Sitting in one of the furthest-back corners of the food court, I nervously bounced my leg. I’d just gotten off of work a little while ago, and now I was waiting.
That night, there was going to be a sleepover at Applejack’s. It was all I’d been able to think about the whole day.
Even with my shift over, I still had some time to kill before when I was told to show up. We were all seemingly on good terms now, but I wasn’t about to start showing up early. That would look weird, and I could undo so much progress by looking too eager. Plus, I still had an image to maintain.
It was funny. A few weeks ago, I would have been entirely filled with dread over something like this. Instead, I was only filled with some dread. I have to give myself credit, that was a lot less than normal.
Truthfully, it wasn’t dread, it was just anxiety. There was a part of me that was afraid everything would go miserably, but I was used to feeling that way all the time. That wasn’t why I was nervous.
This was their first ‘big band meeting,’ as Rainbow Dash put it. So far, The Rainbooms, as Rainbow Dash had named them, had treated the whole band thing pretty casually. But last week, it was decided (by Rainbow Dash) that it was time to get serious.
So, with that in mind, and now that me and Dash were cool, I thought this meeting would be the perfect time for me to ask if I could be in the band. After all, most great bands had two guitarists, right? And I knew Dash wouldn’t be willing to give up lead guitar, so I would specifically ask to play rhythm instead. How could she say no to that?
I tried to keep myself busy by looking at all the people walking by. Occasionally, I’d check my phone, but hardly anybody ever messaged me. That meant the mall patrons were my primary source of mental stimulation. It was either that, or think of how many ways tonight could go wrong.
Of course, neither option was that pleasant. Working at the mall meant I spent every shift listening to dozens of conversations bouncing from tile floors to high ceilings, and now I was just watching the source of that maddening drone. When I thought about how many people I heard talking sometimes, it was kind of overwhelming. Sometimes I wondered what it would be like to be able to understand all of them.
For the most part, my eyes darted from one person to the next, but sometimes certain people or groups would grab my attention. A group of old ladies doing a lap around the entire length of the mall. Two boys I recognized from school walking incredibly close to one another; one with a bushy hairdo and another with a bowl cut.
What held my attention for the longest was a group of girls wearing matching uniforms, probably some rich inner-city kids. Three of them stood side by side, while the last one lagged behind them. She was slumped over, wearing a mint pullover with the hood up. Despite how she stood out from the others, I could tell she belonged to the group, since she was wearing the same skirt as them.
Even with her face obscured by the hood, her body language screamed how little she wanted to be there. She may have been keeping pace with them, but she refused to close the gap. If they slowed, so would she, like she was afraid to get too near.
I couldn’t help but smile wistfully. I knew nothing about this girl, yet just the way she walked behind her friends reminded me of myself not too long ago. Specifically, it reminded me of how I walked with the girls that day Rainbow Dash chased me across the entire school.
That made me wonder what her situation was like. Maybe she was going through the same thing I did: being part of a friend group that ultimately doesn’t treat you like one. Was she reluctant to try to fit in? Or did everyone around her make it more difficult? Was she following that far behind because she wanted to, or because if she tried to wedge herself up front with everyone else, they’d squeeze her out? Maybe they’d already done that, and that’s why she didn’t try to catch up.
Even as they disappeared from sight behind a corridor, I kept thinking about her. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever see her again, but I hoped that if I did, she would seem to be doing better next time. I looked down at my phone again. If I left then, I would be there a few minutes late, exactly how I planned.
With my bag slung over my shoulder, I made my way out of the mall. It was an early spring evening, but if the sun hadn’t been so low in the sky, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was later. It was warm; nice, albeit a little humid.
As I drove to Applejack’s, my heart increased in pace. I kept thinking about how Rainbow Dash would answer. Even if things were settled between us, I wasn’t expecting her to just say ‘yes’ right away. I ran through every scenario I could think of, trying to craft the best responses, repeating my answers over and over in my head.
It felt pretty silly. I wasn’t sure why I cared so much. We were friends, and that was all I ever wanted after the Fall Formal. So why did I want more?
Maybe it was because as long as I wasn’t in the band, I was the odd one out. Like, sure, I was in the friend group, but I wasn’t in the friend group. They started this band as an excuse to hang out together (as if they needed another), so, if they let me in, that would be irrefutable proof that I was in the group as well. It would be an added layer of assurance that I belonged; something I could never have enough of.
Thankfully, running all those scenarios in my head made the time between leaving work and arriving at Applejack’s fly by. Before I knew it, I was pulling up to that familiar stretch of dirt driveway. This was it.
When I pulled up, I frowned. Everyone was already here. Did I show up at the right time?
After shutting off my bike and putting away my helmet, I walked over to the barn. I didn’t make it far before I heard a shrill voice screech from the second story of AJ’s house.
“SUNSET! UP HERE!” Pinkie was halfway leaning out of the window. Upside down.
“Hey, Pinkie!” I shouted back. “Where is everyone!”
“UP HERE!” she screamed again.
“I know, I see you!” I called back. “But what about everyone else?”
“UP, HERE!”
I blinked several times. “What?”
She took a deep breath. “UP-”
Pinkie was suddenly and violently yanked back inside. An annoyed looking Applejack now standing in the window frame.
“Sorry ‘bout that! Dash challenged that one to chug an energy drink. We’re all up here.”
“I thought we- you all were doing the band meeting today?”
“We did!” she called back.
My face flattened. “Oh.”
“Yeah, don’t worry about it. We figured you might get bored havin’ to watch us yammer on, so y’ain’t gotta sit through it!”
“Oh,” I repeated, quieter this time.
“Door’s unlocked, come on in whenever.”
With that, Applejack shut the window. And I stood there for nearly a minute trying to process what I just heard.
Since the moment I woke up that morning, I’d been going over this moment in my mind over and over. Thousands of scenarios in my head, ten different answers to whatever I could be asked, a list of songs I would have played to show how good I am at guitar.
And they already had the meeting.
Without me.
"No one ever said this friendship thing was going to be easy,” I muttered.
Author's Note
She is back they are saying.
When I first started going to school not long after arriving through the portal, I found a pretty unique way to confuse my teachers.
