Fabulosity in Fact

It’s funny how nopony who isn’t a fashion enthusiast could recognise you in Ponyville. Maybe if you declared your name to the world, they’d know who you are, and swarm you with requests to take your picture. Or maybe they’d pelt you with fruit, depending on how well word gets around. Either way, simply showing your face has no effect. Must just be the close-knit community with their own lives and problems.

Not even the well-groomed pink pony behind the counter knew who you were when you walked into the spa. The place smelled of the familiar oils and creams and lotions that you’d spent your life around. It’s a good job that some things can catch on from the upper class here, unlike the presence of clothing, which you decided to forgo for the sake of the spa. Considering the beauty of certain ponies here, combined with the fact that most of the townsfolk are naked, it’s a wonder there isn’t a non-stop orgy somewhere in town.

Actually, that could be something to keep an eye out for. You never know.

Anyway, you ask the spa worker if there’s a Miss Rarity present. She points you toward the herbal bath room.

Cautiously trotting trough to said bath room, you notice how empty it is. Not a soul. Not even Rarity, nor the friend that she mentioned. A giant tub sits in the centre of the room, surrounded by various chairs for leaning back and relaxing in. You suppose you’ll just have to pass this time relaxing in-

Without a warning, bubbles begin to ripple within the tub itself. A second later, a white mare breaks the surface with a swift, audible gasp, followed by a relaxing sigh. She slowly brushes her dripping, mulberry-purple mane out from her eyes, before she flicks her gaze towards you.

“Nothing quite like a dip in the hot tub to make you feel serene and vibrant, don’t you agree?” she says, her mane just slightly hanging over the edge of the tub, allowing droplets to patter on the ground.

“Nothing quite like sharing it with a beautiful mare like yourself, Miss Rarity,” you reply.

“For you, it’s just Rarity, darling,” she reminds you. As you climb the steps to enter the tub yourself, you notice a flush of pink beneath her cheeks.

“Of course.”

You dip your first hoof into the water. The powerful heat causes you to flinch at first, but only for a moment, until you’re ready to dip another hoof in. You continue this exercise, slowly lowering yourself into the hot tub as much as your body will allow. Rarity’s seductive eyes are on you the whole time.

“I must apologise for my friend’s absence,” Rarity explains once you’d settled down, letting the heat envelope your whole body, “She had an animal-related emergency to tend to, something about a broken beak. She’s quite the animal carer, you see.”

“Like a veterinarian?”

“Not quite, but rather similar,” she sighs once again, leaning a little further back in the water, “But enough about that, there’s something I’ve always wanted to tell you since reading that article. Shortly before we actually met, in fact.”

“I suppose it’s lucky that I happened to drop by at the right time,” you muse, “or are you a believer of fate?”

“Hard to say, really,” she scans the ceiling of the spa absent-mindedly, counting the tiles, “but one thing’s for certain; you’re not a bad pony. You’re not bad, no matter what the rest of the media says.”

“And what makes you say that?” you shuffle closer to her, causing the water to stir.

“Because I know you’re just searching for beauty,” her answer was simple. Simple, yet genius. “I know you’re just trying to get ponies to look their very best. To appear their very best to others. And most of all, to feel their very best. The only mistake you did was altering those photos magically.”

“And you think there’s a difference between that and, say, wearing makeup or false eyelashes?”

She nods matter-of-factly, “When I use makeup and accessories on myself and other ponies, I’m using them to highlight and draw attention to beauty that‘s already present. I’m working with - and not despite - our own imperfections, rather than just magicking them away at a horn‘s thought. And once a pony sees the true beauty she can achieve, it gives her confidence like nothing else. Because that’s what fashion is to me; it’s not how impossibly attractive a famous model can look, or who should buy what dress and when in the year. It’s about the ponies I come across every day, and giving them confidence and happiness. That, I believe, is the true meaning of fashion.”

