Girlfriend Friend 2: Royally Screwed
Rarity sighed dreamily and put the latest reply from her sweet special somepony into the drawer with all the others. She needed to tell her friends about her relationship soon if last week’s events were anything to go by. But, for now, the thrill of the secret little romance she had with the Princess did put a little bounce in her step.
She’d write back at the end of the day, once she had finished some commissions for a couple high profile customers. Though she adored the love letters she and Celestia sent back and forth Rarity was a little worried that the increase of orders was because of the Princess’s direct meddling. Not that Rarity wouldn’t appreciate it, she simply liked to be known for her own accomplishments and not for who she was attached to.
These thoughts and others gently swirled through her head as she worked throughout the day. It was a familiar type of flow and hours seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. She didn’t even notice it getting dark until there was ringing at her doorbell.
“Goodness,” Rarity mumbled, glancing at the clock that was late past closing time, “I’m sorry!” she called to whoever was at the door. “But we aren’t open at the moment. Come back tomorrow!”
There was silence for a moment and Rarity assumed that they had taken her advice and left before another ring sounded out.
“Oh for pony’s sake,” Rarity muttered, putting down her sewing equipment and heading to the door. “If this is one of the girls they should know when I say closed I mean…” she flung open the door and her complaints immediately died on her tongue as a blush rose to color her previously white face. “C-Celestia! What… what are you doing here? Not that I’m not happy to see you but…”
Celestia smiled, awkwardly, as Rarity trailed off. “Yes, I know this is… unexpected… but there’s something it seems I need to talk to you about.”
“Yes, yes of course.” Rarity flung the door open wider to allow the Princess to come in and immediately gestured her to a couch. “What… what is it you’d like to talk about, dear?”
Celestia did not sit down. “Well, there seems to have been a bit of confusion. Though I wouldn’t really call it confusion so more as deliberate misleading.”
Rarity could feel all the blood draining out of her face as she remembered her own ‘bit of confusion’ just last week. Was the Princess here to tell Rarity that the two were not dating? That somehow the months of beautifully crafted ballads that would make a classic poet cry were not filled with wonder and affection? And shameless, crass, one-word compliments through the mail were somehow not supposed to have romantic undertones? How???
Celestia pulled out a letter. Rarity’s letter. “You see I found this most curious thing in Luna’s room…”
“Sister why dost thou hate me so?!?”
A blinding flash filled the room, causing Rarity to blink spots out of her eyes for a few seconds. When she could finally see again what she did see was Princess Luna, now also in her living room, climbing over Celestia in a desperate attempt to grab the floating letter.
“Why must you ruin everything!?!” Luna cried as Celestia maneuvered the scroll out of her reach once again. “We had a good thing going! Take mercy on your little sister!”
“Luna,” Celestia said with the irritated patience of an older sister that Rarity had used quite a few times herself, “You can’t keep lying to her. You need to come clean.”
“Noooooo!” Luna whined but stopped her struggling and instead proceeded to fall dramatically onto the floor in crushing defeat. “But I don’t want to.”
Celestia patted her gently on the top of the head as Luna groaned into the carpet.
“Uuuuuuuuuuuh,” Rarity squeaked more than said as she watched the scene, “Would one of you please like to tell me what I’ve been lied to about? Or just… whatever is going on here?”
Celestia sighed. Regally. Princessly. Not romantically. “I recently discovered that you have been sending me love letters for an indistinguishable amount of time.”
Rarity was going to die. She was going to drop dead right here in her living room from embarrassment. And hypocrisy. And then all of her friends would laugh at her. Laugh at her sad corpse.
“And worst of all,” Celestia continued, ignorant of Rarity trying to figure the most proper way to fall to the ground and die, “It seems somepony has been writing you back. Using my name.”
At this Princess Luna sprung from where she lay and flung herself at Rarity’s hooves. “You must forgive me! I didn’t know how else to show my affections for you. I intercepted a letter for my sister once and wrote back with all my feelings on the page and… well the rest is history.” She rose to her hooves but it was only to fall into a deep and well-executed bow. “I have loved you for a very long time. Ever since that first Nightmare Night I came to Ponyville-”
“The first...the Nightmare Night I was out of town for?”
“But I knew you would have rejected me if I just bore my heart to you,” Luna continued as if Rarity had not interrupted, “I was only planning on masquerading as my sister for a few letters, I swear! But you seemed to grow so attached to her so fast my jealousy blinded me!” She sank to her knees and threw her hooves in the air. “Oh, heaven curse us this is just as it was with Nightmare Moon!”
Celestia rolled her eyes. “Lulu, you are always so dramatic.”