You see, the languages spoken here and in Equestria sound completely identical, but they couldn’t be further apart in writing. Meaning that in the beginning of my school career, my teachers would constantly think I was messing with them, because I spoke with an advanced vocabulary while being functionally illiterate. A combination that, to their credit, didn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Thankfully, it didn’t take long for me to catch back up. Learning how to read and write was a lot like playing through a video game the second time with all the upgrades, and since the language barrier wasn’t very tall, my literacy and my language skills didn’t take long to match back up.
Ironically, the easy part was learning to read and write again. The hard part was figuring out all the linguistic quirks and shorthands that people used. Certain words mean certain things depending on the sentence. Sentences can have entirely new meanings depending on their use of words in relation to others, and where those words are used in the sentence. In Equestria, it works the same way. But if there’s one thing I’d learned about humans, it was that they loved to complicate things for seemingly no reason, and the way they spoke was a prime example.
Take, for instance, the reason I came over to Pinkie Pie’s this afternoon. Yesterday, at the sleepover, she mentioned she was going to make some special cupcakes for another group of friends. When I asked her what was so special about them, she essentially explained that they were ‘cupcakes you could eat,’ just in different wording.
I wanted to know how that was any different than any other type of cupcakes she made. Did that mean she made ones you couldn’t eat? What would you even do with those?
And maybe I could have asked her what that meant, but it felt like one of those things I would eventually pick up on after hearing it in some other context. Plus, all the girls were around, and I didn’t want to ask a stupid question and look dumb by extension.
That’s why when Pinkie asked me if I wanted to help her make them, I said yes. There had to be something I was missing. Seeing it first hand seemed like a good way to find an answer, and being involved in the process would be even better.
Except I wasn’t really involved in the process at all. I was just kind of sitting there, watching her bounce around the kitchen, grabbing a bowl of something and dumping it into another bowl, then putting that bowl under some loud machine that mixed the contents inside into some beige and brown goop.
“So,” I said, “do you need me to do anything?”
“Nope!” Pinkie turned the mixer back on. “I’ve pretty much got this.”
I furrowed my brow. “Why did you ask if I wanted to help if you’re just going to do everything, then?”
She began to explain, her voice somehow louder than the mixer. “Well, cupcakes are one of my specialties, and because I’m making these special for someone, I have to be reeeeally precise! But the reason I asked for your help is mostly just because I wanted an excuse to spend some time with you!”
I didn’t mind coming over to hang out, but I wasn’t happy about being brought here under false pretenses. And as much as I appreciated that sentiment, I couldn’t help but feel like she was just saying that.
“What if I wanted to learn?”
Pinkie smiled. “We’re gonna make a second batch after this one! I would have you doing something if this wasn’t such a super special batch, but I’ve gotta be really careful. They have that super secret special ingredient—you know the one—so they have to be perfect.”
I didn't know the one. I almost thought about asking what the ingredient was, but I thought maybe she'd say what it is later. It couldn't be that secret if I was supposed to know.
“Who are these even for, anyway?”
“One of Fluttershy’s friends!”
“So, one of us?”
“Nope!”
That was the day I learned Fluttershy had more friends than me and the girls. I felt kind of bad for assuming that.
As Pinkie continued to jump from one side of the kitchen to the other, I was trying to keep track of what she was doing. If I was going to help with this second batch, I wanted to have some idea of what some of the steps were, but she moved way too erratically to keep up with. It was like she’d remember she had to do something else every twenty seconds, sometimes going between two or more things multiple times in the same minute.
Having never baked anything in my life, I was actually kind of impressed. Without a frame of reference, I just thought you put things in a bowl, dumped them into a tray, lit a fire underneath it, and then you had a cake or whatever.
“I never realized baking was this complicated,” I said.
Pinkie giggled. “It’s not this complicated usually. I just didn’t have time to prepare before you came over, so I’m doing everything on the fly.”
“Why didn’t you have time?”
She dumped some kind of pungent smelling oil into the goop bowl. “I was busy.”
“Doing what?”
“Nothing!”
“So why would you wing it if these have to be so exact? That seems kind of silly.”
“Usually, it’s not a good idea, but I’ve done this so much that I can just do that. Plus, everything’s better when it’s a little silly.
“I do still have to be exact though. What matters the most is that everything has just the right amount of ingredients, and just the right amount of time. And even if it looks like I’m going fast, I never rush.”
If this was Pinkie Pie taking her time, I couldn’t imagine how fast she would be if she were rushing.
Finally, she started to slow down. Once she poured the dough or whatever into the cupcake tray and placed it in the oven, she sat down next to me on the counter. She kicked her legs, her head tilting back and forth like a metronome.
“So how’s life?” she asked excitedly.
“Umm, good, I guess?”
“You guess?”
“Yeah, I do.” I chuckled. “It’s better than it was before, at least.”
“Yay!” she cheered. “You look like you’ve been doing a lot better, too!”
That got a half smile out of me. “Thanks, Pinkie. I feel like I have you and the girls to thank for that. So, uh, thanks. Again.”
“Maybe we helped,” she replied, “but we sure didn’t for a while. You did a lot of the work.”
“Psh, yeah. I knew brooding for months would eventually pay off.”
Pinkie looked my way. She was still tilting her head back and forth, still smiling, but she gave me a sympathetic look.
“That’s not all you did,” she said. “Though, you did do that a lot. Like, a lot a lot. Like, a lot a lot a lot. Like-”
“Okay, yeah, I get it.”
“Sorry!” She giggled. “But, still, you gotta give yourself credit, too.”
I wasn’t sure how much I agreed with that, but I didn’t really want to get into that anyway.
The conversation seemed to end there. It felt like there was more we both wanted to say, but I couldn’t think of anything, and she didn’t talk about it anymore.
But she did start talking.
“Something big is gonna happen soon.”
That was as vague as it was concerning.
“What do you mean by that?”
“I dunno,” she replied. “Something really big, like super big.”
“And what is it?”
“I dunno," she repeated.
I narrowed my eyes. "Is there really something?"
"I dunno."
Even if I couldn't tell if she was serious, I started to get paranoid. What could she be talking about? Was it good or bad? How soon was ‘soon?’ Why didn’t she say more?
Pinkie was so enigmatic. Every time I interacted with her, I was left with more questions than answers, and most of the questions I was left with sounded so stupid that I couldn’t possibly ask them.
