When Twilight hopped out of the train, she already felt lost. Her friend Rarity was supposed to meet her on the platform...but where was the fashionable mare?
It didn't help that the sun's light had already faded with evening. Much of what Twilight might have recognized from years ago was now hidden by darkness.
Twilight's eyes scanned the platform again. Almost all of the ponies were dark blue, inky black, or some shade or shades in between.
What happened to all the ponies of a different color? she wondered. Sure, I've heard stories, but--
Something bumped Twilight from behind. She turned to see a midnight blue mare bearing a strangely mobile mane and tail, which seemed to slowly wave in a nonexistent breeze, like the star-studded flags of some faerie country hitherto unknown to ponykind.
"Do you like it?" the mare asked.
"I...who are you?"
The mare smiled slightly. "Darling! Don't you recognize me?"
Twilight looked again. Something in the pony's tone of voice and way of speaking, subtleties of the mare's body language..hinted at familiarity. Old memories stirred. She said, "Rarity?"
"Yes, dear! Kisses!" The mare embraced Twilight, and air-kissed the purple unicorn on both cheeks. "Welcome to Upper Canterlot!"
Twilight looked around again. "It's changed a lot." She gently touched Rarity's upper foreleg with one hoof. "And you most of all, it seems."
"You weren't expecting this."
"Not really. I mean, I'd heard stories...but I thought they were exaggerations."
Rarity nodded. "Come along. We have a lot of catching up to do."
***
A steam-powered robot trotted on four legs, pulling a taxicab-coach along a smoothly paved road. Inside the coach, Twilight gawped at her transformed friend, taking only brief, occasional glances out the windows.
"Twilight."
"Yes?"
"I know you're shocked."
"Well..."
"Don't try to hide it. So much has changed...and you and I both need you to adapt. If you have any questions, please ask. If we're in public, simply pull me aside so we can speak discreetly."
"I...thank you. I think."
Rarity smiled mysteriously. She shrugged her shoulders, setting her waving mane into a different pattern of motion. The mane rose higher, exposing more of her shoulders and upper back. "Look more closely."
Twilight stared. "Wings."
"Yes, dear. I have wings."
"You're an alicorn?"
"The wings don't flap as well as I'd like yet, but I hope in a few months...no, I should start at the beginning."
"Start anywhere you like."
Rarity nodded. "Let's start with...civilization. Ponies start by securing the necessities of life. But as civilization advances, those necessities are transformed into art. At first, we ate rank grass and cold oat mush...but upon those humble beginnings, we invent better styles of home cooking, and the highest of haute cuisine."
"Um...ok."
"We start out making homespun garments to protect us from harsh weather...but in time, we create beauty. The most delightful couture."
"Sure. You're in the fashion business, right? Although I still think you could have gotten into a good medical school just like me, and made something...different of yourself."
Rarity snorted delicately. "I like to think I HAVE made something of myself. But yes, let's talk about medicine. Everypony needs a healthy body, right? That's a basic necessity."
Twilight nodded. "Of course it is. And as an emergency physician and medical researcher, I'm proud to be part of that."
"As you SHOULD be, dear. But once a healthy body is assured...what more does a pony want?"
"They say if you have your health, you have everything."
Rarity gestured towards the window, at the street scene outside. "But for so many ponies, good health is not QUITE enough. They want a glossier coat, a different style of mane..."
"Is everypony around here trying to look like they specially dyed themselves for a funeral?" Twilight asked.
"Why, perhaps you DO have an eye for fashion! As you look around...how many ponies in this town would you say have been dyeing themselves?"
Twilight looked out the window. "I guess...nearly everypony. There are a FEW nonconformists...and some ponies must have been lucky, with manes and coats that naturally fit into that narrow range of dark tones that everypony seems to want now? But when you consider that most ponies' manes and tails start out different colors...I suppose almost everypony here has to choose between using at least SOME dye, or being out of style."
Rarity pursed her lips. She pressed a button on the compartment's front wall, and the cab slowed, then stopped. Lights on the cab's sides flashed bright yellow, and the doors opened.
