Easy as Lying
By Thanqol
“Rarity woke up.
The cave was curiously warm. When Rarity thought ‘cave’ she thought mud, monsters, and an environment designed to damage and consume all that was right and beautiful in the world. She thought of diamond dogs, violence and digging and a stench that still haunted her nightmares.
But here, there was no damp, no muck. The powdery red dirt she was lying on had the feel and consistency of soft desert sand. The air was thick and warm and stuffy, like a winter morning when she’d left the window closed and the fire on all night. It was dark, so she raised her head and her horn and began to fill the chamber with a silvery blue light.
In the blankness of her mind, the words of High Society For Little Ponies, her training manual on etiquette, drifted reflexively to the fore. “Restraint in all things. The difference between a Lady and a pretender is the ability to maintain composure.”
The cave was quite large. Larger than she’d expected.
And quite entirely filled with gold and jewels.
She had once explained her gem-finding spell to Twilight. It had been difficult, because the purple unicorn had wanted to break it down into a series of artificial spell structures and replicable patterns. Rarity still believed Twilight had completely missed the point even though she’d managed to reproduce the effects. The idea behind her spell wasn’t making the gems visible, or the dirt transparent, or even performing a structured magical working.
It was more like falling in love.
When gems were near, her heart lifted and fluttered. Her breath became short, her eyes became sharp, her thoughts became dreamy. Lesser concerns dropped away. It was like her soul woke up inside of her and dragged her forwards by the horn, and her mind and body reeled as they tried to catch up with it. The better the gem, the more beautiful and complete the feeling.
And love was necessary. Gems were beautiful creatures, and nothing could bring out beauty quite like love. A joyless cut and shine would create a humourless gemstone without hint of that laughing twinkle that separated the good from the great. You had to fuss over them, otherwise they wouldn’t turn out right. You had to sacrifice for them because otherwise they would have no value. You had to treasure them because otherwise they would not be treasures.
But even so, even with her head spinning from acres of treasure laid out before her, High Society For Little Ponies was quite clear on the importance of restraint. And so, it was with a dry, weak voice, Rarity looked at the enormous piles of riches and said simply, “Splendid.”
*
Rarity had once mused that it must become frightfully boring to swim around in a pool of diamonds and jewels all day. Today she had learned what a terrible lie that had been.
She’d thought it would get old, but it hadn’t. Her heart and head were still reeling. She felt the cold kiss of every unique diamond as her hooves swept through them. She felt the gleaming warmth of the tiara of star rubies she wore. She basked in the grudging love of the emeralds – gemstones that refused to go with her colouring but loved her all the same.
Every single stone here had a name, and a story, and she could stay here forever until she knew them all.
Her legs and stomach were still stained with the red dust she’d been sleeping on, and it was a dust that seemed to get everywhere. It slipped in amidst the gold and jewels, settling into her mane and clinging to her coat. Increasingly she found that she was unable to appreciate the gemstones properly because her haphazard diving and splashing was getting them, and her, increasingly dusty.
That didn’t mean she had to stop having fun though.
Settling into a discarded throne, Rarity selected one particularly dusty gemstone, levitated it up and brought it before her. With delicate, oh-so-delicate razor-sharp brushes of telekinesis, she gently scraped the dust from the gemstone and gently worked away at the tiny nicks and flaws that marred the gem’s perfection. She got lost in the detail work, scratching and carving until the stone was gleaming brighter than the day it had first been cut. Then she picked up another one.
She hummed a little tune as she worked. She fell increasingly into the moment. The gemstone, the assessment, the carving and cutting, the polish. Her thoughts wandered a little. What would her friends have done if they found themselves in a cave full of diamonds? Stomped around, made noise, and tried to escape no doubt. Oh, thank Celestia it was her here and not them. She wasn’t going to waste a chance like this.
Applejack would probably have used one to pick her teeth. Urgh.
But now that she thought about it, perhaps there was something to their unrefined reactions – oh, this was a tricky one, the poor darling had been so roughly treated he was downright depressive – because it would presumably get answers to some questions that she hadn’t quite worked out. Questions like where she was or how she’d got here. But, she resolved, a simple matter of amnesia and/or abduction was no cause to raise a fuss. Or at least not when her host was so fabulous. Besides, she was educated, intelligent and could simply apply her wits to answer those questions without leaving her beautiful new friends.
