T-plus Seven Hundred and Sixty-Nine Days

by Monochromatic

Rating: everyone
Tags: Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Slice of Life, Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Romance
Length: 1315

It is Equestrian tradition that, when a pony is a certain age, they are given a timer that counts down the days until they meet their soulmate. Rarity was very excited the day she got hers. She just hadn't expected it would be counting up.

It is Equestrian tradition that, when a pony comes of a certain age, they are given a magic timer that counts down the days until they're destined to meet their soulmate. Rarity was very excited the day she got hers.

She just hadn't expected it would be counting up.

Short ficlet based on a prompt I got on my Tumblr blog. Original prompt was to write a drabble set in a universe where "timers are set on the wrist of every person once they are a certain age, slowly counting down until the day they meet their soulmate".

Cover art by Maximasmac !

Now with Russian translation!

Published 2021-01-26 01:40:02 UTC
Last updated 2021-01-26 01:40:02 UTC

I. A Conundrum

For most of her life, Rarity had dreamt of the day she’d finally be the determined age to receive her Soulmate Timer. It was also a rather nerve-wracking thing to think about. What if she was destined to meet her soulmate the same day she received the timer? That would be so little time to prepare!

Ideally, the timer would let her know she had one or two months left. Something akin to "T-minus forty-six days" or something of the sort. That was short enough that the wait wouldn’t be unbearable, but long enough that she could work on her physique a bit and get everything ready so as to impress her beloved.

Admittedly, though, when she finally received it the day after her birthday, she hadn’t expected her timer to be in the positive numbers.

“...T-plus seven hundred and sixty-nine?”

T-plus? PLUS?

She stared at the counter on her foreleg, flabbergasted. What did that even mean? Had she… already met them? Was that it? If that was it, then she was ruined! How in Celestia’s name was she supposed to remember who she met seven hundred and sixty-nine days ago?! She met dozens of ponies a month because of her job, and she was now supposed to remember somepony she met Stars-knows-how-long ago? That was impossible! Ridiculous! It wasn’t as if she had Twilight’s exceedingly impressive memory.

Wait...

“Twilight?! Darling, dearest, are you here?! I’m sorry for coming over unannounced, but I need you!”

Rarity stepped into Golden Oaks Library, more than a little distraught as she called out to her friend.

“I’m in the living room, Rarity!”

“Twilight!” she exclaimed, rushing over and indeed finding the unicorn sitting in the living room, as well as as a particular pink pony. A chessboard was placed in between them. “Oh, hello, Pinkie, dear.”

“Hi, Rarity! Are you here to play chess with us?”

“Er, no, I’m afraid not. I actually have to ask Twilight something.”

Twilight perked up, always eager to help. “Oh? What do you need to ask me? Is this about the dress you’re making for Duke Goldlining?”

“Oh no, I finished that yesterday after the party. You were right when you said the green fabric was softer, by the way! I’ll have to show it to you later.”

“Oh! Good!” Twilight replied, pleased. “And, uh, what did you want to ask, then?”

“Do you remember if I met somepony important seven hundred and sixty-nine days ago?”

A second passed.

Pinkie frowned, thoughtfully. “Seven hundred and sixty-nine days ago?”

This was shortly followed by Twilight blurting out a simple: “...What?”

“Do you remember if I met somepony important seven hundred and sixty-nine days ago?”

“No, I heard that, Rarity,” Twilight replied. “I’m just… Why would I know that?”

“I don’t know, Twilight!” Rarity whined. “Because you’re one of my dearest friends! And because you know everything! You know more about my life than I know about my life for some reason!”

Twilight arched an eyebrow playfully. “For some reason? You mean the fact that you come over for tea five times a week and we talk for hours?”

“See! That’s precisely my point! So I’d have told you who I met back then, and you would remember, and you would tell me now! So why aren’t you telling me?!”

“Because I don’t know!”

A great gasp filled the room, and both mares turned to look at Pinkie Pie.

“I know who you met that day!” she exclaimed, standing up and bounding in place.

Rarity and Twilight blinked at her. “You do?”

