident. Now she wouldn’t be returning, she wanted nothing more than to have her around once more, if only to give her one last hug and say goodbye.
Their bond had been especially strong when Sweetie Belle was young; they had been best friends for a few delightful years, but once the filly had grown and started to develop her own personality, she had begun incrementally to break those bonds of dependence, one at a time.
Rarity had been delighted when Sweetie Belle came to listen to her perform with the Pony Tones. She always looked out for her eager little face in the audience, and soon caught her singing along with the songs as she got to know them. In no time at all, she was singing them herself and it became clear that she had inherited the same talent for singing as her sister, a love that they could share on increasingly equal terms the more her talent developed.
She had held out such hopes for her singing, but these were now destined to be unfulfilled, leaving a hole in her life. Somehow, her sister’s loss had sucked the joy out of her own singing and she no longer carried the spark for wanting to perform, standing down from the Pony Tones as her enjoyment foundered with nopony to perform for any more.
Indeed, she was fighting hard to stop the same malaise from creeping into her creativity, but the struggle had become more difficult, more futile every day. The words “Rarity once stood for something” rattled round in her head; lyrics from a song she couldn’t quite remember. Thoughts seemed to take a lot longer to go round her head now, like they were wading through molasses, a feeling that permeated every aspect of her life. Her friends had all noticed, but nopony had been tactless enough to say it; however, there was no denying that her spark had gone.
Her latest designs lacked the flair and panache of previous seasons, new lines owing more to rehashes of past glories than the startling innovation that had once drawn crowds from the Canterlot elite. New designers were emerging to fill the void and Rarity was fast being left behind, in fact revenues were receding to such a point that she was going to have to consider closing one of her shops shortly.
Many an evening she could be found in her workshop, not whisking around the mannequins with creative fervour, but face rested on her sewing table crying quietly next to her faithful sewing machine.
It hadn’t been long before she had sought solace in her favourite tipple, a glass of which had always helped her when seized by realising a new design concept, but which now offered the promise of dulling the pain. She succumbed to its siren’s song as a refuge from reality, but the pain remained; one glass inviting another and then another as the calls to drown her grief grew louder, but the pain stubbornly refused to be cleansed from her system.
Her friends all came round to talk to her, to tell her they understood.
How could they?
It was just empty words that made them feel better.
How could they feel what she was going through; the emptiness, the guilt, all the things left unsaid?
She shuddered as a sob surged through her and slid a forehoof across the table a little unsteadily, accidentally swiping her glass onto the floor where the delicate stem snapped and the contents spilled everywhere. She would tidy up in the morning, but couldn’t be bothered right now as she slid into a stupor that would lead to sleep, of sorts.
The next day dawned to find the white unicorn slumped over her sewing table, the low morning sun casting long shadows from the two empty bottles stood upright before her and a third on its side, still filled with sweet liquid up to its neck, the rest of the contents having been spilled and seeped into her rather haphazard sewing of the night before. She would not wake for hours yet.
Once again, she dreamed about the funeral. She had tried to be brave of course; her friends had all been there, fussing over her, and her sister’s young friends had been dressed in those gold lined CMC capes as a final gesture of solidarity. The event had drawn a cross-section of society; the great and the good who had travelled especially from Canterlot to the parcel delivery guy who was a regular visitor with the mail.
They had all approached her and said “If there’s anything I can do …”
She had heard those words so often that she had wanted to scream by the end of the day. The only one who had actually turned her words into actions had been Fluttershy who had taken Opalescence, just until she came to terms with her loss, but each day her absence had seemed more and more permanent.
An unpleasant feeling in her stomach forced Rarity into reluctant consciousness, not the gentle rousing from slumber, but more an urgent desire to visit a little room before there was more mess to clean up.
As she headed into the bathroom, she thought how each day was becoming a trial, a series of necessary tasks with no resolution in sight. She couldn’t remember how long it had been since she had seen her friends now, or anypony else for that matter. They were always so busy and when they did call, they never really had much to say; awkward silences.
Leaving the workshop in a mess, she swayed a little uncertainly up the stairs to her sister’s bedroom and padded in reverently, taking sober, dignified steps towards the drapes to pull them back and let the light in. Then she set about plumping the pillows, straightening the bed and ensuring that everything was tidy, even though she had done the same yesterday and nopony had set hoof in the room since. Once it was done, she gave a little sigh; it would be ready for her sister when she returned. Then she tiptoed out and closed the door behind her, crumbling onto the landing as tears overtook her again.
It would be another long day until she heard the school bell again.
