It had rained the night before Rarity’s first day of kindergarten.
That did nothing to dampen her spirits or her plan for a fabulous debut at her new school however. While the rain had pounded on her windows last night, Rarity spent hours picking out what she would wear to her first day of school. She needed to look perfect after all, even if likely none of her classmates would be able to appreciate it.
That’s why she was now wearing a pearl white dress with a cream-colored wool shawl wrapped around her shoulders and a wide-brimmed white hat on her head with a purple ribbon tied around it. The ensemble was rounded off with purple heels that matched her hair and a lighter purple backpack. The heels she had only recently bought after absolutely begging her mother to get them and Rarity decided that today would be the first day she would wear them. In truth they weren’t very practical for the weather or all the activities she would likely be doing at kindergarten but she didn’t care, her appearance came first and there were no shoes she had that better fit the rest of her outfit.
Rarity was now walking down the sidewalk to the entrance of her kindergarten after being dropped off by her mother. Thanks to Rarity underestimating how long it would take her to get ready she was one of the last students to arrive and most everyone was indoors already. She did her best not to skip, instead walking calmly, she wanted to show off her maturity to her peers. Besides, it was best to take things slow in these shoes with the ground still being wet. Water was still pooled along the side of the road and the grass besides the sidewalk was muddy and wet. Rarity was taking notice so she wouldn’t get splashed by any cars driving by.
It was because she was paying such close attention that when a car went buzzing by her and its tires splashed a puddle up at her that Rarity was able to carefully jump back away from the water.
“Aha!” She smirked in victory… only to begin tilting backwards, not used to balancing in her new heels. She had unfortunately jumped a little too far back and the heels of her shoes were halfway off the sidewalk and onto the grass. Rarity tried to tip a foot forward to step fully back onto the sidewalk but that just caused her to lose her balance even more.
Windmilling her arms with a frantic look on her face, Rarity fell backwards onto the grass. The cold, muddy, grass.
“Oh no!” She screeched in horror. Her dress, her shoes, the sleeves of her shawl, everything but her hat was covered in filthy mud! “This is the worst possible thing!”
Rarity scrambled to her feet, looking all over herself to see if she could somehow salvage her dress. She wiped the globs of mud off that she could but already spots of her clothes were saturated with a dirty brown color and now her hands were completely covered in filth too, mud caked under her carefully kept fingernails. The wool shawl itself was positively ruined and she couldn’t bear to think of the damage to her shoes.
With shuddering breaths Rarity shut her eyes and began to cry, tears leaking from her eyes onto the ground. Only the smallest amount of sense remained that kept her from reaching up and accidentally getting her face all muddy too. She wanted to just give up and sink to her knees in the mud. Her debut was ruined. Her first day of school was ruined. Her clothes were ruined.
“Waaaaaa!” She cried inelegantly, blubbering nearly, and forgetting about looking mature.
“Hey, whatcha crying for?”
The country accented twang of a voice reached Rarity’s ears. She opened her eyes and looked over to see a boy looking at her with a slight frown and a confused expression on his face. He had short straw blond hair and was wearing torn up blue overalls with a red flannel shirt underneath them and a backpack slung over his shoulder.
Horrid.
“What am I crying for?!” Rarity balled her hands into fists and glared at this interloper. “What does it look like you, you… overalls-wearer!”
The boy was flummoxed but didn't seem angry at the "insult" and he raised a single-eyebrow at the angry girl. “Guess you’re upset cause ya got a little muddy? It’s just some mud though, no big deal.”
“No big deal?! My clothes are ruined and I look absolutely filthy!” Rarity cried at the boy. “This is the first day of school and it was supposed to be perfect! Now I’m going to walk in there and everyone is going to laugh at me...” she whimpered, cheeks red and more tears on the way. “I wouldn’t expect a rough and tumble boy like you to understand any of that though,” Rarity looked up and down the boy’s ragged clothes. “You look like you just walked off a farm or something.”
The boy reached up to scratch his head and his eyes drifted off to the side. “Uh, well ya kind of hit the nail on the head there on accident,” he then looked back at Rarity and smirked. “But I’m a girl too ya know?”
Rarity’s jaw dropped and she stiffened in shock. “You’re a girl?”
His—her—eyes narrowed and she pouted. “Got a problem with that? I may not like dresses so much but yeah, I’m a girl.”
With her senses back in order Rarity frowned at the other girl. “Well then that just makes it worse because any girl should understand why I’m crying about this happening!” She looked down at herself, the mud fully worn into her clothes. “This is just awful, I spent so much time on everything and now...”
It was clear to the blond girl that she was going to start crying again.
“Hold on one second,” The blond said to her, dropping her backpack onto the sidewalk.
“What are you doing?” Rarity choked out through the beginning of a new round of sobs.
The other girl only smiled, and then dove face first into the puddle of mud that Rarity had fallen in. While Rarity stared on in awe (and horror) the blond girl rolled around in the mud like a pig, getting so dirty that it made Rarity look practically pristine in comparison. The other kindergartner giggled in delight at the feeling of rolling in the mud, kicking her feet, taking a handful and mashing it into her hair, not caring that it was getting all over her face and everywhere else.
“Woo wee!” The blond girl finally finished, hopping back up and proudly putting her hands on her hips, giving Rarity a big smile. “There we go.”
“Wha-wha-wha...” Rarity was lost for words.
“Hehe,” the girl giggled. “Well I just figured… I mean I can’t clean your clothes for you or anything but at least now you won’t be the only gal in class covered in mud today!” She stuck out one of her muddy hands to Rarity. “Name’s Applejack by the way. What’s yours?”
Rarity looked down at the filthy hand. It was dripping with wet mud and to be frank even if it wasn’t she couldn’t imagine the girl’s hands were normally very clean. Rarity’s own hand was caked with dry mud and felt very unpleasant to her. But looking back up at that muddy young blond girl in front of her with her happy and honest smile, after what she just did for her, all thoughts of cleanliness were pushed from Rarity’s mind.
She smiled too and reached up her hand to grasp Applejack’s, firmly shaking it and being pleasantly rewarded with a strong and warm grip. “My name is Rarity, pleased to meet you.”