It felt like a clear enough explanation. Clear enough, perhaps, for you to take to heart. Her own philosophy when it comes to fashion is heart-warming, to say the least, but she’s bound to be hiding more gems of wisdom behind those brilliant eyes of hers. Gems of wisdom that you need to hear. Gems of wisdom that the whole of Equestria needs to hear.

And you know just how to do that. That is, if you’re still allowed to make magazines anymore.

“This is going to sound strange,” you ponder aloud, “But how would you like to be in the Canterlot Columns?”

What you just said may have been some sort of paralysis incantation; Rarity’s whole body freezes at the offer, despite being mostly submerged in the steaming waters of the hot tub.

“Did you just offer me the chance to be in your own paper?” Rarity says one word at a time, as if saying a single syllable incorrectly would cause the world to tumble down.

“Yes. Yes I did. All I need is for you to tell me more about your side of fashion. The honest side of it, the side that helps ponies, rather than… what my magazine usually does.”

“Oh! Oh! Oh my goodness! Of course I will!” she pants with glee when it dawns on her, clapping her hooves in excitement, “I could actually get my own little article! My own article about my work in the Canterlot Columns! It couldn’t possibly get any better than this!”

“Unless you end up being on the front page or something like that,” you say casually, “By the way, how would you like to be on the front page?”

And that’s about the time Rarity faints. With a gasp and a swoon, her eyes roll up into her head, and she simply plops beneath the tub’s surface, leaving a flurry of bubbles where she fainted. Luckily, you’re there to pull her up again, and keep her head above water until she regains coherence.

“My… my article… front page… ugh…” she mumbles for a minute or two, before she finally reaches out with her hooves and gives you an unexpected, but not unwelcome, embrace. “Thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

She gives you a peck on the cheek as a sign of thanks for your generosity. And then another. As she leans in for a third peck, you cheekily turn your head to face her, and catch her kiss with your own lips.

It’s a brief, but lovely moment. The kiss holds for a few seconds, before she pulls away with a shy, dismissive giggle. Her face is absolutely red.

She tries to stutter a laid-back apology for her unintentional intimacy. You lean forward and cut her off with another, longer, kiss. She doesn’t object to it.

In fact, she plays along with it.

With your lips still connected to hers, she pushes you back against the side of the hot tub. From there, she climbs over you, her body pressing up to your own amidst the hot water as you sense the tip of her tongue testing your lips, about to-

“No funny business in the herbal baths!” a mare's thick Stalliongrad accent calls out. You both look towards the source to find one of the spa workers standing by the door. “Other ponies have gotta use that tub after you, y’know!”

Darn. Caught red-hoofed.

You both grumble a half-hearted assurance that it wouldn’t happen again, and spend the rest of the time in the tub discussing each other’s fashion ideas and philosophies, all the while being as close to each other as the spa rules would allow.

When you and Rarity are finally ready to leave, the spa attendant escorts you from the herbal bath room. Her twin sister and her friend (boyfriend?) are passing the time in the waiting room. You and Rarity quietly slip by.

“Thanks for agreeing to be in my magazine,” you mutter to her, “but I fear we’ll have to act fast - I may not have a magazine to run by the end of the month, if the damage is as bad as I think.”

“In that case, we‘d better get started,” she replies, “When’s the best time for you to return to Canterlot?”

“And get lynched for the incident with that little filly?”

“Oh, you aren’t going to get lynched by Canterlot ponies,” Rarity assures you.

“Maybe not, but there’ll be so many disapproving gazes, perhaps even disagreeable mutterings!”

“Then blow them away with your next issue. Clear the situation, rather than just keep running away from it. It’ll only get worse if you leave it like a pile of dirty dishes.”

You let out a sigh of resignation. She’s right.

“If that‘s what you believe, pack your bags.” you tell her as you open the spa door, letting her though, “We’re leaving for Canterlot tomorrow.”

Aaand she’s swooning again.