Questions, questions, questions
Author's Note
Small ficlet written for my significant other when they were having a bad day. Hope you like it!
Questions, questions, questions
Under the sunlit sky and right in the middle of a picnic mat, Twilight Sparkle asked Rarity a question that was as simple as it was complex. Though to say she asked a question would be somewhat incorrect.
She didn’t ask a question. She confessed it.
“Rarity,” she asked, looking at the sunbathing mare, watching as the unicorn lazily waved a purple fan up and down, “are you happy?”
“Very much so, yes,” she replied, stretching slightly and dropping her fan if only to adjust the sunglasses over her nose. She looked so pretty, Twilight thought. This made her feel even worse. “This weather is absolutely fantastic, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Twilight agreed, trying her best to sound as though she was happy with the answer received. She wasn’t, in truth. She was rather irritated by the change of topic, by how quickly her question had been answered, but she couldn’t really protest when she hadn’t really asked what she’d wanted to ask at all, had she?
She swallowed her pride, telling herself she was being silly and went back to her book, intently focusing on the printed words that mattered little. So little compared to the words in her head. A minute later, when she felt oddly compelled to look up, she noticed Rarity looking towards her, her eyes’ expression hidden under framed, tinted glass.
“Is something wrong?” she asked Rarity, and almost wished there was. It might give her an opening to talk.
“No,” Rarity said after a minute, her lips curving into a smile. “Nothing at all, dear.”
Twilight smiled as best she could. “Nothing at all,” she repeated and told herself she believed it. “All right.”
By the time bedtime had arrived and she was curled up under the covers of their bed, she reluctantly accepted that no, no she didn’t believe nothing was wrong. She wouldn’t say that everything was wrong, either, because that wasn’t factually correct.
There was only one thing that was wrong.
“Twilight?”
Pulled from her thoughts, she turned on her side and found her bedmate staring at her with concern that sunglasses could no longer hide.
“Y-Yes?”
“Darling, is everything all right?”
And there it was, plainly stated, what she’d both wanted and dreaded to hear.
So she swallowed hard and proceeded to lie, “Yes, of course. Why do you ask?”
Rarity licked her lips and then spoke with care. “Darling,” she repeated, and then changed her approach, “what’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Twilight said, and at Rarity’s stare, anxiety forced her to amend her statement. “It’s fine,” she said. “It’s silly,” she explained. “It’s nothing,” she confessed.
It was fine, and it was silly, and it was nothing. Why should she be a nuisance and worry Rarity over something that was probably stupid.
“Twilight,” Rarity insisted, edging closer, every word intense as she asked yet again, “what’s wrong?”
“Nothing!” Twilight insisted in turn, trying to laugh, to brush it off. “I was just… I guess I was just afraid I…” And so her words stopped, choked up in a confession that wasn’t all that funny, was it?
“Afraid of what?”
And Twilight tried to laugh even as fears than ran deep cracked her voice, “I was afraid I wasn’t making you happy,” she said, and felt stupid and silly and worthless as she spoke. “That I’m not good enough for you. Or for anything.”
Rarity stared at her, wide-eyed. “Twilight…”
“It’s stupid, I know,” Twilight quickly said, regretting her words and trying to brush them off. Maybe if she spoke quickly enough, they could pretend they never were, and the tears in her eyes would fade. “It’s fine! It’s just a stupid thought, it’s fin—”
“Twilight,” Rarity interrupted, edging even closer, alarmed, “darling, you’re not good enough? Why in Equestria would you think that? What happened?”
“I don’t know,” Twilight said, burying her face in her hooves, her thoughts a muddled mess, “I don’t know why I’m even feeling this way, but I am! It’s stupid! I’m a princess! I’m practically the definition of being good enough for things, and yet I still feel like I’m not, and—”
“Twilight, being a princess doesn’t make you good enough for anything,” Rarity said, and Twilight stared at her, a little shocked, a little hurt, and…
Relieved. This was what she wanted, wasn’t it? To be told what she thought, confirmed and said aloud. Like she could finally breathe in some sad sort of way.
“O-Oh,” she said, pushing down the choke in her throat. This was fine. It was fine. “Well, a-anyway, we should sleep,” she added next, desperate for this conversation to end before more things she thought could be confirmed.
“Twilight,” Rarity continued nevertheless, gentle but intent as she cuddled up to Twilight and placed a hoof on her. “Twilight, you’re more than good enough simply by being who you already are.”
“No, I’m not,” Twilight protested, suddenly. “I’m so difficult to handle, and I have anxiety all the time, and I make you go through my checklists every day, and even though I know all the technical aspects of fashion, I still don’t get fashion enough to be useful to you, and I’m not as good at reading ponies like you are so I don’t know I messed up with you until you have to tell me after I’ve hurt you and—” She petered out, burying her face in Rarity’s chest and sniffling. “I’m sorry.”
There was a long silence after that, eternal and eternal, in which Twilight was convinced Rarity would break up with her. Eventually, her marefriend spoke up.
“Twilight,” she said, and when her marefriend looked up, she asked, “are you not trying your best?”
Indignation shot through Twilight, not at Rarity per se, but at the idea that she cared so little to not give it her all. “Of course I’m trying my best,” she said.
“If that’s the case, then you, my darling,” Rarity said, lifting her chin up ever so slightly, “are more than good enough for me.”
