Rarity loved Twilight.
That is why she smiled and sat up a little straighter when Twilight entered the door of their shared bedroom. But Twilight did not smile in return. She did not even meet Rarity’s gaze, but Rarity could see how her eyes were tired, with dark circles under them. How her head hung, as if the crown on it weighed two tons. Enough to make her eye-level with Rarity, despite her increased height.
“Evening, my darling!” Rarity chirped. “Oh, how wonderful it is to see you!”
Twilight did not respond as she took her place next to Rarity, on a pile of cushions upholstered in hoof-spun silk. She closed her eyes and sank the face that was imprinted on every bit that came out of the Fillydelphia Royal Mint into one of them, continuing to not say anything. Rarity knew better than to interrupt.
Finally, Twilight spoke.
“I saw something beautiful today.”
Another stretch of silence passed. Rarity tried to not let her concern show on her quiet smile. Twilight continued to talk into the pillow.
“All of the glowfish in that part of Southern Equestria make their way up that river to spawn the next generation. Then they die. For days after, the bits of glowpaz in the scales of their carcasses illuminate the banks. The griffon villages there have a tradition of keeping their lights off during those nights.”
She lifted her head to turn to Rarity, who was still looking at her, smiling softly, all ears.
“That is when they feast, of course. They smoke the rest, to make it through the winter months. Before integration, those glowfish runs used to make up as much as thirty percent of their yearly calories. Can you imagine how important those days were for them?”
“Very important, I imagine!” Rarity agreed politely. Twilight continued as if she had not said anything.
“It’s their culture. They take the glowpaz-rich mud from the banks of the lake to build up the tombs of their ancestors on the slopes. They daub glowfish scales on their feathers and do elaborate aerial dances to celebrate the feast days. Each village has its own, passed down from parent to child for generations. They all gather at the lake to perform and compete and innovate and comment, and at the end…”
Twilight sighed.
“At the end, they all somehow meld it together. All of the traditions and innovations, all of the village genres and individual styles, all done at the same time in an improvised medley. A choreographed dance with no choreographer.“
Twilight was not looking at Rarity. She was staring off into the space to the right of her. Rarity’s eyes shifted right, as if there was something to see by doing so.
“It was the most beautiful thing I’d seen in such a long time. It made me want to tear up the Royal Warrant I renew with the Wonderbolts each year. I realized then that no matter how creative and spectacular Rainbow Dash’s routines got, spectacle for its own sake just feels so empty without being connected to any purpose…“
Rarity knew better than to comment on that. She knew better than to say anything when Twilight was in this mood. She kept waiting patiently for the right moment. Twilight kept staring at nothing. Then she spoke, her voice hollow, as if admitting a weakness.
“But we need that dam.”
She closed her eyes as if fighting back tears.
“Generations of mud, scraped off the banks for their tombs. Enough to alter the flow, worsening the variability of the seasonal floods downstream year after year until we couldn’t control the damage anymore. The dam would solve everything. Not to mention the electricity it would generate. But the glowfish won’t be going up that river to spawn anymore.”
Rarity took Twilight’s hoof into her own. The same hoof that rendered judgment on slavers and drew literal lines in the sand for tyrants. She caressed it gently. As gentle as her voice.
“That must have been a difficult decision.”
The reply was icy.
“It wasn’t.” Twilight looked at Rarity with the same cold eyes of the Equestrrian Sovereign that stared down rulers without and reactionaries within alike until they bent. “Somnambula’s population alone is ten times larger than all those fishing villages combined. Its pyramids were old when Celestia took the throne. It wasn’t even within an order of magnitude of a difficult decision.“
Of course. It was the wrong thing for Rarity to say. But there was no right thing. That wasn’t the point here. Rarity just kept smiling, and kept stroking that hoof. Twilight kept speaking in that dark, icy tone.
