The Sublime Pleasure of Fire and Shot
Click -- WHIR -- FIZZ -- BANG!
Every once in a while, Rarity would leave the “CLOSED” sign on the window.
Those mornings, after a light breakfast at the crack of dawn, she would not wade forth once more into the sea of fabric that surrounded her workbench, nor would she address the sketch-covered walls of her oh-so trendy “idea room.” Instead, she would head down a slightly rickety wooden staircase into the rarely seen pitch-black basement.
Her friends had very, very occasionally seen this place, usually to help her deposit a particularly bountiful harvest of gemstones from an expedition, but none had truly looked at the space. Had they, they would have noticed that it was clean, which was hardly surprising, but it was also stark, which was. There were some things they might have recognized from their occasional trips out to assist Rarity in finding her gems - a small cart, a spade, a few bags - but there were also things whose forms were unfamiliar. In the corner sat a little furnace, a chimney rising up out of it into a vent in the wall. On a low table sat a few lumps of dull grey metal, a cylindrical tin with a narrow spout, and a few bottles of what Twilight would have recognized from her school chemistry days as a mix of fairly potent solvents and wood varnishes, although with no indication as to what they could be used for.
This morning, as on all such special mornings, Rarity’s blue corona lit up, first triggering an unseen magical switch which caused a row of overhead lights to flash on, casting the basement in harsh white light. It then surrounded first a sort of load-bearing harness on the wall, which, considering its owner, was remarkable in how unremarkable it was; in all respects, it was a purely utilitarian garment, the kind with which any sort of decoration might impede its function. She dutifully and carefully slipped into it, then oh-so slowly slid a walnut box off a high shelf; it glided silently on the violet felt that lined the bottom. As it cleared the shelf, it moved into the air, stationary for just a moment, before Rarity brought it onto her back, whereupon she carefully secured the box to her back with a pair of stark-white straps and stainless steel buckles. Her horn fizzled out, and she took the weight with only the slightest of facial protestations and a small bend of the knees, but then it was back up the stairs, back into the world.
She walked, not once looking from her apparently memorized path, eyes focused intently on the outside world. It was that same look of absolute focus her friends had seen sometimes when Rarity was struck by a particularly exquisite dress idea, the kind where she swept her friends out of the front door as she grabbed a length of fabric and swept it onto her workbench, sewing machine already kicking to life. She walked, past curious onlookers whose faces betrayed their utter confusion as to why the famously prissy unicorn was currently strapped to a glossy wooden box like AJ’s brother to his plow, past the final buildings in town, past the point where the tops of the tallest buildings in town disappeared behind the gently rolling hills of pristine pastureland.
She stopped. It was the crest of a slightly more prominent rise, with a gentle dip into a slight
valley facing away from town. There was a single tree in the depression.
With a flash of blue and a soft snick, the buckles on the straps came undone. The box followed, settling gently on the grass, Rarity cushioning its descent like she would for the very flimsiest of silk negligee. Then, outside of Rarity’s soft panting, the weight and distance having taken an obvious toll, it was silent, the isolation complete. A mare and a box, and in the ludicrous lives of the Bearers, this was blessed, perfect, incredible peace.
Truthfully, to describe it as a mere box was a tremendous injustice. It was a black walnut case, impeccably polished in the Prench style, accentuated with a bit of gold inlay around the corners, and finished with a little silver keyhole right under the hinge. From a small pocket on the harness’ breast collar came a little silver key; it too was engraved with a similarly beautiful representation of a griffon rendered in the daintiest of reliefs. She inserted it in the box’s keyhole and turned it to the right. A faint click emanated from some sort of concealed lockwork. With the gentlest of touches, Rarity lifted the lid of the box. As always, the contents made Rarity’s breath draw short and her heart skipped a beat. It was a thirty-six caliber rifled wheel-lock, with a genuine Damarescus steel barrel, a royal walnut stock cut specifically from the personal grove of the griffon nobility, and a personally designed and modified firing system for use with hooves. It was, naturally, breathtakingly expensive.
