It was a winter wonderland all across Equestria. Ponies were preparing for Hearth’s Warming Eve and some visited Canterlot to embrace the spirits within the three main pony races who founded the land in warm harmony after bitter exchanges within each groups a few decade ago.

However, for Rara, the famous pony pop star, she was preparing to embrace the warm spirits of Hearth’s Warming Eve that had founded the country in peace and wanted to visit the sightly magnificence of Canterlot’s regality, hiding her real identity and acted like a normal citizen.

She slowly entered Joe’s doughnut shop, hoping to warm herself up from the contrasting, frigid temperatures that seemed to pierce inside her covered body. She was enamoured by the smell of desserts and doughnuts permeating the doughnut shop like an embracing aroma. She slowly trotted into the counter, where a light-amber unicorn with the cutie mark of doughnut welcomed her.

“Good evening, how may I help you” Joe, the owner of the doughnut shop, was cross-eyed upon seeing the sightly appearance of Rara. His eyes turned to hearts, but quickly turned to broken hearts when her attention turned to the order board instead.

“Can I have one coffee and two chocolate doughnuts with sprinkles on top?” Rara was trying to hide her cover by answering like a normal pony. She took some bits out of her saddlebag and paid Joe slowly.

“Here you go, madame.” Joe answered like a knight in a shining armour and gave the appropriate order to her. Rara walked into one of the tables and sat down. She took a sip of coffee before nibbling one of the doughnuts quickly. She was contemplating about Joe’s flirty behaviour towards her.

“Was that owner too attracted to the me due to my popularity or was he trying to win me? Agh. Those questions were just fillers in my mind.”

Indeed. Those questions were just starting to addle inside her mind. She nibbled one of the doughnuts before finishing the first doughnut. The sprinkles made a faint crunching noise at it was chewed inside her teeth gracefully. She continued eating the last doughnut before leaving the doughnut shop, sipping her coffee a little. Joe, on the other hoof, was staring with his eyes affixed into her magnificent mane.

Upon leaving the doughnut shop, she brought the warm cup of coffee with her mitten-covered front hooves. Whatever happened to Joe was still unknown to her. She was not trying to be won by stallions, handsome or not. Or maybe...

“Agh. Why these romantic thoughts are trying to throw me to the edge? I’m a pony pop star, not a flirtatious mare.” Rara whispered in contemplation, though those romantic memories were fighting back. Regardless, she was walking to the Canterlot Theatre, hoping to watch the most important play in Hearth’s Warming Eve, the Foundation of Equestria. She wanted to embrace the feeling of Hearth’s Warming Eve.

After trudging through the snow, she visited the Canterlot Theatre. Each rows of the theatre’s chairs were populated. They were screaming for excitement to watch the famous play once again. She sat at the second row of the western half of the crowd and waited for the play to begin. The actors of the play began appearing, but what appeared shocked and surprised her to the core.

“OH NO! Can’t it be the Mane Six?!”

This was happening. She was hoping her cover as a normal pony would never be broken. It would be a one-of-a-pain experience if her childhood friend Applejack would find out that Rara was at the second row along with the audiences. She was trying to hide something that her childhood friend should never be revealed.

She looked into her saddlebag and took the necklace with a golden heart-shaped locket. She opened it and looked at the image of Svengallop to the left side and Rara to the right side.

This was all too damning for her after the fiasco happened. Svengallop quitted as her manager and was angry, but Rara was actually the love interest of him, despite all of the intense fall-out. She hid it quickly and began watching the play. Applejack would never want to know anything about this. The Mane Six appeared in the stage and began portraying their usual respective roles of the play, like it was two years ago.

Roles:

Starlight Glimmer as the Narrator
Pinkie Pie as Chancellor Puddinghead
Spike as Clover's assistant
Applejack as Smart Cookie
Rarity as Princess Platinum
Twilight Sparkle as Clover the Clever
Rainbow Dash as Commander Hurricane
Fluttershy as Private Pansy

Rara was gulping in nervousness as her cover might be blown up by nothing other than Applejack. She felt a tinge of stabbing from her back, feeling she could be stabbed in the back by her childhood friend due to her popularity. Regardless, she calmed herself down and the play began. The play went to a usual introduction, but it was much better and the Mane Six were even more confident than ever before, being Fluttershy.

She watched the play like a statue, but trying to describe the acting of the Mane Six. Suddenly, one of the ponies, Shoeshine began to whisper and act like a snitch, in an attempt to reveal Rara’s true self.