“Wait wait wait,” Rarity said, waving her hooves to gain the two Princesses’ attention, “So Luna has been the one writing to me this whole time? But- but… I talked to you, Celestia! In person! About our letters.”
Celestia tilted her head to the side. “You did? When was this?”
“Last… last Gala?” Rarity insisted, a desperate edge to her voice as she tried to cling to some form of sanity, “Last Gala I went up to you and I asked if you meant what you said in the letters and if we were special some ponies now. And you said yes!”
“Oh,” Celestia said, squinting as if to think very hard about perhaps the most treasured date in Rarity’s life, “Yes, I... may have said that. Truthfully, when I’m at Galas I usually just say whatever I think will get ponies to stop talking to me the quickest. I don’t even remember attending the last Gala. That’s how deep I was daydreaming about leaving.”
Rarity’s whole body twitched. She was going to develop a permanent tick, she was sure, and so she simply collapsed onto her couch, one hoof lifted to her forehead in exhaustion. “So it’s actually been Luna writing me this whole time? Luna is the one who wrote that letter the day after, detailing how she couldn’t stop looking at my flanks the entire night?”
“What?” Luna asked, picking herself off the floor with a curious expression, “A letter that said what? Please my dear muse, I would never write something so blunt. You inspire me to construct poetry. Like a particularly bright star in Mine Night. If I would write something so shallow...” She sniffed in indignation and turned away, “Besides, I did not attend that Gala either.”
“So you… didn’t write me that letter?” Rarity asked slowly. Her horn lit up and her light blue aura started rummaging around in her private drawer until it caught a few scrolls and pulled them out. “This letter? Neither of you wrote it?” She shoved said letter in Luna’s face and let the others hover around her head.
Luna inspected all the scrolls carefully and even Celestia bent close to take a look.
“Some of these are mine,” Luna admitted, pulling those close, “But these ones about… how attractive you are… is nothing I would ever pen.”
“The horn writing is amazingly close,” Celestia marveled, “Whoever wrote these other ones, both you and her, Lulu, captured my penmanship perfectly.”
“‘I noticed how skilled you are at sewing,’” Luna read allowed, “‘If there weren’t witnesses I’d love to see what else that horn-’”
“NEVERMIND!” Rarity cried, snatching them all away in a flourish of magic, “If neither of you wrote them then neither of you get to read them either!”
“But who wrote it?” Luna insisted, looking miffed, “Who would dare impersonate me, a princess, and lie to you, fair Rarity? If these letters are a… reflection of their true feelings then why would they hide themselves away?”
Rarity and Celestia shared a Look. Capital ‘L’.
“Ignoring… certain things…” Rarity said in a desperate attempt to move on, “the question of who else would impersonate you two is a genuine one. They must be very confident in themselves to…”
She trailed off as a tall shadow fell upon her and hot breath tickled her fur.
“It was me,” Came a silky purr in Rarity’s ear.
Before she could do more than shiver, something gently wrapped around Rarity’s barrel and lifted her into a close hug a few body lengths in the air.
“I am also,” Discord whispered, his hot breath against Rarity’s face and making the Unicorn freeze in absolute confusion and terror, “so deeply, deeply in love with you.”
“Aaaaaaa…” Rarity let out a high pitched whine, a scream caught somewhere down in her throat, “Are...are you serious?”
There was a beat of silence as little pink hearts floated around Discord’s head and he gazed at her in his arms, oh harmony’s sake that love-stricken gaze.
But then his face cracked and a snort escaped his lips. “Ha! No!” Discord crowed, dropping Rarity so he could better roll onto his back in mid-air and clutch his stomach. “B-but you should have… you should have seen your face! Oh my… my HA! That was rich.”
Rarity glared at him from the floor where she had so rudely been dumped on her rump. “Glad to see someone is finding this situation amusing.” She spat.
“Oh, and I certainly do,” Discord said as he cackled, whipping a tear from his eye, “After I learned what happened last time with all your friends I was so disappointed I couldn’t join in on the fun. I wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity like this again.” He chuckled to himself for a few more moments as the ponies glared. Once he had caught his breath he let out a content sigh and patted Rarity on the head, messing up her mane completely. “This was fun, Miss Rarity. But, you did make Fluttershy sad by not being her girlfriend. So I’m going to have to kill you now.”
She almost tripped as she tried to stand back up. “W-wha… I beg your pardon?”
Luna’s horn glowed dangerously as she surged forward. “Dare not touch her, you fiend!”
“Kidding!” Discord smacked Rarity playfully on the back, sending her sprawling onto her face again, and held up his paw to keep the furious princess back. “Kidding. I’m kidding. I’m such a kidder today. Or maybe not. Yes, I am. HA!” He laughed again and twisted in the air with glee. “You all are simply much too easy.”