Twilight and Rarity stepped out of the cab. Between the two unicorns, Twilight's bags levitated out onto the curb in moments.
Twilight looked at the nearest storefront, which was closed for the evening. "Rarity For You," she read the sign aloud. "It's different from what I expected."
Rarity's eyebrows quirked with curiosity. "How so?"
"Well...I suppose I did expect ponyquins in the window...but I thought they would all be clothed." She turned towards Rarity. "Are you having trouble keeping up with your customers' demands for the latest fashions?"
Rarity smiled. "Quite the contrary. Please come inside, so I can show you around."
Twilight followed her friend indoors. Ponyquins stood along two of the walls, and a few were scattered sparsely elsewhere. The room's most prominent features, however, were metal boxes a little longer and wider than a pony, standing hip-high with glass tops.
Rarity tapped one of the boxes with one wing. "The glass is triple-layered. Preventing frost and condensation is harder than you'd think. And of course, it's an absolute necessity to give ponies a clear view inside."
Twilight joined Rarity next to the box, and peered inside at what looked like an unconscious pony...or a pony's corpse. "What the--" She stared at Rarity. "Just what line of work are you in?"
Rarity said, "Nose jobs...horn extensions...liposuctions...those are all so superficial, don't you think? And with the last few decades' advances in growing replacement organs from scratch, I think they're quite unnecessary, too. Simply the wrong way of going about things."
"Well," Twilight said. "If there's one thing I'm sure of, it's that you didn't just happen to find alicorn body parts lying around that nopony was using." She squinted at the junction of Rarity's upper torso and wing. "I don't suppose you simply GREW a spare set of wings in a tank, and surgically connected...no, that would be too difficult, with a body that didn't already have the necessary accommodation for them..." Twilight shook her head. "Well, I'M confused."
Rarity nodded. "Bookworm that you are... have you ever paid much attention to archaeology?"
Twilight snorted. "Not lately. Medicine keeps me busy enough as it is."
"Such a shame," Rarity remarked casually. "Did you see anything at all about the discovery of an ancient alicorn burial complex, built a thousand years ago?"
Twilight laughed. "Wasn't that mostly a hoax? There might have been some genuinely ancient tunnels, but carbon dating showed the artifacts were either trash left by much later cultures, or modern fakes."
"Yes," Rarity said. "But beneath and behind those later items, in a few corners and long-collapsed chambers, a few genuine pre-Solarchy fragments remained. And among those fragments...enough grams of one ancient corpse to be useful. I started by taking the teensiest little cuttings from a few scraps. I applied just the right techniques of flesh revivication to those cuttings, and created my own special cell cultures. From those cultures, somepony with the right combination of rare talents can...create something truly amazing. A new pony body, grown from the flesh and bone of a legendary alicorn princess."
Twilight laughed. "You can't be telling me--"
Rarity spread her wings wide, leaped high into the air, and glided halfway across the large showroom. She turned to face Twilight again. "Yes, I can. At the center of the current Canterlot fad for dark-dyed coats, manes, and tails, is the wellspring, a fashion available to only the most noble, wealthy, and well-connected ponies in Canterlot. A fashion which is built not upon mere appearance, or superficial cosmetic surgeries, but truly becoming a different pony, an alicorn. A pony with hooves, horn, and wings."
Twilight half-collapsed backward upon her hindquarters. "You're serious, aren't you?"
"Serious as alicorns," Rarity agreed. "But you've traveled so very far to visit Centerlot, and I suppose you must be tired. Let's take some time to relax. You sit down out here, and I'll make some tea."
***
At an all-unicorn tea, convenience of hoofreach isn't really a concern. Both Rarity and Twilight sat in comfortable yet stylish chairs, the tea set rested on a low, wide table halfway between them, and all serving was done by remote levitation.
Twilight lowered a teacup from her lips. "It's almost like Celestia's own," she said. "Makes me nostalgic for my days at the School for Gifted Unicorns. I remember when Old Sunflanks would host a tea party for an entire grade at a time, and personally serve all the ponies at once by simultaneous levitation, juggling more cups and spoons and sugar bowls than most ponies could hope even just to count with everything moving so quickly."