But it was just me and her. And if anyone would understand a dumb question, maybe it was her.
“Do you know what ‘something’ relates to?” I asked.
“Us,” she answered. “Not just you and me, but the girls too. Maybe the whole school. Maybe everyone.”
If Pinkie didn’t sound so calm, I think I might have started panicking. Then again, that kind of added to the ominousness of it all.
“Is it a good thing?”
“No,” she said plainly. “But, yes.”
I tilted my head. “Which is it?”
“Yes.”
“It is a good thing?”
“No.”
“So it’ll be bad?”
“Yes, but no.”
Suddenly, I felt really stupid for taking this seriously. She was probably just being cryptic just to screw with me, and it was getting annoying.
“Okay, Pinkie, I really appreciate you inviting me over, but how come you can’t just tell me what you’re thinking instead of playing games like this all the time?”
Despite the irritation in my tone, Pinkie didn’t seem bothered.
“I’m not doing it on purpose, Sunny–”
“Don’t call me that,” I sharply interrupted.
“–Sunset,” she corrected. “That’s just how I am!”
I squinted at her. “Does that mean you constantly have to mess with me?”
“Nope! I haven’t been messing with you at all this whole time.”
“Then what are you doing? Why don’t you just talk to me normally?”
Pinkie grabbed her chin, her head tilting back and forth on her hand.
“That’s another reason I’m glad we’re hanging out today!”
“What?”
“So you can get used to me.”
I was about ready to give up on this conversation until Pinkie Pie continued.
“I’ve been through this kind of thing before. Most people don’t take me very seriously because they think I don’t take them very seriously. But I do, just in my own way! After some time, you’ll see what I mean, and once you do, I know we’re gonna be the bestest of friends!”
Pinkie threw her arm around my shoulder, her big bush of hair repeatedly hitting me in the face as her head continued to tilt back and forth. “And once we do, you’ll find out we have a lot more in common than you think, I think.”
“… I have never thought about what you think we have in common.”
“Not what I meant.” She chuckled. “But that is a good example of what I mean!”
I still felt completely in the dark, but strangely enough, I also felt like I was starting to get it. After all, I was sitting here getting aggravated at her, but she refused to stop being her usual silly self. It was like she already understood that I wouldn’t understand her.
Maybe this was something she was used to? She did say this was something she’s been through a lot, though she wasn’t exactly clear on what that meant.
But maybe trying so hard to understand her was part of my problem. I was always looking for an explanation, and maybe Pinkie couldn’t give one because she hadn’t found one herself yet. And considering just how many people Pinkie Pie knew, I couldn’t be the only person she’s had this kind of experience with.
That left me feeling pretty guilty. I was almost ready to fly off the handle at her, and she had probably been preparing for that the whole time.
“Sorry if I sounded kind of shitty there,” I said, looking down at the floor.
“I think your voice sounds fine!” she replied.
I groaned. “That’s not what I-”
When I looked back up at her, she winked. Yeah, I was starting to get it.
Suddenly, Pinkie’s head started violently shaking, and a shrill bell that sounded way too close to my ear went off at the same time.
“They’re done!” she shouted in a squiggly sounding voice.
In a blink, she was standing in front of the oven with mitts on her hands. She gently pulled the tray out from inside, placing it delicately on the stovetop. She said something, but the sound of the bell completely drowned her out.
“What?” I yelled.
“I SAID–” she paused and reached up inside of her hair. After a few seconds of digging, she pulled out a timer; one that she promptly threw at the wall and shattered into a hundred pieces. “I said now we wait a little bit, and then it’s time to frost them!”
Even though they weren’t frosted, the cupcakes already looked delicious. Each one had a perfect swirl of vanilla and chocolate cake.
“How long?” I asked. “Are we allowed to have any? I really want to try one.”
“I knew you would! That’s why I used my special baker’s dozen plus cupcake pan, so we’ll have two extras! We just have to give them a few minutes, then we’ll frost and decorate.”
Pinkie dug around in her fridge and a few different cabinets. While she set up what I assumed were tubes of frosting, I decided to ask her something I was too afraid to ask anyone yesterday.
“So how did the band meeting go yesterday?”
Pinkie paused for a moment. “Eh.”
My eyes went wide. “Eh?” I repeated.
“Eh,” she affirmed.
Maybe I should have let it go. After all, there’s no use trying to understand her when she doesn’t understand herself half the time. But this was about more than just her. If Pinkie thought the meeting went “eh,” then something was wrong.
“What do you mean?”
She didn’t look thrilled, but as she started frosting the cupcakes, she began to explain.
“The parts where we actually played music were fun! But the ‘meeting’ part wasn’t any fun at all. It was just Rainbow Dash talking at us, and when she did, it didn’t seem like anyone else wanted to be there.
“Fluttershy already seemed bent out of shape before I got there. Rarity and AJ have been weirdly distant with each other. And nobody tells me what’s going on, so I just tune out the parts where we’re not playing. Besides, Rainbow Dash is starting to make this whole thing sound like a job.”
“Isn’t that kind of the goal with being in a band, though?” I asked. “You eventually want to turn it into a job, right?”
“That’s probably how it is for a lotta people, but not me,” she answered. “I play music for fun. If I were gonna have a job doing anything, I’d want it to be one where I do stuff like this!”
In a showcase of confectionery confidence, Pinkie aimed two frosting sleeves in the air, squeezed them both tightly in her hands. Six dollops of frosting launched into the air, all of them barely missing the ceiling, and all landing on their targets with a perfect swirl.
I nodded, my eyes still wide from disbelief. “Okay, yeah, I see why.”
Pinkie took the remaining two unfrosted cupcakes out of the tray, placing one in front of me.
“I’ll decorate yours, and you can decorate mine!”
“I don’t know if I should,” I said. “Unless you want the messiest, shittiest looking cupcake you’ve ever seen.”
Pinkie giggled. “No matter how it looks, I know I’m gonna love it.”
Something about the way she said that caught me completely off guard. It made me feel warm for a moment.
Then I felt a pang of guilt. I used to be so mean to Pinkie, and I was being kind of a jerk earlier. And here she was, still trying her hardest to be my friend, saying one of the sweetest things anyone had ever said to me up to that point.