“I wish Princess Celestia had made me the Princess of Engineering, or the Princess of Economics instead. But I know why I’m the Princess of Friendship.” Twilight practically spat out the last word. “One friendship lesson was all they needed. They agreed to let us build the dam. That they could adapt their traditions. We promised them a share of the electricity, and that we’d never let the reservoir fill up to the point of drowning their tombs.”
Twilight’s voice turned hot and angry.
“They thanked me for this! And that glowfish harvest dance… It was the last one. They weren’t doing it for the reasons they should have been! As a desperate bid to convince me to save their culture…”
Twilight was fighting back tears again.
“No. They wanted me to remember them at their best. To remember what it is that I killed. To remember long after all of them and their children and their grandchildren are long dead. To perform for me would mean that their dance lived on longer than it would have if we never built that dam. They thanked me for this, too!“
Rarity just kept stroking Twilight’s hoof.
“I almost wished that they had pledged to attack the dam builders. To fight beak and claw to the very end. That they had declared that the treaties of friendship signed in Griffonstone had no bearing on them. But I know what would have happened then. I know who I would have sent to remove them all.” She sighed, and said the last in a low voice. “Gallus’s division of the Royal Guard.”
Rarity had designed their uniforms. Bright blue cloaks clasped with a six-pointed star.
Twilight was practically whispering. “And this is why Celestia gave in. But I can’t do that. I just can’t…“
Rarity hesitated for a moment before speaking. “Darling…” Twilight looked at her. “That is why you are so wonderful. Your Equestria is so much more than making sure the taxes flow in and the decrees flow out! Celestia would have let Somnambula drown, but you stepped in to make the—” she stopped herself just in time “—right decision.”
“It’s so much more than that! There’s no way for you to understand!”
Twilight glared at Rarity for a second, then immediately softened.
“I’m sorry, Rarity. I shouldn’t have done that. I know you are just doing your duty.”
Rarity’s smile almost faltered at that, but she kept strong. But then she let it falter a bit, as Twilight wrapped her neck around Rarity’s own and embraced her with her wings. The same wings that spread out so beautifully to blot out the setting sun every year during the climax of the Spring Friendship Celebration.
“I’m sorry. I love you.” Twilight gently rubbed the back of Rarity’s neck with a wingtip. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s quite all right, darling. I cannot possibly imagine the burdens you bear.” Rarity’s smile had a tinge of sorrow that she would not have let out had Twilight been facing her. “You are the love of my life.”
“I know,” Twilight replied, then pulled back to look Rarity in the eyes. She smiled, for the first time Rarity had seen today. That made Rarity happy.
She kissed the honeyed mouth that had once said those sweet words. The words pardoning Capper Dapperpaws at the Klugetown Trials. All Rarity could do was watch, helpless, unable to beg and plead on his behalf. Twilight could not let her biases cloud the judgment of her friend.
But Twilight made the right decision in the end. She always did. She was the Sovereign, and Rarity loved her.
Twilight broke the kiss, interrupting Rarity’s thoughts. Rarity looked up to see Twilight looking down at her, as she lovingly stroked her cheek with a wingtip. For a moment, Rarity focused on that softness. On that love.
“Tell me about your day.”
Rarity obeyed her Sovereign’s command.
“Oh, certainly nothing of note!” she laughed airily. “Answered letters. Worked on some new designs in the studio.” Did not leave the chambers at all. She tried not to think about what that reminded her of. “Caught up on what they’re saying about me in the fashion press, of course! Manehattan Vogue actually started setting aside an entire section dedicated to me! I swear, no matter what I create these days, it is sure to sweep the fashion world, and then the entire nation!”
Twilight smiled. “I’m glad things are going so well for you in your little world. You must be happy.“
“Yes, of course!” Rarity chirped. “How could I not be?” She deliberately held her smile. “Oh, and I was also rearranging my social calendar! The invites just won’t. Stop. Coming!” Rarity put the back of her hoof on her forehead in a woe-is-me. “At this point, it’s more worrying about insulting some poor creature by not showing up to their soirée or ball or luncheon than anything! How dreadful!“
Twilight laughed. “Imagine how bad it would be if you officially became my consort.”