"Yes," Rarity agreed. "I've only been fortunate enough to attend Celestial teas a few times so far, since I moved to Canterlot. But it's a graceful way of showing off. She's a monarch who seems to have eyes in the back of her head, and knowledge of what everypony is doing, or might need."
"Hmm." Twilight took another sip of tea. "So...you're giving ponies new alicorn bodies...in your own way, creating new alicorns. Do you have any idea what the Princess thinks about all this?"
"There's an old saying...silence is consent."
"Hmmph. Do you really find full reassurance in that? I don't."
Rarity shrugged. "I can grow most of an alicorn body, although creating an alicorn brain is beyond my powers, and probably just as well. I can transplant some other pony's brain into the empty cranial cavity. But one thing I CANNOT do is, upgrade the non-alicorn brain to match the full alicorn body. A unicorn brain can use a horn well enough, up to normal unicorn standards. A pegasus...among the few pegasi who can afford full-corpus fashion, that is...can control pegasus-style wings. An earth pony..." Rarity shrugged. "Well, so far I haven't had occasion to try an earth pony brain, and find out what an earth pony could do as an fashionable alicorn."
Rarity paused. Twilight was silent.
"Twilight, you used to be more talkative."
Twilight shook her head. "I've had a lot to listen to, tonight. The wild, absurd-sounding stories out in the provinces, about nobles in Canterlot dressing themselves in zombie bodies? Buying twisted, perverse, 'unholy' surgeries to turn themselves into...parodies of an alicorn? Those tales might not be TRUE, exactly...but there's more behind those tales than I liked to think."
Rarity slammed both forehooves down on her chair. "I don't appreciate anypony saying things like that about my work. Take the trouble to think about it, keeping an open mind.
"With enough practice, as full-body culturing techniques are refined and improved...transformed from a uniquely challenging creative art into a systematic science...the techniques will become easier to perform. Someday, any skilled specialist physician will be able to provide a replacement body for anypony who truly needs one. Someday, ponies who AREN'T wealthy nobles, but who have suffered terrible accidents, will receive the newly made bodies they desperately need."
Twilight took a deep breath. "I'd like to think so. But so far, all I've heard about and seen is some new kind of upper-class vanity."
Rarity glared at Twilight.
"Sorry, sorry. I didn't mean to belittle your work. I'm sure you hope to help ponies who truly need help. It's just...at this point I need to take so much on faith. Faith and hope."
Twilight sagged downward, deeper into her chair. "I'm sorry, Rarity. It's been a long day."
Rarity tilted her head. "I thought you emergency room doctors thrive on that kind of thing."
Twilight snorted. "If I have to, I can sew a roomful of maimed ponies back together after getting three hours of sleep in the last forty-eight. But I don't LIKE to get that tired. It's not my idea of a fun vacation trip."
"I understand...but I was still hoping..."
"Hoping for what?"
"I'm truly sorry. But I'm presented with an unusual opportunity tonight. I have an invitation to a very exclusive party, and I have reason to believe at least one noble there will be open to...your preferred kind of proposal, to fund research that could SAVE ponies' lives. If he's approached in the right way. I wouldn't trust just anypony to come along. But with your medical expertise, and your interest in helping ponies...I would feel better if I had you there as backup. A sort of second opinion, if you will."
"Hmmph. I suppose you're still a social climber, Rarity."
Rarity tossed her mane gracefully, although it looked different with an ethereal mane than it ever used to when her mane was made of violet hair. "And when I have a chance to use my social resources to save lives, why not?"
Twilight sighed. "I don't think I'm up to being diplomatic."
"Then be blunt, and truthful, and caring in your own way. That's all I can ask. That's all I think we'll need."
"Are you sure I'll even be welcome at this party?" Twilight tapped her own purple chest with one forehoof. "I think I'm dreadfully out of fashion, ha ha."
"You'll be fine, I promise. I've already told half of Canterlot society about my friend Twilight who saves so many lives out in the sticks, on Equestria's dangerous frontier. They'll eat it right up. It's too bad I didn't think to tell you to bring a cowpony hat and a pair of six-shooters." Rarity tittered.