I tried my best to frost the cupcake in the same way Pinkie did, but where hers were twists of sweetness, mine looked like a coiled turd. But after dumping an absurd amount of sprinkles on top, that detail seemed less noticeable.
Mine was done in less than a minute, and it certainly looked like it. When I looked over at Pinkie’s she had already finished too. The difference is that hers looked way too intricate to have been done in the same time frame as mine. The frosting was swirled perfectly into a pattern of red and gold with pink sprinkles generously dumped all over it, all with a little peanut butter cup on top.
“Wow! Pinkie, that looks amazing!” I exclaimed. It felt kind of embarrassing how excited for this cupcake I was.
“Thanks!” She smiled bashfully. “I may have practiced this design a few times before now, so if you’re wondering how I worked it out so quickly, that’s how.”
Another wave of warmth splashed over me. It was just a cupcake, but the amount of thought that went into it was almost hard for me to process. I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had done anything like that for me.
That was a depressing thought.
Before I could mull that over, Pinkie gasped.
“Oh my goodness! Sunset, yours is perfect!”
I raised an eyebrow. “It is?”
“Of course it is!” She picked it up, holding it close to her face. “The frosting dripping off the sides, the fact that you accidentally made the frosting look like poop, the way-too-many sprinkles you used to hide the fact that you accidentally made the frosting look like poop; It’s so cute! I love it!”
I wasn’t sure why I thought I could get that one past her, but I didn’t expect her to call it out like that. That just felt like she was calling my work shit. Which, to be honest, was a fair assessment. Still, I was happy that she liked it. Granted, I wasn’t entirely sure she was serious at first.
It wasn’t until she started nuzzling the frosting and smearing it all over her face that I could believe she was completely sincere. It was kind of endearing, at least up to the point when she slipped the entire cake portion of the cupcake into her mouth like a snake would a rat, swallowing it down, paper cup and all. Then it was just kind of weird, but still endearing in its own way.
Finally taking a bite of mine, I was a bit confused by the taste. The frosting was fine, but the cake had an earthy taste to it. It was overpowered by the chocolate and vanilla, but it was impossible to ignore. Still, it didn’t stop me from devouring it in a minute. I was a lot hungrier than I thought.
Pinkie loaded the rest of the cupcakes onto a dish, placing a glass top over them.
“So, before we get too far away from it,” I began, examining Pinkie’s handiwork along with her, “should I keep what you told me about the band meeting to myself, then?”
Pinkie indecisively tilted her head back and forth.
“Doesn’t matter to me!”
“Are you sure?”
She nodded. “If I can say it to you, I can say it to them.”
“Then why don’t you?”
“It’ll all gonna come out eventually.”
I almost asked her what she meant, but something about that question made me think back to earlier.
“Does that have anything to do with that ‘something big’ you were talking about earlier?”
“Mhm!”
“Can you tell me what that is?”
“Nope!” she popped the p extra hard on that one. “Now, we should really get to baking that second batch before we get baked!”
Pinkie started getting things together for the second batch of cupcakes, but her phrase confused me.
“What are you talking about?”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you mean ‘what do I mean?’ What’s this about us getting baked?”
“That cupcake you ate was an edible, remember?”
I stared at her intensely. “If it was inedible, then why did you let me eat it?”
“Not inedible. An edible. Like, with an A.”
“Okay, but what does it being edible have to do with ‘getting baked’ or whatever?”
Pinkie’s smile fell, and her eyes went just as wide as mine. That day, I learned a lesson I already knew:
Certain words mean certain things depending on the sentence.
Author's Note
This chapter was so fun. Everyone complains about having to write Pinkie because it's hard (and it is) but I think she's a lot of fun to write actually. Hopefully that reflects in the writing. The next chapter should be posted pretty soon (like, for real, it's actually done, I'm just hanging onto it for a little bit), and it features a fan favorite character to this canon. Stay tuned!
For the most part, making friends has been nothing but positive for me, but there are some drawbacks.
Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t longing for the days before the girls were willing to be in a room with me, but even a good change can take a while to get used to. I don’t like being lonely, but I do like being alone. And for a while after the Fall Formal, I rarely ever got to be. Between trying to keep my grades up while also making enough money to pay for all the damages I did to the school—conditions set by Principal Celestia after the whole incident—I rarely ever got a moment to myself. It was class, work, sleep, repeat.
Thankfully, my punishment was suspended, and that meant I wasn’t working myself to death anymore. That meant I finally had that sweet decompression time I’d been longing for.
Or, at least that’s what I thought it meant. I was starting to realize that my alone time was only a temporary vacuum, and now that I had friends, they would shove themselves right into that free space.
Maybe it’s not fair to put it that way. After all, no one was forcing me to do anything. Most of the time, they ask me really nicely. And while I appreciated that, it felt unfair.
When you’re friends with someone, it’s suddenly a lot harder to say no to certain things. In my case, it was even more difficult because of the history I had with the girls. Even if we all wanted to move on from the Fall Formal, it’s not like we could just forget about it. Outside of it being the biggest event of our lives so far, it’s also the thing that ultimately brought us all together. Everything we do and say to each other is underlined by what happened before and during that night.
Then again, it’s not like they ask nicely all the time. One time, Rainbow Dash invited me over to her house. Within the first twenty minutes of being there, she continually dropped hints about how her room needed to be cleaned, but that she didn’t know where to start. She was clearly taking advantage of our situation to make me clean her room.
And I’m not proud to admit I did.
So, when Rarity asked me to come over to her place sometime that week, it was already hard to find a reason to refuse. When she told me it was so she could repair my favorite jacket, it became impossible. And, honestly, it would be kind of stupid to say no. Why would I?
At our last sleepover, the first thing Rarity said to me wasn’t hi, it wasn’t ‘how are you,’ or anything like that. No, it was a comment about how ‘ratty’ my leather jacket was. And while it had definitely seen some wear and tear (mostly thanks to getting cratered at the Fall Formal), it held up surprisingly well in spite of that. There were a few threads hanging at the sleeves, and a couple rips at the bottom hem, but it looked fine. Besides, there was probably no way I could pay her to do it.