Twilight was right, but it wouldn’t just be the social calendar, which would no longer be managed by her at that point anyway. Making their relationship official would mean Rarity’s life would become an extension of the state. No more fashion empire to distract her. Spending every single night in these chambers instead of every other week. Duties and expectations.
“Oh I could not imagine!” Rarity agreed. “It is much better this way. After all, our relationship doesn’t need a label for it to mean something!”
Of course, everycreature knew what it meant that the Royal Couturière’s Canterlot studio was a part of Princess Twilight Sparkle’s personal chambers. But this way, they could at least officially pretend that Princess Twilight Sparkle was continuing the Celestian tradition of the Celibate Queen. She and Rarity just had a special bond of friendship, is all. Just close gal pals.
Twilight frowned as she held Rarity’s face in a wing.
“I still wish it could be different. I know you’ve always dreamed of marrying into aristocracy. I just…”
She could not offer that, though Rarity would have gladly given up everything else in her life for it if she did, despite knowing better. But words like “wife”, “husband”, and “spouse” implied an equality of roles. Even the way Princess Cadance used “husband” was an eccentricity tolerated only because ponies of the Crystal Empire worked differently from those of the rest of Equestria. But Twilight could not even afford to pretend like she did.
Sovereigns do not have equals. Sovereigns do not have spouses.
“I know it’s not what you must have imagined being with a Princess to be like as a filly.”
“Oh, pish!” Rarity dismissed. “What part of life ends up being exactly like what we dreamed of as fillies? Growing up is learning how the world really works, and finding room for happiness and fabulousness anyway.” She tossed her mane at that. “And don’t you dare tell me this isn’t like a dream!”
She placed a hoof on Princess Twilight Sparkle’s peytral, the tip of the nail touching her throat.
“I even have a ring! One even more special than any wedding ring!”
Twilight smiled at that, but Rarity could tell Twilight was sad about that particular detail. Yet she smiled for her anyway. Just as Rarity had feigned her excitement for Twilight in turn.
Isn’t that what love is?
Rarity continued.
“Even as the ambitious filly I was, I never even entertained being the special somepony of the Sovereign. I did not even—” Rarity could not suppress a laugh. “I did not even dare entertain being with the royal females! But look at me now! The Sovereign Princess Twilight Sparkle’s companion!”
“Companion”. That was the word they had settled on, with “marefriend” and “lover” sounding too unserious, and “partner” sounding too equal.
Twilight continued smiling as she looked down at her, then looked further down at Rarity’s flank and frowned. Rarity’s eyes followed her gaze to her cutie mark. To the right of the trio of diamonds was a crack of gold.
“Oh, I do apologize. I must have—”
Twilight interrupted her. “No, it must’ve been when I hugged you with my wings. I wasn’t careful.” She looked at Rarity, who began to stand up, not having to be told what to do next. Twilight spoke up.
“While you’re in there, could you… freshen yourself up? All the way up?“
“Of course, darling!” Rarity forced a beam. She knew what that meant. “Do be ready on the bed for me!”
With the energy of a mare fifteen years younger, Rarity bounded into their bathroom, which was the size that her bedroom was back in Ponyville. Fixtures of gold and pink marble and crystal, inlays of actually rare gems, crafted with an elegance that prevented all of it from seeming gaudy. This was the one part of her life that pretty much exactly conformed to that of her fillyhood dreams. She parked herself in front of the ornate floor mirror, her rack of supplies by its side, and got to work.