With a twist and slight flourish of her mane, Rarity lit her horn, levitating a single nail and a paper target out of a side compartment of the case before striding purposefully towards the tree in the valley. This particular tree had the misfortune of being both at the bottom of a small valley, which meant it came with a proper backstop for safety, and the only standing thing in the rolling hills to the west of town, which meant that it was really the only option as a target stand. While Rarity didn’t put much stock in the rumors of more “earthy” earth ponies being able to somehow talk to trees, she figured it was still probably best she keep any of the farming clans of Ponyville away from this particular piece of vegetation, as she somehow doubted it had anything nice to say about the white mare who had embedded dozens of lead balls in the trunk. She gave a quick mental apology to the tree as she once again levitated a target and nail about halfway up the trunk. With a fwip, the nail Rarity had been levitating sank itself through the paper into the tree. She gracefully about-faced and began pacing back up the hill, all the while humming something jaunty to herself as she returned back to her rifle case.
Her horn lit up only a few times, components coming out the set with careful, meditative practice - a small box of metal balls, a lump of differently colored small cotton squares, a richly decorated horn capped with gold accents which hung on a leather strap. Those last two components had originally given Rarity pause, but she had been assured by the griffon gunsmiths that it wasn’t from a thinking creature, but, rather, from a wretched and dangerous pest called a Diviner Ram. To take one in a hunt was considered something of an honor among the nobility, and the presence of the horn and strap in her case were testament to the particularly precious nature of this rifle. While she didn't quite understand the full societal significance, she couldn't deny they were rather fetching, if a little barbaric.
Of course, while Rarity has been fully willing to accept such trophies, she had no intention of shooting anything other than paper, although no fair few customers had made her half-jokingly consider the alternative. While firearms were fairly unknown in Equestria, there was some concern among the unicorn nobility that they posed no small threat to previously unassailable unicorns. In a one on one fight, the unicorn, if not surprised, would almost always win; after all, it is rather difficult to put that earth pony strength or pegasus speed into a kick to the face if one is simply clobbered with a telekinetically accelerated brick at twenty paces, but it is much harder to do the same when one’s opponent has shot them in the heart before their horn could be put to work.
But the security concerns of well-to-do unicorn society were far outside of Rarity’s scope of martial knowledge, and, regardless, that was more than enough morbid thinking. She turned her attention back to the gun case, purging such thoughts of the outside world as she went back to routine and practiced steps. She resumed her previous preparations - the balls and cup went into a little compartment in the rear of the rifle, the powderhorn around her neck and withers, the harness she had been wearing into a neat pile behind the box. Then, with excruciating slowness, she lifted her rifle out of the box, turning it over for a quick inspection.
It was, as always, exquisite, and Rarity looked in absolute satisfaction at the phenomenally crisp chequering along the forend and waist, the delicate silver inlay along the lockwork, and the swirling patterns along the grains of the barrel. Her favorite touch was the relief set atop the patchbox, which featured three silver diamonds. It was abject narcissism, of course, but when it cost this much, one could allow oneself such satisfactions. Out came a forked rod for use as a shooting stick, which, due to ponies’ relatively short stature, could fit in the case with the gun, and then it was off to a slightly flatter section of the crest of the hill. The stick was laid softly against the ground, then the rifle came out of the unicorn’s magic field and into her hooves before being placed with its butt against the ground. Finally, out came the powder horn in her right hoof, the measuring dram in her field, and she poured an exact amount of powder into the cup.
As one might expect for something made with claws in mind, the loading process required considerable dexterity, and one might have rationally expected a unicorn to use their field to manipulate the various components of the loading process. Indeed, were she under some kind of duress, the charge of a Diviner Ram perhaps, or, goddess forbid, a fight, she would indeed be putting her quite impressive skill at manipulating multiple objects to work. She wasn’t, though, and that meant it was all to be done by hoof, because to try and rush or hurry any particular component of this ritual would miss the entire point. Rarity poured the powder charge down the bore, then placed a green square of cotton over the bore before extracting a wooden rod with brass ferrules from the underside of the rifle. She lifted the ramrod into the bore and gave the powder and wad a few good whacks to get them into the rear of the rifle. Rarity’s horn lit and lifted a single ball out of her box into the air (her one concession to magic, as using her mouth to grab a lead ball was a distinctly unhealthy move), which, after a visual inspection, was united with another wad, this time blue, and a small amount of grease, before being seated into the muzzle with a quick tap of the hoof. The ramrod came out again, giving the ball a firm thwack as it sank a little deeper into the bore.
