Chapter 1: The Price You Pay
Author's Note
Heya there, thanks for taking a chance on this read! I'm thinking its gonna be something Beauty and the Beast-esque, so like... slow-burn, learning to love one another thing? I don't write with an end-goal, never have. That said, let me know what ya think, and see you later 
Chapter 1: The Price You Pay
Rarity sniffled heavily. Her fetlock was rough on her cheeks as she flicked away the salt water on her cheeks; tears that had fulfilled their threat to flow down over her fur.
She took a heavy breath before opening the door to her home, flouncing quickly through the kitchen and waving a hoof at her surprised father. She gave him no time to actually see her, calling out, "Hi daddy, bathroom emergency!" as she sped through the room and up the stairs. The door to the bathroom had clicked quietly behind her by the time she heard her father, confused, call his own, "Hi honey?" back from downstairs.
"Sorry daddy," she said quietly, apologizing only to herself, only for herself. She quickly made her way to the mirror, rearing up and placing her hooves on the sink. Glancing at her visage, she winced a bit.
That mascara had indeed been a bit heavier than expected, and that new blush pad had left more of the pink powder than she cared for. The blue lipstick had been a gift, and while it complemented her mane, it was a bit too electric to go with any of the rest of the make-up kit her mother had got her for her birthday yesterday.
"I do look like a clown," she whispered piteously. "Sunflower Spark was right."
She pouted heavily for a moment, before reaching out with a spark of her magic to twirl one of the faucets on the sink. Letting the water warm, she rinsed her face heavily, scrubbing roughly with a fetlock before pulling out a special scrub he mother had bought along with the rest of the make-up. After a couple of minutes, she shut off the water and scrubbed her face dry.
She took a moment to gaze at the plain paleness of her face. Her cheeks were the only place on her muzzle with any color, an ugly ruddiness that only complemented her angry red eyes.
She sighed after looking herself over a moment, tossing the face-towel into the hamper and replacing it with one of the four clean ones in the cabinet.
She closed her eyes as she faced the door, taking a few deep breaths and getting her mind, if not settled, than at least not whirling like a tornado.
Taking up an embarrassed smile, she walked out the door and down the stairs, showing her face to her father.
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
It was after dinner now, and Rarity was attempting to read a book before getting ready for bed, her teeth and mane well and brushed. After another few seconds of staring at the page, she groaned and let her muzzle fall into the page.
"What if they don't accept my apology tomorrow?" she asked the book, her eyes closed to the black ink. "What if they hate me and refuse to even look at me?
"What if I never have any friends again?"
She sniffled, sliding her face against the page accidentally before pulling away, the wet paper sticking to her cheek and turning some of the pages as she made to wipe her face.
When she glanced down, she frowned at the title she was staring at.
The Pony Who Saw the Future
"I don't remember this one," she murmured, wiping the last of the moisture off of her cheeks before glancing along the first words.
She found herself entranced in the tale of an old mare, who had slowly lost all of her friends to several natural causes and accidents, from a strange illness to a cart whose harness had broken and ran over the pony down a hill from it (which Rarity found slightly contrived, but it was a fairy tale book).
At the end of her second decade, she found herself completely alone in the world, her friends and family taken from her. In her grief, she began researching occult and unnatural scrying magic.
The third image in the book showed the mare, eyes red from crying, sketching out a circle on her floor. The story spoke on how she used a ball of clear crystal to spread her magic over the chalk, creating a ball that let her see into the future; she then used this ball to get in good with other ponies, doing nice things that they needed as soon as they needed them, and using those occurrences to set herself up with a ring of loyal friends.
Rarity paused her, looking up at her dresser. Inside many of the drawers was her rapidly growing gem collection, the top covered with her prized finds. In the middle of her prizes was a large, oval piece of clear quartz, pretty but useless to her burnishing fashionista practices.
Looking back at the picture, Rarity found herself surprised by the amount of detail that had been put into the runic language and the precise angling of the lines drawn within the circle.
"There's no way," she dismissed, scoffing at herself before her eyes were drawn back into the intimate workings of the spell on the floor of the drawing.