"Well..." Twilight said. Her horn glowed as she opened one of her bags, and pulled out odds and ends. "I didn't think to bring six-guns, but I thought the hat might be fun. Never know when there might be a costume party."
Rarity clapped her forehooves together. "Wonderful!"
***
A robocab pulled up in front of a large, well-lit mansion. Rarity and Twilight climbed out, and the cab rolled away.
Rarity wore a dark cloak, and Twilight her hat.
"I feel silly," Twilight said.
"Nonsense! You look fabulous! The au naturel look and ladies' hats are both in style. I'll be leaving my cloak at the door."
***
Walking beside Rarity, Twilight entered a room of noise and confusion. In the first moments she felt that she saw not a party of ponies, but an almost undifferentiated mass of black and midnight blue fur, feathers, and waving, translucent banners.
Twilght whispered, "This is very confusing. I can hardly see where one pony ends and the next begins."
"You'll get used to it," Rarity promised. "You have a good eye for anatomy. You'll be picking up on fine differences between ponies in no time. I promise, nopony here is wearing off the rack."
Twilight blinked. "Off the rack? Are you talking about clothes, or bodies?"
Rarity tittered. "Either. Both. You needn't worry about it."
A white unicorn with a blonde mane and tail emerged from the crowd. "I'm so happy to see you!" Twilight said cheerfully to the stranger.
The unicorn smiled. "You must be Rarity's old friend Twilight, the frontier-taming life-saving hero."
Twilight made a funny noise in her throat. "Hrrg?" she asked. "Me? Somepony's been telling tales."
Rarity gently nudged her friend with one shoulder. "So...how many ponies have you saved in the course of your career? Can you even count them?"
"That's different," Twilight insisted. "When you work in a hospital, they bring ponies right to you, ready for surgery. At that point it's pretty simple. I mean, you just have to know what you're doing."
An inky black alicorn mare sidled up to the little group. "And how many ponies would know what they're doing, presented with somepony who's already halfway to becoming a corpse?"
Twilight looked the mare in the eye. "I...well...any good trauma surgeon, I suppose. It's nothing, really."
The inky mare smiled. "Rarity, your friend is very modest...exactly as you described her." The mare nodded slightly. "I'm Countess Cloudheart. And this is my husband, Prince Blueblood." For a moment, her face took on a grin that was almost a grimace. "If you ever need him, you can pick him out of a crowd quite easily."
Blueblood shook his head. "Dear one. Some kinds of beauty can be bought. Some others only come naturally. It's a crime to trade one for the other."
Cloudheart shrugged. "I keep telling him, good taste cannot be bought for mere bits. But he's quite the eccentric, my little Blueblood." She whispered in his ear, and led him away.
"Well," Twilight said. "Is that a normal sort of argument for a Canterlot marriage? In front of other ponies, at a party?"
Rarity chuckled. "There's nothing normal about Blueblood. His only real assets are his bloodline and his face. And as culture and the arts advance, even the latter becomes...perhaps not the GOOD kind of distinction."
"Maybe ponies should be free to choose the bodies they want," Twilight said. "Regardless of social pressure. And if it means looking like you have Princess Celestia on both sides of your bloodline, what's wrong with that?" She put one hoof over her mouth, feeling embarrassed. Had she accidentally accused Blueblood's entire family of being inbred? "I mean...everypony knows nobles look...noble."
"Quite true," Rarity agreed. "But just what does a truly refined noble look like, nowadays?"
Twilight shook her head. "I think I need a drink."
As Twilight walked towards a staffed bar at one end of the room, Rarity called after her, "But not too much, darling! We might need to make our pitch later!"
It wasn't clear if Twilight heard.
***
An hour later, Twilight complained, "These drinks are so weak, if they were an apple bucker, nopony would get to eat so much as a rotten cherry! Hey, bartender, where's the WET bar?"
A pony whose hair and coat were dyed a dark cobalt blue (complementing his red bowtie) leaned in towards Twilight. He said softly, "Miss Rarity asked us not to let you get drunk, Mare'm. She says you aren't used to the big city, and you've had a long, tiring journey."