Leaning on my lack of funds, I used that as an excuse to decline. Of course, then Rarity told me she’d do it for free. She wanted to do me a favor so badly, and all she asked me to do in return was show up at a certain time after school. Plus, Rarity and I hadn’t ever had a chance to hang out alone; at least if you don’t count that short encounter at the mall. In the end, there was no way I could say no without looking like a jerk.
Standing at her door, I groaned. Knocking a second time, I could hear her voice muffled on the other side, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying. Even if the sounds of the nearby city streets weren’t drowning her out, she sounded too far away to be intelligible.
I checked the time on my phone. It was a couple minutes after the hour. She said to show up at four and promised this wouldn’t take longer than half an hour, but she’d already burned up two of those allotted minutes. If she was going to have me show up at a specific time like this, the least she could do is not lock me out.
Suddenly, the door swung open, but it wasn’t Rarity. It was some woman with long blue hair wearing a honey-colored sweater.
For the first time, I could clearly hear Rarity. “Thanks again for your commission! I can already tell you’re going to love my idea!”
“We’ll see about that!” the woman said before walking by me like I didn’t exist.
Rather than do the smart thing and enter Rarity’s house, I sat there and stared at her as she walked away. My attention was suddenly broken by a slam behind me. Then I just stood there wondering what to do. When I tried to turn the knob earlier, it was locked, and I didn’t want to try again. If it was still locked, I would look stupid, like a weirdo trying to enter a house I don’t own. Still, standing out here for this long by myself was probably starting to look even weirder.
Glancing side to side, I reached for the knob again. When I tried to turn it, it didn’t budge. This was getting irritating, and it was getting hard not to show it. The only thing worse than looking stupid in public is looking angry and stupid.
If Rarity had opened the door one second later, I might have accidentally knocked on her forehead. She looked stunned, no doubt by the fact that my fist was the first thing she saw upon opening the door.
“About time,” I tried to say playfully.
Rarity continued to stare for a moment. “Sunset, did you not hear me say come in?”
“Was I supposed to have a key?” I answered.
Another uncomfortable moment of staring. “What?”
“The door was locked.”
“It was not.”
“I literally just tried to open it and the knob wouldn’t turn.”
“Oh, goodness, that’s right.” Rarity grabbed the knob with a white(r)-knuckle grip, and turned it. “It feels a little stuck, but you’ve just got to give it a little elbow grease. It helps to pull it underhanded, too.”
Suddenly, I felt even more embarrassed about turning the knob twice. I really hoped she didn’t hear that.
“I do apologize for the confusion. I’ve asked mother and father to get it replaced, but they’re seldom around. Anyway, do come in.”
I trailed behind Rarity as she led the way inside. “Why don’t you have a sign on the door or something? That has to happen a lot, right?”
“Mmm? Not really, no. Everyone usually figures it out on their own.”
I wasn’t mad anymore, but I felt more stupid than I’d ever thought possible.
Rarity didn’t seem to notice. “Anyway, do make yourself at home. I’m going to run upstairs and fetch a few things. I’ll try to be quick!”
Looking around Rarity’s living room/shop-front room, I couldn’t help but remember the last time I was here. So many things happened that night, but for the moment, all I could fixate on was the couch I tripped and ate shit on. My eyes narrowed on it, as if it was possible to intimidate an inanimate object.
“Alright, darling. If you’ll step up onto that pedestal for me, I’ll assess the superficial damages first. Then I’ll have you take it off so I can get a more detailed look.”
The pedestal itself sat in front of a half-circle of mirrors, each one angled a little differently. When I stepped up, I was startled by my five reflections staring back at me.
“Now, turn and face me,” she said from behind.
I breathed a quiet sigh of relief.
Rarity circled me with a notepad and pen in her hands. At intervals, she’d stop, look closely at something on the jacket, and then jot down her observations. At least, that’s what I assumed they were. When I caught a glimpse of her notes, I raised an eyebrow.
“How can you read that?”
Rarity squinted at my left sleeve. “What? My notes?”
“Yeah,” I replied. “That looks worse than when I was first learning to write.”
I winced as Rarity shot me a deadpan glare. After a moment, she rolled her eyes and went back to looking over my jacket meticulously.
“I’m taking quick notes, darling. It doesn’t have to be legible to anyone but me, because I’m the only one who needs to read them. I take my time on most things, but I’m efficient where I can be.”
I nodded, decidedly shutting my mouth until the next time I was spoken to. Thinking before speaking is the opposite of riding a bike: I always forget.
Rarity took one last look over her notes before flipping her book closed.
“So, thankfully, I have all the materials I need to repair the outside, but it might take me a little longer than expected. I won’t know how much longer until I see it more closely.”
The fact that she gave an even longer estimate was kind of irritating, but I tried my best not to show it. With a frustrated sigh, I pulled my jacket off and handed it to her.
“Before I give it a closer look, would you indulge me?”
This time, I couldn’t help but let out an annoyed sigh. “What?” I asked.
“I understand, I know I’m asking for even more of your time, but I promise you’ll love this idea.”
“Okay, then tell me already.”
“If you’ll allow me to take your measurements, I can make you a new leather jacket! One that’s tailored to your measurements and exact specifications.”
That sounded nice, but I was immediately skeptical.
“Like, entirely custom made?”
She nodded. “With any colors, patterns, and accessories you can think of. Within reason, of course.”
I couldn’t help but start laughing.
“Rarity, there is no way I could pay to commission you on the money I make.”
“Pardon?” she replied. “Who said anything about a commission, darling? This would be a gift.”
“A gift?” I repeated.
She nodded.
“For what?”
Rarity looked stunned by my question. “…Because you’re my friend?”
“No, I mean, like, what’s the occasion?”
“Sunset, there doesn’t need to be an occasion for me to want to give you something.”
“Sure, but why me of all people?”
“Did you not hear me when I said you’re my friend?”
“No, that’s not what I mean, it’s just–”
When I felt Rarity’s hand on my shoulder, my brain reset.
“Do you mind if I take a guess?”
I nodded.
“You think that because of everything that’s happened between us, that I shouldn’t afford you the same kindness I would to any of my other friends. Is that right?”
Suddenly, it felt like a spotlight was on me. I almost tried to put my hands in my jacket pockets on instinct. Having it laid out like that was immensely embarrassing, but I was caught. She was right.