Sighing, she jumped up from her bed, taking a moment to kick aside the soft rug that covered her floor, a nice set of hardwood planks. Walking downstairs, she smiled at her mom over by the radio. Her mom took a moment to wave over at her, pointing meaningfully at the tacky clock on the wall before returning to her gossip station.
Grabbing the pack of chalk her dad kept in their drawer full of odds and ends, as well as a snack to conveniently hold on top of said pack, she waved at her mom with the pb&j as she ascended the stairs.
Closing her door, she scratched at her new cutie mark as she levitated a few pieces of chalk out of the thick paper packet, taking dainty bites out of her sandwich as she glanced at the book, still open on her bed. With three pieces of chalk, she soon had the circle replicated precisely on her floor. Triple checking it in the book, she took the last bite of the sandwich before setting aside the book for the chunk of quartz.
She gave the pretty bauble a moment's consideration, lifting it and looking through it to the scene outside her window, the setting sun sending a prism through the stone and playing across her floor and ceiling.
Taking a last glance at the book beside the circle, she saw no incantation, only the unicorn mare showering the circle with magic passed through the sphere.
Taking a deep breath, Rarity lifted the oval stone over the center and started concentrating magic, not on the outside to hover the stone, but within the core of the crystal. After a moment she found the crystal levitating by itself, allowing her to fully concentrate her powers inside it.
Taking this as a good sign, she smiled a bit before increasing the input of her magic, her signature soft blue glow filling the stone and shining forth in a gentle light.
She kept pouring power in, the power swirling and concentrating, slowly lighting a deep indigo, before a gentle shining light distracted her for a moment.
The circle was reacting, glowing it's own purple light.
Grinning widely, she felt her legs beginning toquiver, her pool of magic surely emptying as she continued to pour in a whisper of magic. She tried to start lowering her siphoning of magic, but frowned as the out-pour of magic refused to be muted.
As a matter of fact, she felt it widening.
Her eyes grew as she felt the magic drawing itself now, a vortex of thaumatic energy lighting the crystal from its core, a visible distortion in the air between her horn and the crystal as it pulled, tearing power from her.
She tried to back away, but found her hooves planted in the floor, her legs refusing to even collapse as she pulled mentally at her muscles.
And then her magic came to a head.She was dropped to her barrel as the crystal shone down on the circle, the light meeting in between the circle and the stone, slowly starting to swirl in the area it met. An inch below the crystal, a few feet above the circle, the magic drew into a point.
And then the light of the magic stopped moving. Rarity noticed several dust motes floating in front of her eyes.
But they weren't floating, not anymore. They were suspended, immobile.
She then became aware of her body, its utter stillness. She felt no need for breath, her lungs not screaming for the air she had gone without for... for...
For no time, and for all time.
She took in this thought, wondering if her magic had destroyed her concept of time.
Was everything still happening, and she merely rendered unaware? Was she stuck in time, adrift in a sea that was a single second long, a second now so large as to be a millennia? Would she be forever stuck in this moment, tasting the sweetness of strawberry jelly mingling with peanut butter?
Oh dear child, what have you done?
She took in this thought, felt it, wondered at its source. She felt her mind signaling her mouth to speak, and then wondered if she would be feeling the impulse to speak for the rest of her megalithic time stuck in this second.
Your mind if fluttering child. You would be in a panic, if your heart could beat, if your mind could register fear. Please, little one, think of what happened to cause this fracturing of space and time.
She did as the voice asked, casting her thoughts over the story she had found, new in her old book of tales. She thought on the circle she had seen, laying heavy on how long she had considered whether this was even possible. She remembered intently how she had recovered chalk from the drawer downstairs, on how she had drawn the circle and levitated the quartz crystal over it.
Child, you have erred in the construction of the stone, the voice told her. The one used by this pony was hoof created to be a perfect orb, with no imperfection in its structure. You found a stone made by the earth, its crystalline lines not laying perfect along their selves, and not being a perfect sphere besides. Had you known these two things, you would be conversing with Her now.
Instead, you have ruptured the boundaries keeping your self together. You have created an event horizon, and now your ken draws into an infinite point. You have been displaced from time and space, doomed yourself to be here, for all time.