“Is that Countess... Coloratura?” Shoeshine whispered in astonishment.

"Beats me," Berry Punch, a moderate-cerise coloured pony, arrogantly replied, "why on Equestria a pony pop star bein' here?"

Despite all the snitching, she still watched the play in silence, attempting to release a small smile from all the magnificent acting within the actors.

"So, Applejack is actually a talented actor in this play." Her mind whispered.

The play took on for several minutes within three long acts with usual vanilla scripts of the play such as the clichéd conflict between three pony races, dispute simulator within lands, the windigos causing heavy blizzard due to the constant bickering of different pony races, singing carols, and naming the country Equestria in honour before raising a banner of two alicorns: Princess Celestia and Luna.

The audiences began singing "The Heart Carol", so as Rara. She tried to sing alongside the choir in her normal voice, not garnering attention.

The fire of friendship lives in our hearts
As long as it burns, we cannot drift apart
Though quarrels arise, their numbers are few
Laughter and singing will see us through (will see us through)
We are a circle of pony friends
A circle of friends we'll be to the very end

Afterwards, the audiences cheered in excitement before the curtains closed. However, Rara's eyes began to cross when she saw Applejack's eyes locked onto hers. Oh no. That could not be...

Applejack easily recognized her childhood friend's face within her green, intimidating eyes. They were boring into Rara's moderate opal eyes like a diamond power drill, signifying suspicion. Applejack was always out of her league when it comes to her own honesty.

"Rara? What are ya' doin' here?" Applejack said out-loud amongst the crowd of cheering audience.

Their cheering turned to a series of lengthy gasps that would break their throats in a minute. Rara could not believe her ears. Her ears drooped down like she was extremely annihilated from the inside out. Her heart felt like thousand needles pierced onto her. It was all the matter that despite her clever cover-up, it was a disaster after all. There were no doubts about it.

The crowd began chattering words like: "Countess Coloratura?!", "Pony pop star Coloratura here?!", and "W-what is this all about?"

Starlight Glimmer tried to calm down the chattering ponies, but that was a fail, as they were continuing their confused chatter about Rara. Despite all of this, Rara was failing to hold her grasp on reality anymore and burst into tears. She cried like a filly and ran away from the Canterlot Theatre, where she ran across the sculpture garden, sitting down and crying.

"Wait! Ah had no grudge against ya, Rara!" Applejack was even more confused than startled about this.

Applejack ran and followed her trail up to the sculpture garden. By the time she arrived there, she found Rara in tears, unbelievably ashamed that her own childhood friend acted like a little snitch towards her by revealing her true identity, like a textbook example of an exposé. She was promising herself to hide her identity as a pony pop star amongst everypony, so that her popularity was a vaulted secret if she was in the normal plane of her own things.

"B-but why?" Tears were streaming to her sad eyes.

"Ah'm sorry, Rara. Ah' did not mean ta intrude ya. Ah' guess ah' was a bit too hanged up towards ya." Applejack apologized, though Rara was not pleased at her intrusion.

Oh boy, this would be a not-so-good quarrel between them. Why on Earth was Applejack like an honest mare, when her childhood friend was wanting to hide her status as a pony pop star for a good reason: no fans would be chasing like a fangirl or a fanboy.

"Do you know the reason why, Applejack," Rara angrily replied as she harshly poked one of her mitten-covered front hooves towards Applejack's chest, "DO YOU KNOW WHY?!"

"Ah' didn't mean to do it, Rara." Despite the warming reply, Rara was far more pleased. More fresh tears streamed into her eyes as her lithe form was crumbling like dominoes. She was exposed. Truly exposed.

"I don't want to know ponies about this, Applejack," she replied, "NO!" Before she even finished her sentence, she ran away into the hedge maze and hid, while Applejack chased her.

"Wait! Just tell me what yer troubles are." Applejack replied.

"I-I'm actually in love with... Svengallop. Despite what he did to me, I was in love with him." Rara finally admitted the real truth. She was in an intimate relationship with the disgraced former manager of her.

She was hoping for a very angry response from Applejack, since she ABSOLUTELY despised Sven's rather pompous behaviour. Instead, it was a warm response that filled Rara's shattered soul. She took the golden necklace with the heart locket into her saddlebag and opened the contents.

"So, ya wer' in relationship with him?" Applejack replied confusedly.