The one pony who knew about her hobby, her father, had initially assumed that her discharging of firearms had been primarily a way of very basal stress relief, a kind of washing away of anger with fire and shot. And sure, there was a component of that in this – it is almost impossible to not feel some kind of simple pleasure in the crack of a rifle, and Celestia knew (probably literally) the level of stress Rarity dealt with on a daily basis. She couldn’t blame him for his confusion; by his own words, it was just too different from the dressmaking prima-donna he knew as his daughter for him to comprehend.
Despite what her friends thought, Rarity did not particularly enjoy the frantic crunches so common in her work. Oh, sure, Rarity loved her job, especially those rare circumstances where the workload had tapered off and there was time to enjoy the finer, more superfluous aspects of clothes making; the gossipy conversations over a tailor’s tape, the idle sketching of passersby by an imagination left unfettered, the loving attention put towards a piece meant for giving away, whether to her friends or to the less fortunate. And, of course, she loved a good challenge, with the particular constraints of maternity wear or the skullduggery necessary for a secret gift a particular favorite. Best of all, however, was the ceremony of it all, the proximity to the ludicrous world of balls and galas with their rules and pomp and thousands of little intricate codes of dress in which she could immerse herself. That was what she really loved; the elegance. The combination of a thousand tiny pieces and ponies and actions into a magnificent whole, all of which, in the grand scheme of things, didn’t really matter, because, in light of all the times she had saved the world, one little formal dance was completely superfluous – and she loved it.
That did not mean, however, that she enjoyed the multiple sleepless nights of work because someone important needed something now, or the particular displeasure of making something distinctively unfashionable because some snotty minor noble thought that they had to know better than some common tailor, or, worst of all, the truly agonizing experience of turning away her sister, who pretended with a sad smile to understand that sometimes Rarity just needed to work, but who truthfully never did nor would understand how exactly this particular dress could be so important that it was more important than her. No, there was plenty to be angry at, and almost all of it the fault of a customer. She told herself it was just on occasion.
The ramrod ran once more. thwack
“Of course, between the rubes I usually have as customers and the far worse reprobates I deal with from Canter-”
thwack
“-lot and Manehattan and the like I rarely do not end a day absolutely enraged at-”
thwack
“something or another.” She tried not to talk out here, tried not to break the monumental silence like a stone thrown into a glass-smooth pond breaks the surface into ripples, but, occasionally, some muttering to oneself was simply unavoidable.
thwack
thwack
thwack
thwunk
Rarity smiled as the ball hit the breech and stowed the ramrod back into its holder. Then, the rifle was delicately lifted up into her lap as she flopped back onto her haunches. It was a decidedly undignified maneuver; griffon armaments could be more than a little unergonomic for use by ponies.
Out came the final tool in the box, a winding key, and it slotted onto a peg on the eponymous wheel in the lock work, Rarity giving it a careful full turn around its axis. With a hoof, she released a little cover over the pan on the wheel which she filled with powder from the horn before returning the cover to its closed position. The loading process completed, she returned the winding tool and powder horn to their respective positions before rising rather ungracefully back onto three hooves, rifle slung over one shoulder, and made her way towards her shooting stick.
Carefully, ever so carefully, she placed the forend of the rifle in the fork of the rod, held together with a firm hoof, and positioned the butt into the crook of her left shoulder. She began to lower her head to the comb into her final shooting stance, but paused, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. With a scoff of light embarrassment, she realized what she had forgotten, and her horn lit and levitated a pair of thick earmuffs out of the case. While these were strictly functional and meant for protecting one’s hearing, they were still covered in luxuriant white velvet and embroidered with three blue diamonds. Protective garments needed to be effective, of course, but that didn’t mean they needed to be anything less than fabulous.