Rarity felt the want, the need for tears. She begged the voice to help her, to either fix her mistake or end it.
I... I have the power for this. It comes with a price. Would you pay it?
Anything.
Everything!
Very well.
She felt it then.
Her heartbeat.
Tears rushed to her eyes.
She glanced up at the stone.
She saw within it herself, standing before it and giving it all of her power, and she saw the culmination of the spell. She watched as, in that instant, the power within it concentrated into a single point, then exploded outwards. She watched as her house, her family, and her town were turned to ash before the wave of force. She watched at the sphere expanded, instantly vaporizing anything it touched. She watched as, in a second, everything around her for forty miles incinerated in a world of fire and ash and power.
The she watched, tears streaming down her face, as everything revered itself, the destruction reversed and contained within this single glimpse of the future. Then, the image changed to one of her, standing within a group of five other mares. Five of them, including herself, wore necklaces that emanated power, the last and sixth of the group floating in the middle of them crowned. She watched as they sent their power into this mare, who channeled it into a beam of pure magical light, sending it forth into a tall, black mare.
And then the crystal fractured, turning from pure transparency to cloudy opacity, as though filled with the whitest cloud imaginable. The magic holding up the stone scattered, and the quartz hit the center of the circle with a thump, neither of the parts of the spell anything more than a mundane drawing and a rock.
Rarity laid there on her floor for a while, just breathing and feeling her body, feeling it move and live and be.
She jumped at a knock on her door.
"Time for bed sweetie!" her mother called through the wood.
She took a trembling breath, and with a remarkable amount of control, said, "Yes mom, I'll be in bed in a moment."
She heard her mother say she loved her through the door, then the hoof-steps as she went to her own room. Rarity glanced out the window, at the red setting sun just barely peeking over the horizon.
Then she stood up, using a sparking horn to float a cloth over from her vanity. She smudged the lines of the circles and letters, resolving to clean it better later. She tugged her rug back over the planks of the floor, scrubbing a bit at the chalk that poked out of one side, before she picked up her quartz oval. She walked it over to the trash can by her dresser, then hesitated for a full two minutes before placing it back on top, with her collection.
She closed her curtains and hopped into bed, looking at the book on the floor before flicking it closed with her magic and rolling over, turning her back to it as she tucked in.
***** ***** Many, Many Years Later ***** *****
Rarity dropped herself into bed, bouncing slightly and giggling to herself as she stared up into the ceiling of her four-poster bed. Her mind wouldn't stop running over and over the events from earlier today; meeting the lovely pony with messy mane in the town hall, becoming fast friends with her during their light conversation she spent fixing up Rainbow Dash's inconsideration.
The revealing of Nightmare Moon, legend of old and dark villainess from Equestria's past, and the subsequent quest she'd undertaken with a group of mares she knew from around town and quickly grown fond of.
The cutting of her tail, a necessary sacrifice in the name of fashion and generosity.
The cleansing of Nightmare Moon, and the revealing of Princess Luna, long lost sister to Princess Celestia and heir to the Diarchy's empty throne.
The regrowth of her tail, thank Celestia!
She tittered again, wriggling carefully under her blankets, as befit a lady (in practice if nothing else) of her standing. Exhausted, she blinked sleepily up at the cloth hanging over her bed, smiling as she waited to drift off into sleep.
And waited.
Waited.
"Oh, poo," she murmured, sitting up in bed, destroying her carefully folded sheets and yawning. "Too much excitement maybe, and now my poor old bones don't know it's time to sleep. Maybe a tiny nightcap will send me off," she said as she slid over the blankets.
She trotted down the stairs, making her way into her cozy kitchen and moving to a cabinet over the sink. Pulling out one of her two crystal tumblers, she pulled a bottle of clear pink liquid from behind several boxes of food in her pantry.
Pulling the cork stopper of the bottle, she poured an ounce into the glass, hesitated, then giggled to herself as she poured another.
She put the bottle away carefully before lifting the glass in her magic, taking a short sniff of the alcohol and shivering at the faint burn it sent down her nostrils. She sipped it carefully, humming at the warmth it sent down her throat.