First, she studied her mane and tail to confirm that the dye was still holding. The same bright purple that she once grew naturally in her younger days. Too involved to change out on a whim like a dress. Another reason why she never really left the quarters much on days like this. Her excuse was true. It was her time to recharge and create. But she had also always hoped to age gracefully, letting the grays come into her mane and tail, and the lines in her face set in. She hated appearing like those ponies who tried so desperately to fight their years.
Then she checked her flank. Wetting a chiffon with solution, she rubbed at the edges of the three diamonds of her cutie mark, wiping away the concealer that was an improvement on the water-soluble one Starlight Glimmer had used all those years ago. The crack of gold expanded underneath the path of the rag, forming an arc that swept around the three diamonds in the center until it reached the top, where it was sealed by a purple six-pointed star, laid over a field of white ones barely visible against her coat.
She had read the history books. The ones for adults, not the ones taught to schoolfoals. She knew what alicorns were like in the old days of nomadic tribes and fledgling city-states. How they led their herds before the Interregnum. Before Princess Celestia declared that there was only one herd of ponies on the continent. That the Age of Alicorns had returned under one Sovereign, who would not rule on the old basis of magic and power and biology, but on good governance and wisdom and kindness instead. She knew that before Her, sovereigns did not have spouses or consorts or companions or marefriends or any of those kind euphemisms.
Sovereigns had concubines.
As she waited for the solution to dry, she looked her face in the mirror. She could make the wrinkles underneath her eyes disappear, but nothing short of the strongest of magics could undo the lengthening of her face, and those came with severe consequences down the line. That is what made her goal something she loathed being so much. To look like a pathetic failed attempt at recapturing lost youth. Being inauthentic was the least fabulous thing she could think of. But she had to do it. She loved Twilight more than she hated it.
She got to work.
She tried to not let her mind wander.
Her mind wandered.
In this pristinely kept chamber of antiseptic perfection, all she could think about were those muddy hooves.
It had been so easy to tease her about it. Rarity could not let a pony with such muddy hooves in her bed, after all. Said pony would then stick her clean hooves in her face, and retort that they weren’t muddy. Then Rarity would whine in offense.
No matter how many times they had done that bit, it never got old. How could it? It was their version of a couple’s song. A recreation of the first night they realized their feelings for each other. Except that in the recreations, Twilight was not also there, so the teasing could continue.
Rarity could not let a pony with such muddy hooves do such unspeakable things to her in her bed, after all.
But it was more than banter. So much more than that, when Applejack got back from a long day in the fields with real mud on her hooves. The way Rarity’s body responded when she held them to lovingly clean them off. To massage and lotion the cracked skin underneath that matted coat.
It was more than just mud. It was the soil her family’s apple trees needed to grow. Mixed in with the molecules of her buried parents and grandparents and great-grandparents. And even the uncles and aunts and great-uncles and great-aunts and second cousins who once worked the same fields before heading off to other cities and towns to pursue their own destinies. But when they died, they more often than not returned there, to contribute the nitrogen in their very bodies to the soil they were birthed on.
A rich soil. Soil that Applejack had wanted to put in her. Fertile soil to sprout into a crying little bundle of button eyes and laughs that would root itself to grow as strong and tall and healthy as a Sweet Apple Acres apple tree.
As their apple tree.
For years, they dared not tell their friends, for fear of ruining that budding dynamic of mutual friendship. They submerged their couple’s spats into swap meet arguments; their breakup fights into fashion competitions. But she wasn’t like Applejack. She was not as good as keeping it all inside for the sake of those around her. She had to express.
So she carved the tiniest heart you ever did see into the bark of the outermost apple tree in Sweet Apple Acres with her magic, the crudest outline of a diamond and an apple within. Applejack had been upset at first, but before long she was calling it “their tree”, too. They would spend many an evening watching the setting sun together, side by side underneath that tree. Or, more often, with Rarity curled up at Applejack’s side.
Over the years, they stopped. But Rarity never forgot. After every breakup, she would sneak into the fields at night to place a hoof on that tiny heart. To check that it was still there. Her little ritual.