Helping Rarity to her hooves, Luna glared venomously at Discord, though she did power down her horn. “Your jokes have gone too far this time, Discord. Impersonating royalty for a prank? Have you no sensitivity for anything?”
In response, Discord blew a raspberry. “First off: I’m royalty too so it’s fine.” A beanie with a crown pattern sewn into it appeared on his head. “The coolest king of chaos there ever was.”
Luna and Rarity rolled their eyes in unison.
“Secondly,” Discord continued, picking up one of the discarded letters and waving it in Luna’s face. “I would never write anything so simultaneously erotic, detailed, and sappy. I’m not even a pony. I don’t know what makes their butts sexy.” He flicked the paper into Luna’s face but it still somehow ended up hitting Rarity in the snout. “You, my dears, are looking for a fanatic of flirting.”
“Oh,” Celestia, who had been standing quietly in the background this whole time, suddenly spoke up, “I’ve been thinking and I do know one pony whose… behavior, let’s say, matches those letters, and what Discord said, to a tee.”
Her horn glowed bright for a moment and then, with another blinding pop, Princess Cadance appeared, half a cookie stuffed in her mouth.
She froze midstep, staring at the four creatures staring back at her like a cornered animal. Then, after a few moments where she processed that she was in Rarity’s house, and Rarity processed what her being there meant, Cadance sighed and took another bite of her cookie. “Darn it. I guess the jig is up, huh?”
“YOU?!?” Rarity screeched as she pointed a shaking hoof at Cadance. She was completely past even the idea of decorum at this point. Only madness was left. “You’ve been sending me love letters too??? But, huh, but… but you’re married!”
Princess Mia Mora Cadenza shrugged. “I’m the Princess of Love. I can love more than one pony at a time.” She eyed Rarity up and down for a moment before taking another bite and giving the Unicorn a pointed look. “And you’ve got a really nice butt. So there’s that.”
“See?” Discord exclaimed, gesturing to Cadance as if she had just made a compelling point, “I told you. Someone who knows pony butts.”
“Please stop saying butts,” Rarity moaned as she brought both front hooves up to massage her temple. She was probably giving herself premature wrinkles with how aggressively she rubbed her face. “So. I have been flirting. With all four of you.”
“Three. Probably”
“...three… thank you, Discord.” She elected to ignore that second word. “All three of you for the past few months. Yes? Is that what’s been going on?”
“Yeah,” Cadance confirmed, “I’ve been intercepting some of your letters to Aunty and… wait… the three of us?” She turned to raise a brow at Luna who, in turn, blushed furiously.
“Who I choose to court is my own business and not yours, niece!”
Cadance wiggled her eyebrows at the Night Princess and smirked. “Wow, Aunty Luna, I didn’t know you were such the conniving type. Pretending to be Celestia to get a mare? I’m honestly kind of impressed.”
“Which means!” Rarity continued loudly, cutting off Luna from snapping back at the youngest Alicorn. “Which means the pony I thought I was dating doesn’t actually exist. So that’s just… great. I don’t know what to think or feel anymore. Two more ponies are in love with me and I don’t even know either of them like I thought I did!”
“If it helps,” Celestia spoke up, tilting her head and inspecting Rarity. “We could try you and me for real? Maybe I should have been flirting back? To be fair I haven’t flirted with anyone in a good millennium.”
Rarity was sure she would stain her coat red from all her blushing. “Oh for pony’s sake! Are there any more members of royalty who want to profess their love to me?”
“Wait! I LOVE YOU!”
Every eye turned to the door that had just slammed open.
King Thorax of the Changelings was standing in the entryway, staring back at the crowded dress shop with wide eyes. “Uh… um, is… I was looking for…”
Rarity sighed and dropped her head. “Spike isn’t here, Thorax. I would suggest just waiting at the castle if he isn’t already there.”
Thorax swallowed heavily and nodded. “R-right. Sorry to bother… uh… whatever it is that’s going on here. I’m just gonna…”
He slowly stumbled back out of the shop and closed the door behind him, leaving Rarity alone with her problems once more.
“Ah,” Discord said after a beat, “Isn’t true lovesuch a beautiful rarity in this world?”
Rarity did not look up from the floor. “Screw all of you.”
Cadance snorted. “Promise?”
Rarity didn’t know she could chuck three alicorns and a draconequus out the window at the same time. You learn something new about yourself every day.
Author's Note
Merry Day-After-Christmas
You all wanted a sequel and I always aim to please.
With editing help by Shipmun