It is time.
Rarity jumped, looking around her kitchen with wide eyes, seeking that soft voice.
"Excuse me?" she squeaked, setting the glass on her counter top. "Excuse me, is somepony there?"
Her eyes flickered around the room, taking in the shadows and thin ribbons of light that came in from the enchanted street lights outside. Glancing around the room, she strafed her table and put a hoof on the knob of the back door, rattling it gently and confirming that it was, indeed, locked.
It is time, Rarity.
She jumped a bit, eyes raking the room for movement, finding nothing out of place. She moved into the main room, through it and to her front door. A jiggling of a lock. Confirmation it was set. Still no source for the voice, almost in league with Nightmare Moon's if not for the softness, the gentleness.
Rarity, I am not there yet.
"Then where are you," she said, her gaze flicking over the room, all of the windows closed.
I am in the in-between, in limbo, in the spaces between worlds. I am in the Darkness.
"Well whatever are you there for," she murmured to herself, returning to the kitchen and eyeballing her drink for anything floating in it.
I was cast here millennia ago, by one who could not use me. This was his punishment. I have been here, slowly gathering enough power to leave. But years ago, a guttering soul called out, and I used my power to save her, and her world.
She froze, the drink falling from her grip and into her sink, clattering loudly as it rattled around the basin.
A flash of power and destruction, a chalk circle and a clear stone, a voice and salvation.
Yes child.
"But," she said, her head filled with a fuzzy emptiness. "But it has been years," she muttered, backing out into her main room. "Why now? Why wait all these years to take me?" She scampered over to a chest at the side of the room, where she kept her most precious jewels.
Take you? Rarity, it is much the opposite. I want you to take me from this place.
She dumped the chest, before prying the false bottom out of it. There was a circle of her clearest diamonds, rubies, and sapphires. And underneath them, forgotten...
She pulled out an oval of cloudy, shattered but intact quartz, lifting it into the air.
Pull me from the Darkness Rarity. Pull me from this nothingness.
"So what? So you can eat me? So you can work your wrath upon this world?" she said harshly, taking the orb in her hooves and baring her teeth as she glared at it.
And then she dropped it, seeing a spot of darkness moving inside of the gem.
You will pull me to you. This is half of my price. You will bring me out of the Darkness.
"But I just found my friends," she sobbed, picking up the stone again and speaking into it. "I just found my purpose in life! My business is picking up, and-"
Rarity.
It's tone remained as soft as ever, only growing in insistence, in forceful need.
You will do this, and after you rescue me, you will be mine.
She sobbed again, tears streaming down her cheeks, knowing that she couldn't resist whatever this power was. She staggered to her hooves, clutching the stone to her chest with a leg.
Good. Now, you will need chalk, and a place to draw a circle.
Her heart dropped, her tears slipping off the bottom of her muzzle as she walked into her kitchen, pulling out a packet of the white sticks of rock. Walking into the main room, she started drawing as the voice instructed, keeping the salt water from dripping on the lines she was instructed to draw.
After a little over an hour, she stood back from her work, eyes dry now. She floated the bottle of gin over to her, taking another pull off of it as the voice in her head spoke.
The scaffold is complete. Now you need only the power. Place the stone in the middle, then put your power into it.
She took a last swig from the bottle before stoppering it and tossing it to the side, onto her fainting couch. Taking a few steps forward she thunk-ed the gem into the center of the innermost of circles. Her horn lit, but she was stopped by the voice.
If you power it from inside, you will be obliterated by the coursing of power and Darkness. Step out of it please.
"Would hate to ruin your prize," she huffed, stepping obediently out of the chalk lines before focusing her power on the stone.
The last time she'd done this flashed through her mind, images of the ceasing of time around her before being overcome by the explosion and atomizing of the surroundings.
This time however, she never felt the loss of control, and actually ran into a wall of sorts.
You have fulfilled the requirements. Now you have only to finalize the spell.
She listened to the voice for a moment, before chanting a short phrase in a language she did not know.
Again.
She repeated the phrase, her heart fluttering as she saw the darkness in the gem filling the insides, replacing cloudy breaks in the stone with nothingness, with blackness.