Applejack must have also never forgot. Because years after the last time they had ever sat under that tree together, at the end of a fight that marked yet another breakup, she told Rarity that “their tree” had died the week before.
Rarity accepted Twilight’s offer later that day, then headed to Canterlot. Twilight’s new home.
It was hardly a loss. It wasn’t her giving up on real love, after all.
Real love wasn’t what she had in the times she was with Applejack. Real love wasn’t constant fights and bickering. Real love wasn’t spite and jealousy and nitpicking at every little thing. Real love wasn’t the hate in Applejack’s voice when she muttered to her “not in front of Apple Bloom” while hoofing at the ground, subconsciously marking her as a threat to her family.
No.
Real love wasn’t what she had in between those times, either. When she distracted herself with a series of exotic lovers. Lovers to whom, cruelly, she could give all of the understanding and care and patience she couldn’t give Applejack. But maybe that was because they were only supposed to be in her life for a sojourn, before disappearing back off to where they belong. All the way back. Back to the Griffith Isles or Abyssinia or Farasi or even to the h—
No.
Real love is what adults have.
Real love is what she sees between Applejack and Rainbow Dash now. The easy smiles that are so much better than manic, self-obliterating grins. The soft hoofholds that are worth a thousand melodramatic love poems scribbled on diamond-printed stationary. Two solid willow trees, growing into each other.
Real love is—
Rarity blinked as she realized her mascara was running. That she had not even started with the remover. She wet a rag in cool water and held it to her face, hoping to cool down the puffiness of her tear-soaked cheeks.
Real love is what she has with Twilight. Something that budded slowly, putting down its roots in her without her even realizing it. Built on the mutual respect between the two ponies who truly had ambitions too big for Ponyville. Twilight, for having grown up as the Sovereign’s faithful student, and Rarity, a striver who practiced her refined accent even as a filly until it sounded nothing like the plain speech of the parents who raised her. Built on the growing admiration that Rarity had for the proven, capable leader that had once been that friendless unicorn mare with a hopelessly outdated manecut that wandered into her boutique for the first time all those years ago.
Do not think of that mare. Do not ask what happened to her.
She didn’t. She took a breath. She was okay. The puffiness had even gone down mostly.
Foundation. Concealer. Eyeshadow. Eyeliner. False lashes instead of mascara this time. Years of practice had made the process almost automatic. She hated the result. The surface details of her true age obliterated, to be replaced with a certain wrongness of form that one had to deliberately ignore. She loved Twilight more than she hated it.
Then the part she did not hate at all. That she was doing more for herself than anycreature else. The solution on her flank was dry, so she could apply a layer of cutie mark concealer to restore what had been there before she had accepted Twilight’s offer. To obliterate all traces of the Sovereign’s moment of weakness. As always, she left the top part for last. Twilight’s cutie mark in miniature. Then it, too, disappeared under the white.
She looked over herself in the mirror. The mane. The tail. The face. The cutie mark. Everything as it had been once, years ago, or as close as it was going to get. She took a deep breath. She was ready.
Channeling the same youthful energy as before, she entered the bedroom. Princess Twilight Sparkle was sitting in bed, a familiar bound volume lying open in front of her. No longer in her crown and peytral, her face as bright and youthful as ever, she would have looked exactly like the Twilight Rarity had known back then, were it not for her height.
“You made it!” Twilight exclaimed brightly on seeing her. “Is Applejack coming, too?”
“Oh, Applejack had to foalsit Apple Bloom at the last minute!” Rarity replied as she hopped up on the bed, trying to ignore the creak in her knee. “You know well how she could not possibly leave the filly alone all by her self in that little house!”
“Of course!” Twilight agreed. “She’s way too young for that!”
Neither of them mentioned how Apple Bloom was now older than they had been when they met. How they were guests of honor at her wedding last year.
