Familiar Skies: Part 1

Rarity

Rarity was still sniffling when she set hoof back into her family's home. Tears still streaming down her small, pink cheeks, turned that color from the stress and crying. Not only had her one chance at a grand opening in the school's play been ruined by the rain, but she'd embarrassed herself completely in front of her entire class.

Her mother quietly shut the door behind the two of them and placed a gentle hoof on Rarity's shoulder. Cookie had arrived at the school not long after Rarity's own arrival. The rain, combined with general motherly worry, had sent her looking for Rarity to bring her home.

Now within the familiar walls of her home, Rarity felt even more compelled to tears. She'd missed her one shot at a life she had dreamed endlessly about. Rarity shuffled away to her room, wanting to be alone to grieve her flower costumes and hopes of flamboyant fashion.

As she sulked in her room, tears and bitter thoughts eventually gave way to heavy sleep. And before Rarity could position herself under her comforters, the tiny unicorn foal had drifted off into a strange dream. One of stressful situations and questionable fashion choices, events that, inevitably, her mind would forget come the waking hours.

Rarity wasn't sure how long she'd been asleep for when her dreary mind returned to the waking world. But, as she rolled around her bed and stretched, she figured she must have slept the entire evening and night, as the early glimpses of sunlight peeked through her curtains and danced across her floor.

She rubbed at her eyes and tried to remember what had woken her up in the first place. Just as she climbed out of her bed and began walking to her dresser, she heard it again. The mumbled conversation of her parents, echoing from down the hall in their room. She tried not to pay attention to it as she began brushing her purple mane back into place.

She frowned at the mess her sleep had turned it into, and made sure to tug hard at the stubborn knots. Despite her dis-interest in her parent's conversation, she found herself listening to it anyway. Her waking mind turning the mumbles into actual understandable words. She even found herself leaning slightly to her left, towards her partially opened bedroom door.

"-what to do with it all." Cookie was muttering, her voice hitching with tears she was suppressing.

"...I... Don't know, love." Hondo replied. His own voice carried a kind tone, though also one of indecision.

"I don't want her things just to sit there and rot... But I can't bear going in there." Cookie sputtered, her suppressed tears welling up in her voice.

"I know." Hondo replied back.

Rarity was... puzzled by this conversation, but finished brushing her mane and "fixing herself up", as her mother would say. She heard miscellaneous shuffling noises emit from her parents' room before they quickly left their room and disappeared out of hearing range.

Rarity stood in front of her bedroom door, wondering what she should do. She hated hearing her mother so upset, though she wasn't sure what comfort she could possibly provide. Her indecisiveness was cut off as her horn began spritzing tiny sparks of magic, in the same way it had the day before.

Rarity gasped at this and ran to her bed. "Oh no, you won't!" She snapped, grabbing a pillow from her bed and stuffing it over her horn. "I won't have you distracting me again today!"

Rarity had still not been able to figure out why her magic had led her to the house's spare storage room. And in truth, she had no interest in knowing. Nothing important was in there... right?

As if answering her internal question, her horn lit up in a brighter burst of magic, levitating the pillow off her head and throwing it back onto her bed.

"What?! Oh! Rude!" Rarity yelped, glaring upward at her short horn. "You can't do that without my permission!"

Defiantly, the magic warbling around her horn jolted forward, causing Rarity to stumble forward as well, her tiny hooves stumbling across the floor. Deciding it would be best to give in, given the mysterious nature of Unicorn horns, Rarity complied.

She let her hooves go limp and allowed her magic to drag her wherever it seemed to be adamant on taking her. And again, like the day previous, the magic guided her out of her room, down the long hallway, and to the same storage room. Her magic pushed its way through the partially opened door and into the room, releasing her once she was standing in the middle of the room.

Rarity huffed and looked around the room. Old pieces of furniture were shoved to the back of the unlit room, their miscellaneous shapes covered by white cloths. Boxes were also piled around the walls of the room, some of a particularly big size. As Rarity looked around the room, she realized the familiarity of the hidden objects and suddenly remembered why her mother must have been so distraught earlier.

Just the week prior, while Rarity had been solely focused on sewing her costumes, her parents had moved all of these items into the spare room. One that she had been told would eventually be her infant sister's room, when she was old enough. The items and furniture had belonged to Rarity's grandmother.

Rarity approached a nearby, small sealed box. It was a beautiful pale green and pink box, with a matching lid. She gently opened it and marveled at the brooch collection inside. In particular, one large oval-shaped one towards the bottom of the box caught her eye. She lifted it out of the box, looking it over. She couldn't tell what the color had been before the layers of thick dust and grime that were on it currently.

She curled her lip at the muddied coloration of the brooch and set it back into the box, wiping her hoof on the side of the box afterwards. She'd remembered how sad her mother had been, and though she tried not to show it now, Rarity knew her mother was still very sad. She suspected she would still be sad for a while longer.

Rarity stared at the brooch box before her. Quite a few of the other beautiful pins also shared the unfortunate dis-coloration of the one she'd picked up. It was a shame, really. Rarity was sure they were so pretty before the dust and dirt. She wanted to know what they'd looked like before the wear-and-tear of use had brought them.

She stared curiously at the box for a moment longer, almost feeling a sense of... creativity? Wonder? She wasn't sure. She was pulled from her thoughts when she heard her father calling for her. The distance of his voice clearly calling to her from just outside her bedroom.

"I'm coming!" Rarity called out, quickly setting down the box, though she felt the urge to take it with her.

She quickly left the spare room and trotted down the hall, where her father stood just outside her bedroom door. He gave her a curious look, but shook his head and began walking back towards the entrance of the hall.

Rarity happily followed along with him, the scent of a freshly prepared breakfast enveloping the space they were in. Despite the terrible night she'd had previously... and the lingering feelings of disappointment, Rarity felt oddly happy.

Excited even, though she couldn't understand why. She wasn't sure why she'd been drawn to that room, but it had her in a curious grip now. And, well, since her dreams of being a fashionista were clearly stomped into the ground, maybe she would have enough free-time to inspect that brooch box properly... just maybe.