Again Rarity!
She didn't need to be told, the power rushing her along, the words flowing from her like water from a spring, beginning to cover her tongue with a strange feeling, a coldness.
Once more!
She powered her horn, adding a resonance to her voice, calling out the last words and lacing magic in the spaces between them, filling the spaces in between the letters, magic filling the space between herself and the void of the orb.
And then it cracked, and the entirety of the chalk was pulling into the crack, the magic and words and air pulled into it, and with a clap it disappeared, not unlike the one she'd heard all those years ago when her magic had pulled her to the gem laden geode, before even she'd attempted to see in between layers of time to the future.
She felt herself tumble through the air, her body thrown from the gem, as was everything else in the room. She heard a popping from her vertebrae as she hit the wall, before sliding down the wood and landing on her couch, as well as the bottle of gin.
Her eyes spun as she waited for the air to return to her lungs, blinking heavily and shaking her head as her eyes focused on the center of the room, where something was stirring.
The creature was tall, standing nearly seven feet from paws to the tip of its lupine ears after it uncurled from the ball it had arrived as; and it was over half as long again, four feet from its pointed snout to the end of its bushed tail. Its dark fur was quite shaggy, and uncovered.
Long nails clicked against the hard wood floor as it shifted its weight, and its long arms nearly allowed talons to scratch at the same floor. The paws like a dog's, its five digits padded.
It had a timberwolf's sharp head, long and thin and pointed in every way, its eyes passively malicious as the blue orbs took in the room. Unlike the timberwolf, though, the head was covered in short fur, and was obviously fleshy. Upon noticing her, the thing’s eyes widened, and, to her surprise, it turned and bowed, one arm slightly extending behind itself.
“Good evening,” it said, voice amicable and horribly warm in her ears. “I am the Andesoth. You may refer to me as you wish.”
"A pleasure," Rarity said before she could stop herself, shaking her head as she slipped off the couch. She started to list to the side, a bit of vertigo gripping her, but instead of finding the floor she felt a paw the size of her shoulder grip her withers and steady her.
She looked up, into a pair of eyes the color of the pale blue sky.
"I am sorry to intrude on you so quickly," it said, the same black velvet voice as the whispering in her head. It's teeth flashed in the mage light of the outside lamps as it said, "But it has been many, many ages since I have eaten."
Her lip quivered, and she sniffed heavily before she nodded her head and closed her eyes, holding out a leg to the creature.
"Please," she whispered, begging, "make it quick."
She felt his paw grasping her leg, fingers well and fully wrapping around her fetlock, and a gentle tug pulled her closer to the creature. She whimpered, clenching her eyes tight...
"Lady Rarity," the smooth voice cut through the darkness of her sight, "my apologies, but I do not know how to use your kitchen. Could you perhaps-?"
Her eyes popped open, gazing incredulously past the pointed snout of its nose into its pleading eyes.
"You want me to cook myself?" she asked, her gaze hardening.
"What?" it asked, pulling its head away as its ears twitched. "No. Why would I want you to cook yourself?"
Rarity felt the gears in her mind slipping, grinding harshly.
"So you don't want to eat me?" she asked, the creature flinching a bit as its ears twitched atop its head, those horribly sharp teeth gleaming as it grimaced.
"Rarity, why would I want to eat you?" it asked softly, its pupils large in the darkness of her workroom.
"You said my summoning was half of the price, and that I was the other half," she said, leaning back a bit, the creature letting her leg slide easily from its digits.
"Yes, Rarity," it said softly, its large eyes softening. "You are mine, now."
"So what would you have of me, if not my flesh?"
The creature smiled a bit, and to her immense confusion, blushed.
"You, Rarity," it said, squeezing her leg gently and pulling her to its chest, its long arms wrapping around her back. "I would have you, for all of your days."
Her ears flicked up, quivering as her mind ran through the words it had just said.
"You want me to marry you?" she asked, in a tiny, high voice.
It frowned, obviously thinking for a moment. "I think that's what some things call it?"
"Ah, right then," Rarity said, before falling into the creature's chest.
It's warm, came her last thought, before darkness overcame the slightly inebriated pony.