“I don’t know,” I lied.
“Well, if that is the case, I can understand why you’d think that. But you and I are friends now, and that means I’m going to treat you like I would any of them. I know our history makes things a little… tricky, shall we say? But the only way we’re ever going to get over that is if we stop treating each other like it just happened.”
“But it did just happen,” I argued. “We’re still in the same grade we were in when it happened.”
“And? It was still nearly six months ago,” she argued. “That was in the middle of last semester, and we’re halfway through the next one. That’s nearly two entire seasons worth of time. Yes, the Fall Formal will always remain a pivotal moment in our lives, but that doesn’t mean it has to overshadow every other moment from now on. I’m ready to move on from that chapter of my life, and I believe you are too, are you not?”
At first, I couldn’t muster any response to that. The Formal was still so fresh in my mind, but Rarity was right. It had been almost half a year since it happened. That’s a lot more time than it felt like.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” I finally said. “Are you sure you want to go through all that effort, though? I mean, you have clients who are paying you, so I would just be eating up your time for nothing, and you–”
“Sunset.” Her voice cut right through mine. “Just let me do something nice for you, would you?”
I opened my mouth to say something, but the pleading smile on Rarity’s face made it hard to want to argue.
“Fine, you win.”
“That’s more like it.” Her grin became a smirk. “As we spend more time together, you’ll find that’s almost always the case.”
“I’m not sure if I believe that,” I remarked. “The last time you told me something like that, it was about how you’re never wrong, and we both know how that went.”
“Yes, well, let’s continue to never speak of that again, shall we?”
Even though I was the one that brought that up, I conceded. That was a conversation we’d have years later, when both of us were too old to feel embarrassed by it.
I may have let her win, my curiosity wasn’t sated. “There’s one thing I still don’t get, though.”
Rarity was digging through something in a drawer when I asked my question, but stopped when she heard me.
“Why do you want to do this?” I asked.
She looked kind of annoyed that I would have such a question.
“My reasons are many, but I’ll give you one: your current jacket simply doesn’t fit you at all. In fact, your entire getup is ill-fitting, but that part of it most of all.”
I wasn’t about to tell her how self-conscious that made me.
“What are you talking about? This thing totally suits me!”
“I did not say suit, I said fit. That is a size too big for you, and it certainly shows.”
“First you tell me I dress like shit, and now you’re telling me I look small?”
Rarity chuckled. “Those were not my words. I’ll be honest, your aesthetic does leave a little to be desired. But I don’t mean that disparagingly! I can see your potential! And I can’t imagine you’ve ever given it much thought, have you?”
Part of me felt like I should be insulted. In fact, most of me did. Yet, somehow, I managed to bite that feeling back. I reminded myself she was ultimately doing me a favor. That, and maybe she was going somewhere with this. If she wasn’t, then I could snap.
“No,” I answered. “Before I came here, I didn’t even wear clothes. Getting dressed is just an obligation, so why would I care about what I’m wearing?”
Rarity shook her head. “But darling, it doesn’t have to be that way.”
“Sorry, Rarity, but I have enough to be neurotic about. I don’t need to be that way about my appearance, too.”
Rarity shot me an angry glare, but blinked it off and cleared her throat.
“But Sunset, think of what it could do for your image.”
“You’re losing me.”
“Think about it,” she said, circling me again. “Your wardrobe hasn’t changed a bit since before we were friends. Of course, we—me and the girls—know that you’ve changed on the inside, but to everyone else, all they have to go by is what’s outside.”
I nodded along, slowly putting together what she was getting at. I wasn’t happy with it, but I was starting to understand.
“Perhaps the student body doesn’t treat you as poorly as they used to, but it’s evident they’re still intimidated by you. And a change to your aesthetic is just what you need to alleviate that.”
“Why is that my problem, though?” I replied. “They’re the ones judging me unfairly—okay, maybe it’s actually pretty fair—but why do I have to change myself?”
“I’ll admit, that's a fair question to ask. But don’t you want to change it up a bit? Don’t you want the way you look to reflect who you know you are?”
I shrugged. “That seems a bit above my head, Rarity. I don’t think about these things.”
“Exactly!” she exclaimed. “And that’s why I’m so adamant. How do you expect to find yourself if you surrender to stagnation? Your aesthetic is the easiest part of yourself to change. Like your jacket! That strength of yours is obscured by ill-fitting fabric barely hanging off of your shoulders. But one tailored specifically for you will accurately reflect your stature.”
I chuckled. “What, are you gonna put padding in the sleeves to make it look like I have muscles?”
“As amusing of an idea as that may be, no.” She smiled. “But, if you’ll trust me, I promise you’ll love the result.”
There was no denying Rarity brought up some good points, but the next thing she said derailed me too hard to give them any thought.
“Now, take off your clothes.”
My eyes went wide. “Uhm, what?”
“If I’m going to take your measurements, I’ll need you to undress. You don’t have to take your underwear off, though.”
“Can’t you just do that through what I’m wearing?” I asked.
“Unless what you’re wearing is as thin as tissue paper, that would make any measurement I took inaccurate,” she answered. “When it comes to sizing, there are no half measures. It’s best to be precise first, then guess if you need to later on.”
As Rarity shuffled through a few more of her things, I stood there wondering what to do. On one hand, I really liked the idea of having a custom-fitted jacket, and who was I to say no to a gift like that? Had I known earlier it would involve stripping down, though, I might not have said yes.
Turning around, I saw all five of my reflections. Maybe the jacket did make me look kind of small, but the fact that it obscured my body was one of the reasons I liked it. In fact, most of my regular wardrobe choices were because of that. The looser the clothing, the harder it is to make out my shape, the harder it is to identify who and what I am.
But maybe that was the problem?
It wasn’t like I was deformed or anything. From what I could tell, I looked pretty average. I had a bit more mass and a good amount more height than most girls around my age, but I was ‘normal’ in most other ways.
But even after years of being on this side of the portal, I still wasn’t used to how strange my human body felt compared to my actual one. It was something that felt impossible to talk about with anyone.
When Flash and I were together, he tried telling me about all the things he liked about my body to make me feel better. While I’m sure he was being genuine, nothing he said stuck. When I tried to talk about it with my friends, they all felt inclined to deflect any negative comments I had about myself, but that never did anything for me either. I was never looking for a reason to think differently, because I more or less accepted that’s just how life was meant to be for me.