Twilight grumbled, "I'll say when I'm too tired. And I'll have you know I lived in Canterlot for YEARS. I graduated from Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns with honors."
"Yes, Mare'm. And you wouldn't like to bring even the slightest disgrace or embarrassment upon your fine name and illustrious history, would you?"
Twilight chortled. "Does that line work on all the fancy ponies at this kind of party, to keep them out of trouble?"
The bartender smiled. "Usually. Of course, there are the unfortunate exceptions." A moment later, he was distracted by a loud altercation somewhere behind Twilight.
"You are a CAD!" shouted an inky-dark stallion with his mane and tail dyed a deep crimson. "You have no culture! You are no better than the beasts! I am certain you fill your wife's heart with shame, and no wonder! Also, I love her." The stallion pointed with one quivering wingtip. "Blueblood, I challenge you to a duel! With single shot pistols, in the back garden, right now!
Blueblood raised his eyebrows incredulously. "This is most irregular. Demanding a duel without at least allowing time for ponies to sober up. And how dare you try to both challenge, AND name the weapons? I think I know which pony here is the cad." Blueblood laughed. "Who in Celestia's immortal dungheap are you, anyway?"
"I am a pony of courage who knows you have been permitted to get away with far too much for far too long!" the crimson-maned stallion proclaimed. "I shall await you in the garden...or if you don't arrive promptly, I shall come punish your cowardice!"
Twilight goggled. She asked the bartender, "Is this the usual thing, in Canterlot high society?"
The bartender shrugged. "The highest levels of society sometimes make their own rules, I fear." He reached out and tugged gently on Twilight's shoulder. "Would you care to come around and shelter behind the bar with me? It's very sturdy."
Twilight shook her head. "I saw how many bottles you keep back there. If even one bullet gets through the plywood, anypony sheltering behind the bar is going to be full of shattered glass."
The bartender trotted out from behind the bar. "Is this safer?"
Twilight looked at the party's fearful and angry maelstrom of black, inky, darkest charcoal, midnight blue, dark midnight blue, extra-dark midnight blue, and waveringly translucent fur and pseudo-fur. "I can't bear to watch," she said. "Maybe I should just leave. I wonder where Rarity is."
The crimson-maned pony held up a polished silver gun case, shouted, "Come and take one!" and walked to the back door, which he opened so he could stand dramatically in the doorway. "I'm giving you one minute to show you aren't a coward! Sixty! Fifty-nine! fifty-eight!" He opened the case, lifted out one of two old, large-bore pistols, and resumed his countdown.
"He's bluffing," Blueblood said. "And did you see how his wing was shaking? He's too drunk to hit the barn side of a broad."
Beside him, his wife said, "Crimson was born a unicorn, so of COURSE his wing control is poor. But with his horn, or a pistol...he might be much more accurate. Dear, I suggest you...well, I don't know what to suggest. Meet his challenge to duel him outdoors, I suppose. Don't let him shoot that pistol in here. Indoors, even if he misses you, I don't think we have time to clear everypony out of the room, to keep him from hitting somepony else."
"Hmmph!" Blueblood said. "His type doesn't deserve that much respect." Blueblood's horn lit up, telekinetically yanking on the pistol gripped in the challenger's hoof.
An explosion cloaked the pistol in a cloud of smoke, and Blueblood fell to the floor. Without even thinking, driven by her doctor's reflexes, Twilight ran to check on Blueblood. When she reached him, Rarity was already bent over him, checking the wound.
Twilight said, "I'm here."
"Second opinion, please," Rarity asked.
"On it." Twilight traded places with Rarity, and inspected the patient. "He's bleeding out like a fountain. Do we even have time to get him to a hospital?"
Twilight heard a rumbling and rattling, and glanced up. "You've got to be kidding me," she said.
Countess Cloudheart patted the pony-sized wheeled case beside her. "You can never be too prepared...or too fashionable. Rarity, can you swap him into his new body in time?"
Rarity bit her lower lip. "I'll do my very best, Countess. It's lucky my friend Twilight happens to be here to help. Tools!"