“But the rules say…” Twilight lifted the book in her aura and carefully turned the pages. “A-ha! The rules say that even with just two ponies, it still counts as a sleepover!” She moved the book so she could look at Rarity with a smile on her naturally unlined face. Rarity smiled back.
“Oh, excellent! Just what activities does your little book have planned out for us?”
“There’s just so many!” Twilight’s voice was filled with excitement as she brought the book to her face again. “Do you want to start with pillow fights?”
“Perhaps next, time, darling!” Rarity demurred. “I do spend quite a bit of time on my face, you know, and I would hate for it to get all smudged by a pillow.” It was a true statement for both her past and current self.
“How about a makeover, then?”
“Now you’re speaking my language!” Rarity said honestly as she floated over a bottle of hoof polish they kept on the nightstand. “I thought that we would start with your hooves, if you will.”
Twilight offered Rarity her forehoof, who was annoyed to find that she still had her princess shoes on. Twilight fired off an excuse.
“Sorry! I was trying on that dress you made for me for the Grand Galloping Gala earlier, and I guess I forgot to take these off.“ Twilight dismissed with her other hoof. Rarity just smiled, floated off the shoe, and held Twilight’s hoof in her own.
Had this been a proper makeover, Rarity would have gotten out the acetone to remove the stubborn, clinging remnants of the coat of polish from the last time they had done this. But instead, she simply painted over them with the brush she held in her aura. It did not matter, did it? Just another layer to absorb the small scrapes and insults inflicted by Twilight’s metal shoes until it was worn away, once again revealing the pristine hoof underneath. The pristine hoof an of an alicorn. The hoof that would still look like this long after Rarity’s own hooves became brittle with age. Long after she herself was gone. Long after the only memories of her left on this world would be those living on in Twilight’s head. How would they age, in their afterlife?
She shook those thoughts away. What was important was the now. She spoke to Twilight.
“I thought that we would do them in the same color as the highlights in your mane.”
“That’s a great idea!” Twilight exclaimed, the same response she had given last time. “Say, could you do my hooves for the Grand Galloping Gala, too?“
“Of course, darling!” Rarity paused to smile at her. “It would be the least I could do after you got all of us tickets to the thing!“
“And all the royals will be there!” Twilight burst out, as if Rarity had not said anything. “Aren’t you excited?”
Rarity ignored that. “Yes.” Rarity preened. “They’ll meet fair Rarity, and see that I’m just as regal as they!”
“I’m sure they will!” Twilight agreed, and giggled with a levity unbefitting of the ruler of a continent-spanning nation. Then, she sighed deeply. “Isn’t this amazing?” Twilight asked, her voice filled with wonder. “Don’t you wish it could end here?” Rarity blinked as Twilight continued. “Just us, excited about the Gala… Like, it’s going to be so good that everything that comes after will be disappointing? I’m a little afraid of that!”
“Ah, perhaps…” Rarity tried not to let the nervousness show in her voice as she redirected. “Yes, the Gala will be quite exciting, won’t it?”
“Of course!” Twilight agreed as she stared off beyond Rarity. “Oh, I can’t wait to meet the Princess! She’ll take time just for me, and we can talk all about magic and what I’ve learned and seen. It’s going to be so special!” Her eyes focused back on Rarity. “We’ll have the best night ever at the Gala!”
Twilight beamed. Rarity could practically see the stars in her eyes. She tried to ignore how much higher Twilight’s eyes were than her own.
She’d seen it so many times before that it was all too predictable. But she knew that for this moment, Twilight was happy. It didn’t matter that it wouldn’t last. That in a minute or two or ten, no matter how well Rarity would do her part, Twilight would burst into tears, hold her, and sob an endless stream of “I’m sorry”’s until her exhaustion finally caught up with her and she fell asleep.
For this moment, Twilight was happy. For this moment, everything was worth it.
This made Rarity glad. Because Rarity loved Twilight.