After all, I didn’t hate how I looked, so I didn’t need to be convinced why I should like it. I wasn’t content with the ambivalence, but it wasn’t making my life worse in any tangible way. Why rock the boat?
“Sunset?” Rarity broke me out of my stupor. “Is everything okay?”
“Huh? Yeah! It’s fine, I’m fine.”
Her expression told me she wasn’t buying it. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure! I-…” I wasn’t fooling either of us.
“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, Sunset. If you’re not comfortable, that’s all you have to say. We can always do this another day.”
I looked around the room like the answer was on a wall somewhere. Eventually, I closed my eyes and spit something out.
“It’s not that I’m uncomfortable about being nude or whatever—that was the default back where I grew up—but this body just looks… weird. And the way people react about nudity makes it feel even weirder.”
Rarity stepped behind me, her reflection appearing alongside all five of my own.
“You’re not afraid I’ll think it’s weird, are you?”
“Not really, no. I just don’t really like looking at myself any more than I have to.”
Rarity let out an exhale. When she began to speak, her voice was as soft as it was sincere.
“I would be lying if I said I didn’t know how that felt. Perhaps not in the same way you do, but I’ve found myself saying things like that.”
A breathy chuckle passed through my lips. “Really?”
“I know that may sound strange coming from someone who is as dedicated to their appearance as I am, but that’s why I obsess in the first place. That’s part of why fashion fascinates me; clothing does a lot to shape how you’re perceived. It communicates who you may be, who you may associate with. But not only that, it changes the way you look at yourself.”
She sat down on the pedestal next to me. “For instance, I’m not a fan of how broad my shoulders are, but there’s not much I can do to change it. However, with a v-neck and the right sleeves, they’re suddenly not all that noticeable. To me, at least.”
When I looked down at Rarity, I honestly couldn’t tell what she was talking about. Even if she weren’t compensating for it, I would have never thought that about her had she not pointed it out.
“And it’s not as if those qualities are ones I’ve been ridiculed for,” she continued. “Barring a few recent incidents, I’ve seldom ever been the subject of any bullying.”
I heaved an annoyed sigh, which Rarity caught immediately.
“Eheh, no offense.”
The girls made comments like that all the time, and I had the same stock response every single time.
“None taken,” I lied.
Rarity continued. “My point is: yes, it’s unfair that people expect you to change when you don’t want to. But does that have to mean that you can’t find a reason to do it for yourself, darling?”
I sat there, gazing into the panel of mirrors. It may have looked like I was thinking, but something else was happening inside my brain. Nothing Rarity said was anything I’d really given much thought to at all, and without a frame of reference, I didn’t know how to answer a question like that. What would ‘a reason to do it for myself’ even look like if I didn’t care?
Thankfully, Rarity was either asking rhetorically, or she just wasn’t interested in my answer.
“So, if you want to do this some other time, that’s fine. But I promise I will do what I can to make this as comfortable for you as possible.”
The staring contest I had with my reflections finally ended in a tie.
I pulled my shirt over my head. “Can you put spikes on the shoulders?”
Rarity’s face lit up, a blink between her sitting and standing. “I’ll do you one better: I’ll make it so you can take them off and put them back on at will!”
Rarity excitedly ran across the room, rummaging through a drawer for some measuring tape. As she did, I stripped all the way down to my underwear. Looking at my reflections one more time, my body still made my stomach turn. But maybe with the right fit, it wouldn’t be so bad.
When Rarity turned around, she breathed in heavily, almost like she was hiding a gasp. Even stranger than that, she started smiling.
“I told you this body is weird,” I half-joked. Truthfully, her reaction was like a sock to the gut, but I had to expect it, so I let it roll.
“There’s nothing wrong with you! That’s not why I’m–I just, I’m, um…”
“You’re just what?”
“Nothing, nothing at all.” She shook her head. “Let’s just get to work, shall we?”
That felt kind of awful right after our last conversation, but I wasn’t willing to make it an issue. I couldn’t think I looked strange and then get mad when someone reacted accordingly.
Rarity got to work measuring me. When she got up behind me, she paused.
“Goodness, Sunset, what happened to your back?” She sounded shocked.
As a testament to how little I looked in the mirror, I couldn’t even think of what she could be talking about at first. Then I remembered.
“Oh, yeah. That. Parting gift from the Fall Formal.”
“Did we do that?”
“No,” I answered. “Or at least I don’t think so.”
Rarity was standing behind me, but I could tell she was still gawking. This was getting frustrating.
“Does it hurt?” she asked. Rarity wasn’t touching them, but I could feel her getting closer.
I took a step forward. “Can we please get on with this?”
“Right,” she said. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to–”
“It’s fine,” I interrupted. “Let’s just not talk about it.”
Things were a little awkward after that. I felt bad about snapping at her, but that was a conversation I was planning on having with nobody at never. There wasn’t a single person alive in any world who I wanted to tell about all the souvenirs I got from that fateful night, least of all that one.
Thankfully, things quickly settled into the pattern for a while: make me stand a certain way, scribble in her notebook, and repeat. Her hands being so close to my body felt odd, so much so that I thought of something to talk about to distract myself.
“How did the band meeting go the other day?”
Seconds ticked by without an answer. Rarity was standing behind me, so I couldn’t tell if she was measuring me, or if that was actually the worst question I could have asked.
“It was a meeting, that’s for sure.”
“Descriptive,” I sarcastically replied.
“If I’m being honest, it wasn't much of a meeting at all, actually. We all shared ideas and whatnot, but it felt like the only ones that got any amount of discussion were whatever Rainbow Dash brought up. Aside from that, it doesn’t seem like we’re much on the same page yet.”
“Really?” I asked. “You guys sound so good already, though. Don’t you have to be on the same page to do that as a band?”
“Perhaps we’re still riding off the novelty, but hardly anyone seems like they can agree on anything. For instance, any time I suggest the slightest tweak to our aesthetic, Applejack shuts down the conversation by insisting we ‘worry more about soundin’ good than lookin’ it.’ It drives me absolutely mad.”
Her impression was so exaggerated that I couldn’t help but laugh, but in a feel-bad kind of way.