"Long before that fiasco happened to me," Rara sheepishly replied, "he was my special somepony ever since I was on my path to becoming a pony pop star..."

It was a warming reception that she received. Applejack's intrusion was all just a way for her to tell what Rara was actually having a secret of her own. Applejack smiled in front of her and wiped a tear. The two childhood friends left the garden maze before going on their separate ways.

That was one of a heck experience for Rara, seeing as her own cover was being blown up like a dozen atomic bombs. She was wanting to keep that secret only to her and to Applejack. Her anger subsided and left the garden maze. Not that she wanted to tell the full details per se about this intimate relationship with Svengallop, even to Applejack.

Rara headed back to the busy roads of Canterlot and headed to the Restaurant Row. However, as she was walking, she saw a familiar sight her own eyes were completely affixed into. There was a male Earth pony standing at a dark alley, staring at nothing but the busy ponies, who garnered extremely spiteful, cold, and vindictive looks towards him.

Rara could not believe her eyes as it matched all of Svengallop's physical description, despite the fact he was no longer wearing his managerial suit but winter clothing and his glasses: Dark tangelo eyes, light grayish vermillion and light vermillionish gray mane and a light chartreuse greenish gray coat. It was a not-so-good a surprise for her as she was not ready for this.

Nervously, she slowly walked into the alleyway and approached Svengallop. Instead of him acting like a rude jerk, Svengallop was emotionally deeply hurt, probably how he was jobless, having his job lost as a manager due to his scandalous behaviour. Rara looked at him and she was prepared for the worst.

"Svengallop..." Rara slowly replied.

"Rara? I thought you hate me deeply after what I had done to you? I don't want to make a dent in your career." Svengallop was confessing and tears were slowly streaming down to his face.

"Look, Svengallop," Rara's eyes also watered, "I know that you were acting like a bossy and antagonistic manager towards me..."

"But I was a failure. I was disgraced. I was penniless." Rara was struck with those confessions he made.

Rara smiled at him and tried to relive the old times, but the past of her during that one particular day was pushing her away like a concrete block. Tears streamed more to her face as she was attempting to make a response.

"I'm sorry that it was all my fault." Rara confessed.

"Sorry for what," Svengallop sneered, "I was a distrustful manager and I was not caring about your well-being, Rara. My reputation is a distant memory."

Svengallop broke down in tears, seeing as that day of him being a real pompous jerk towards Rara had a majorly catastrophic effect on his life. It was destructive to his own heart's content as he could not face the allegations anymore. He was nothing more than a cinder block, ready to be shattered by a sledgehammer.

Rara smiled before replying, "But you chose me, Svengallop. You promised me that I would be your special somepony."

"It was all a facade-" Rara immediately interrupted him before he finished his sentence.

"I am having genuine feeling towards you, Svengallop." She cried her last tears before beginning to hug him. With that, she was starting to feel her emotions going on its own way, as she was feeling the way how she was called Rara instead of her stage name Countess Coloratura. It was a nail in the coffin that struck him to the core.

"Just call me a disaster if you want, Rara," Svengallop replied in a very emotionaly tone, "I was too shattered already."

Despite all the protests, Rara went to her saddlebag and took the necklace inside. That immediately caught his eye as he recognized it! It was the pendant with the heart-shaped locket that she had been hiding as she was wanting to tell him about the long-lost intimate relationship between him and Rara. It jumped out as he was actually recollecting those old memories of them.

"I'm sorry for what I did to you, Rara. I would want to be a better pony towards you." Svengallop finally made a warm smile, one that he has not done in years. Whether he would return back on his career as a manager was a mystery, probably not doing it anymore for the greater good.

Both Rara and Svengallop exchanged amends with each other and confessed their feelings towards each other. It was a warm welcome that their bitter exchanges were finally over as they kissed before leaving the dark alleyway.

"I'll be a better pony for you, Rara." Svengallop said happily.

"So as me, Svengallop." Rara said.

"Say, we should spend our night in the hotel for our date instead," Rara nodded in agreement before he continued, "that is my gift for you. Happy Hearth's Warming Eve, Rara."

"Happy Hearth's Warming Eve to you, Svengallop." Rara replied in affection.

The two held hooves affectionately as they continued walking into the streets of Canterlot up to a hotel, while they enjoyed their Hearth's Warming Eve in the capital city.

Author's Note

This was the first one-shot and the first story I have done. Thanks for reading!