“Uh-huh! And you girls should know too!”

“We should?”

“Yep!” She moved over to Twilight and wrapped an arm around her. “'Cause that’s when we all met Twilight and Spike! Two years and thirty-nine days ago!”

Twilight’s eyes widened. “Oh, you’re right! That is the day we moved here.” She turned to Rarity. “Well, there you go. Why did you need to—Rarity?”

Rarity was completely petrified, a red tinge crawling up her cheeks as she stared at Twilight.

“Are you okay, Rarity?” Pinkie asked. “You’re red all ov—”

“Are you positive that’s the day they got here?” she interrupted.

“Yep?” she replied. “I’m pretty sure! We also met Nightmare Moon and Princess Celestia, but that was the next morning so it was seven-hundred and sixty-eight days ago, not sixty-nine!”

Well. The Soulmate Timers worked differently for dragons, so he'd already gotten his, and she knew for a fact it was still counting down, not up.

So. That meant...

“Ah. I see. Right. Good. Yes.” She cleared her throat and then offered a charming smile. “Well, thank you, dear! I’ll be off now!”

...To go and rethink her entire relationship with Twilight Sparkle, but they didn’t have to know that, of course. Soulmates could be platonic, right? Maybe that’s what they were!

If Rarity was even remotely interested in Twilight in any other fashion than platonic, she would have already known, right? She practically lived at Twilight’s house, after all, considering they understood each other so well, and she love—liked spending time with… with…

Oh, dear.

“But, wait, Rarity,” Twilight blurted out. “I don’t understand. Why did you need to know who you met that day? What’s going on?”

“Nothing, darling,” Rarity replied, her light blush increasing as she quickly turned around. “Really. Don’t worry about it. You’ll find out eventually!” She stopped and turned back. “Wait. What are you doing Saturday evening? Are you free?”

Twilight blinked. “I… Yes? I think? Why? What’s going on, Rarity?”

“Nothing!” she said quickly before clearing her throat and inspecting her hoof. “I just think we should go get dinner together. Catch up and all that. Talk about important things. And about each other.”

Twilight’s frown deepened. “...Okay?”

Pinkie giggled. “Gosh, Rarity! That almost sounds like a date.”

“It’s not a date!” Rarity immediately gasped. And then quickly added, “Or, I mean. It could be. I don’t know. It could be whatever we want it to be. Or Twilight wants it to be. Regardless, I-should-be-off-goodbye-see-you-Saturday!”

Twilight watched, completely and utterly perplexed, as Rarity sped out of the room without so much as letting her say anything.

“Right,” she said after a minute. “I guess that just happened.”

“It did!”

“It sure did. Anyway.” Twilight turned back to her friend, clearing her throat. “Should we, er, continue our game?”

“We sure shou—Oh no!” Pinkie jumped up and looked towards the door, aghast. “I forgot to ask her!”

“Ask her? Ask her what?” Twilight asked, alarmed.

“About her soulmate timer, silly! Yesterday was her birthday, so she should have gotten it today!” Deflated, she sat back down, pouting. “Now I won’t know how many days she has left on her timer until the next time I see her.”

With a great sigh, she sadly moved a pawn forward on the board and waited… and waited… and waited until half a minute had passed and Twilight hadn’t done a thing.

“Your turn, Twi—Twilight?”

To her great confusion, Twilight Sparkle was still staring at the door, eyes completely wide and cheeks bright red.

“Now you’re red all over, too! What is going—” She cut herself off. “Oh. Oh. Oooooh. Uhm.” She looked down at the board. “...I guess we’re done playing for today?”

Author's Note

hello this is the first thing MLP thing I've written since September 2020 wow

I'm trying to get back into the swing of things (and also the raritwi train bc I kinda fell off it) by taking drabble prompts on my tumblr!

This one turned out to be long enough to post on fimfic so I guess here we are??? I used to feel weird about posting little fluff ficlets because I Want To Be A Quality Writer but that mono stayed in 2020

2021 mono doesn't give a damn anymore sO HERE HAVE OTP FLUFF