Before I could ask my next question, Rarity blindsided me once again.
“Would you mind unhooking your bra, darling?” she said from behind.
I could feel my face flush. “I thought you said I could leave that on.”
“That was before I saw you wearing a bra that size,” she replied. “I’m impressed you can even breathe in that thing.”
Reaching behind myself, I tried to undo the hooks, but wasn’t exactly sure what motion to do that with. For the most part, I just left it hooked. If I needed to take it off or put it back on, I did that like I would a shirt.
Eventually, Rarity got impatient. I tried and failed to suppress a shudder as I felt her fingers against my skin, her hands deftly unhooking it. Once it was unfastened, it fell to the floor.
Rarity gasped. “My goodness, Sunset. How are you able to function like that?”
“Like what?”
“That thing has got to be several sizes too small!” Her finger traced part of the red imprint across my midsection, the one always showed up after wearing that thing for more than a few hours. “Look at this! Didn’t you think there was something amiss? Your poor girls!”
I was starting to question whether or not I wanted to go along with this or not. So far, Rarity had spent a lot of time tearing me down, and I was losing my patience.
“In case you’re unaware, I’m not from here,” I firmly stated. “I was never interested in clothes when I lived in Equestria, and being required to wear them here makes me even less interested. So, yeah, maybe I dress like I don’t know what I’m doing because I don’t. So can you please stop rubbing it in?”
I could hear her take a step back behind me.
“My apologies, dear,” she said. “You’re absolutely right. I should be more considerate.”
My heart sank. Immediately, I started feeling guilty about talking to her that way, especially with how quickly she apologized.
“Look, I’m sorry,” I began, turning to face her. “It’s just that–”
Rarity looked like she’d seen a ghost.
“What?” I asked.
She pointed at my chest.
“Oh, right.” I quickly threw my arms over my breasts.
Rarity stammered, trying to get some words out. “L-Let’s just continue, shall we?”
Before I could answer, she grabbed my shoulders and almost forcibly turned me back around. It felt like she was trying to make me feel worse about myself, but it was also impossible to tell what was on her mind. Rarity could be harder to read than Pinkie Pie sometimes.
In an attempt to move on from All That, I asked another question.
“So, what did Applejack say when you told her that?”
“Hmm? Told her what?”
“That it ‘drives you mad,’ like you said.”
“I didn’t.”
“…You didn’t?”
“Of course not.”
“Why?”
“Because it simply isn’t worth it.”
“What do you mean–” I paused as the measuring tape pressed right against my boobs, an interrupting gasp escaping me, “–it isn’t worth it?”
“As much as I love our dear friend Applejack, she’s as stubborn as a mule.” Rarity pulled the measuring tape tight—maybe a bit too tight. “Sometimes, I can’t stand being around her. It’s like talking to a brick wall.” Rarity removed the tape, muttering what sounded like ‘unbelievable’ under her breath.
“With the stature to match,” I added.
Rarity let out a sharp laugh at that. “I can’t disagree.” She cleared her throat. “By the way, do keep this between us, would you, darling? Not that I’m trying to keep secrets from anyone, but I’d just rather not stir the pot.”
“Not like anyone ever asks what I think anyway,” I muttered under my breath.
“What was that, Sunset?”
“I said ‘no way anyone’s ever getting me… that, to say,’” I said, trying to cover my ass. “The thing you said, that is. Things, you said.”
Rarity looked a little confused, but thankfully didn’t press. After that, the conversation died out. She finally finished taking measurements and left me alone to get dressed while she fetched a few things from another room.
As I put my clothes back on, I kept thinking about the fact that Rarity wouldn’t even try to tell Applejack how she felt. I mean, far be it from me to tell anyone else to talk about their feelings, but it just seemed like such an easy solution. They were good friends, and AJ was the pragmatic type, so she would understand, right? At least, that’s how I thought it was supposed to work.
The longer I thought about it, the more concerning it became. Not just their situation, but the entire situation. First, Fluttershy complained to me about Rainbow Dash a while ago. Then Pinkie Pie mentioned the fact that no one tells her anything, and now Rarity was telling me this. Not talking to each other seemed to be a running theme in this group.
Admittedly, I kind of already knew that. It was how I pitted them against each other for so long, after all. But even after I stopped doing that, they still seemed at odds with each other. Maybe no one was shouting, or refusing to talk to each other yet, but what if it came to that? What would I even do?
And now, I was collecting their secrets; something I was historically bad at keeping. Not that I had any plans to start blabbing to anyone—I meant it when I said hardly anyone asks what I think—but what if I slipped up?
And would they believe me if it was an accident? Could I believe it was an accident, and not just some compulsion when a good opportunity to spill arises? Could I blame anyone for thinking a mistake I made with their sensitive information was actually malicious? That was kind of my whole thing for a while.
At what point did I have an obligation to say something? What if they all kept refusing to talk to each other? What if the group eventually imploded because of that? Would it be my fault since I could have done something but refused, even if my refusal was well-intended?
And even then, what could I do? What right did I have to even say anything in the first place? They were the ones supposed to be teaching me about friendship, not the other way around. For the first time in my life, I found myself wishing Twilight was there to help.
I felt relieved when Rarity finally came back into the room. Any longer and I might have been stuck in that spiral.
“I’m so sorry to keep you waiting, Sunset. I didn’t realize how late we were running. I know I’ve taken up plenty of your time today. So, if you’d like, you can leave your jacket with me tonight, and I’ll have it ready for you first thing tomorrow morning.”
When I arrived, I already wanted to leave. But after that storm of thoughts, I knew I’d just go home and ruminate.
Besides, Rarity was apologizing to me for taking too long to do favors for me. Things she really didn’t have to do. Things she just wanted to do.
What was another hour or so?
I shook my head. “I don’t mind sticking around a little longer."
A surprised look crossed Rarity's face. “Really?”
I smiled. “Yeah, I don’t have anywhere else to be.”
Author's Note
The idea for this chapter came to me not long after I finished Can You See What I See? (there's a line in chapter 9 that vaguely alludes to this moment) but I never knew what it looked like until I started writing this recently. This is probably one of the most personal things I've ever written, and I refuse to elaborate on that. Hope you enjoyed.