A servant trotted up with a doctor's bag. Another followed with a pony-height, many-drawered toolchest on wheels.
Twilight muttered, "You've got to be..."
"No time to lose!" Rarity shouted. She opened several drawers, pulled out a thaumically powered saw, and started adding fragments of flesh and bone to the already spectacularly bloody mess on the carpet.
***
Bent over the alicorn body on the floor, Twilight and Rarity finished their final sewing and gluing to close incisions. Rarity's hornglow rotated a valve, which was connected by a long tube to the transparent mask covering the body's muzzle.
Everypony watched and waited.
A minute later, the alicorn body coughed. "Was I too harsh with him?" Blueblood asked. "I'm dreadfully sorry, but he should have known better than to beard a true prince of the royal blood in his den. I mean, in my den."
Countess Cloudheart bent over her husband, and kissed his cheek. "You're alive. Thank Celestia, you're alive."
Blueblood smirked. "What else would you possibly expect? Of course I'm alive."
Twilight whispered in Rarity's ear, "How long do you think it will take him to notice he's an alicorn?"
Rarity mumbled, "I'M not taking any bets."
All around the room, ponies cheered.
Blueblood shook his head. "It was nothing, really. I mean, anypony could have stood up to a low-blooded rascal like that, and put him in his place."
Rarity touched Twilight's hoof, and led her out of the party.
Behind them, servants carefully cleansed every trace of Blueblood's old body from the floor, and stored the fragments in the wheeled case.
***
In a robocab driving away from the mansion, Twilight asked, "How much did you know?"
"What?" Rarity blinked her big, blue eyes. (Blue eyes were VERY fashionable in Canterlot this year, and she'd arranged for her new eyes to almost exactly match her original, natural pair.) "Whatever do you mean?"
"I think you know exactly what I mean. When Blueblood went down, you didn't miss a single beat. You got to him even before I did."
"You were running as fast as I was, darling. I was closer, that's all."
Twilight shook her head. "You even arranged for me to be there, in case you needed extra help."
Rarity agreed, "Certainly, darling. That's because I trust you. There's nopony else I'd trust more, to help save somepony's life."
"How can you live with yourself?"
Rarity leaned back against the cab's bench seat. She took a deep breath. "I knew the Countess wished somepony would shoot her husband. I knew she was so exasperated with his bullheadedness, and his refusal to keep up with the times, and how that reflected on HER OWN reputation in society, she could scarcely care less if he died."
"How could you know that?"
"Darling, I keep my hoof on Canterlot fashion and culture, and I understand what the nobility and tastemakers want before they know about it themselves. Also, I once heard her say it with my own ears."
"You just happened to be in the right place to hear it?"
"It was no secret. Half of Canterlot society knew. If that boor Crimson Blight hadn't shot Blueblood through the heart, somepony else would have." Rarity snorted. "Can you imagine being stupid enough, when somepony is threatening you with a pistol, to PULL the gun DIRECTLY TOWARDS you?"
Twilight sighed. "So you noticed that too, did you?"
"I don't know how many other ponies also worked out that part of it. But I think maybe Blueblood WANTED to be shot in front of the entire party. If he died, everypony would know who had done it, and somepony might have punished the killer. And if he lived..."
"If he lived, WHAT?"
Rarity shrugged. "Everypony will be talking about that party for a very long time. Lately it's been getting so that anypony with enough money can buy themselves a new body, and not even have to settle for off the rack. But how many ponies can show off their foresight in arranging to have a fashionable new body AND a team of transplant surgeons on hoof, the very night they happen to get shot in the chest?"
Twilight screamed, "Are you saying Canterlot high society is CRAZY?"
Rarity chuckled. "I suppose that would be a matter of opinion, wouldn't it? But at least the next few weeks should be an EXCELLENT time to ask Blueblood for a big donation to a medical research project."
Twilight grimaced. "Are you talking about life-saving medical research, or merely research for...some frivolous new body fashion?"
Rarity smiled mischievously. "Either. Both. Is there really so much difference, in the long run?"