Ears now protected, she lowered the pyrite onto the wheel with a hoof and took up her final shooting stance, head lowered to the walnut stock, mane draped over the comb, butt pulled tightly into the shoulder, entire body tensed, steadied against the stick. Her breath slowed to a crawl, each intake of air so shallow as to be almost imperceptible, and her eyes had that same look of utter focus that filled them in the midst of a whirlwind session of design.
Focus was a funny thing. Certainly, she would say she was focused at work; but it was a focus on a whole world of things. There was no focusing on dressmaking, not really, any more than could be said Applejack was focusing on farming, or Twilight on magic. No, that kind of focus was more like juggling. To properly design a dress required conscious awareness of a thousand things; the very latest of styles, the measurements of the wearer, her personal stockpiles of fabric, the permissible cost of the clothing. It was focus, sure, but it was focusing on keeping one’s mind organized, more than anything else.
The focus behind a rifle sight is different. Here, there is no juggling of aspects, no consideration of the world. Instead of keeping the mind open, organized, one must close the mind. There is no room for consideration, no room for the niggling doubts and questions that one must always consider while at work. There is no room for the temperature of the air, the light sounds of birdsong or crickets, the presence of an irritating fly. There is only the rifle and the target. To correctly shoot is to eliminate the outside world, to reduce the world to a single brass bead on the front of a barrel, to reduce the self to the take-up of slack in a trigger.
To a bystander, the firing of a wheel-lock is one action – a trigger is pulled, and the gun fires at once. In the reduced world of the marksmare, however, a wheel-lock is a glacially slow waltz of sparks and smoke. The wheel spins and throws sparks at wild abandon, which, as Rarity was left-hooved, meant directly into her face, and the powder in the flash-pan ignites and shoots white smoke directly into the eyes of the shooter. The shooter must make every effort to resist the urge to flinch, as any movement in the nearly imperceptible moment between the spark-wheel spinning and the main charge igniting will throw the rifle hopelessly off target, rendering the entire process pointless. It is only after the thump of recoil and report of the muzzle hits the senses of the shooter that any movement will not be catastrophic, and even then Rarity believed it was good form to remain in position so as to not create any bad habits. Bad habits were inexcusable, of course – one wrong move would ruin the whole activity, like a badly placed foot in a waltz or a missed thread on a button, because the small things mattered. They created the whole, they created the elegance of it all, because at the end of the day walking two miles to shoot at a tree was superfluous too, wasn’t it?
Thus, Rarity had remained in exactly the same position after firing, and it was only after the cloud of white smoke fully cleared did she remove the rifle from her shoulder, setting the butt down on the ground and leaving it resting on the forend. With careful motions she broke her stance, resting back onto her haunches once again. She removed her muffs with a light of her horn and placed them gently by her side. Only after she had fully completed her tasks then did she allow her face of serene non-expression to break into a grimace, reaching back a hoof to rub her lower back.
“Hmpf. Gamemaster Cooper may have known how to shoot, but he certainly didn’t know how to avoid back cramps.”
She walked down to the tree. She had just missed the bullseye, landing in the eight ring. Not bad for a first shot, all things considered. She walked back up to the rifle, then took up the ramrod again.
Author's Note
If you made it this far, thanks for not immediately unfollowing and blocking the second you didn't see a Comedy tag! Not to worry, though, The Funny is by no means gone - in fact, it's right here!
Honestly, I kind of wish that this story came out after I had uploaded a few other funnies, and I'm not super happy with how this turned out, but I realized I accidentally wrote gunhaver Rarity into my new long-form comedy adventure, so the audience kinda needed to know why Rarity is packing a griffon rifle. Now you know!
On the other hand, if you're a fan, I might consider writing one of these little dramatic one-shots again. Stay tuned!