As she gently rewove the bent golden wire keeping a shining metal bird together, she considered. This quantity - and quality - of treasure meant dragon, that was quite clear. Her lack of memory could perhaps have been a result of a fainting spell following being kidnapped by said dragon. Her status as a living entity suggested that it did not intend to eat her – she’d read in Tempestuous Fires of the Heart that dragons sometimes kidnapped fillies to, er, marry them. As much as the theory of being kidnapped and, er, married against her will was bad and wrong and all that, whoever her captor was had taste. Just look at this gem encrusted rowboat! Who encrusted a rowboat with gems? A dragon who knew what he was doing, that was who.
“Of course,” she mused aloud, “if I did marry the dragon I’d probably have to live in this cave. And while the company is good,” she nuzzled a shining topaz, “and it is good, the bathing facilities are simply inadequate.” She held out one hoof which was now entirely a dusty red colour. “Red. Ick. I’m two shades off looking like Applejack’s better groomed sister.”
Oh yes, she pouted. Applejack. And the others. They’d probably come looking for her too. Kick down the door of the cave and rescue her from all of these wonderful diamonds. And she couldn’t exactly turn them down after they’d gone through all that trouble to rescue her, that would just be churlish and would virtually guarantee that nopony would rescue her next time. Rarity was becoming increasingly aware of how useful it was to be reliably rescued, because she was getting kidnapped an awful lot these days.
Like a huge, ugly, squatting toad sitting in its own slime and making a diseased croaking sound, she had to face the truth: She had to escape.
*
“Those ponies,” Rarity said through gritted teeth, “do not appreciate the sacrifices I make on their behalves.”
She was sweating in a most unladylike way as she walked along the edge of the cave. Her hooves clinked against gold, and she delicately picked her way across the sharp piles of diamonds. She had been unable to see an exit with the limited range of her horn’s light, so she’d walked in a straight line until she’d found a wall and was now following it until she found a way out.
She was still awestruck by the extent of the treasure hoard. Every step showed her more of it, and the knowledge of each additional gemstone was a further knife in her resolve.
The treasure ran so deep, and so thick that it had its own tectonics. Earlier she’d stepped on what seemed like just another patch of coins – but under the surface had been an unsteadily perched golden table, which shifted and slid and caused a treasurelanche that had buried her to the neck in riches. That had been all fun and games until she’d been poked in the eye by a statue of a unicorn. Now her eye was starting to swell and the amusement was quickly wearing off.
Worst was the dust. By this point she was a pony of red and purple, and every time she passed by a reflective surface she flinched at the clashing colours.
Oh, there was also the hunger and the exhaustion, those didn’t help. But she could suffer hardship so long as she didn’t look like she was suffering hardship. Right now she looked like she was suffering. That did not please her at all.
“Perhaps I was right the first time I said the pool of gems would be dull,” Rarity sighed.
Not much that could be done about any of it other than continuing to walk.
Time went on. Hunger started to claw at her stomach, and her throat was dry and dusty. She dropped all the gems and treasures she’d been wearing and carrying to make her trek just a little easier. She’d even called out for the dragon once or twice. Her mind had stopped processing the sheer quantity of treasure she was walking over, stimulated to the point where it was all just a numb, empty throb. She’d started wondering if the exit was buried underneath the treasure and she was trapped in.
“I would trade,” Rarity murmured aloud, “every piece of this treasure for an exit from this horrid cavern!”
When, moments later, she crested a hill of sapphires and spotted what looked like an exit, she came to her senses and stuffed her saddlebags full of riches before heading out. No reason to let some momentary madness come between her and these diamonds, after all.
The tunnels she walked along were ancient. The support beams were aged and cracked; every step sent a tiny puff of dust drifting down from the ceiling and she found herself catching her breath, remembering that loud noises could indeed cause avalanches. Suppose that would be a cave in indoors? She was better acquainted with dirthole terminology than she wanted to be.
There were old braziers that held torches long dead, rusted to the point where most of them had fallen off the cave walls and into the red sand. There were occasional moments where the cave opened up and she was walking on a narrow stone bridge over a huge underground lake, still and glistening. It was beautiful for a few seconds before a drop of muddy water dripped from the ceiling and traced a slimy line down her flank. A brief test of the water with a hooftip told her that it was filthy, freezing, and no doubt infested with cave leeches or other horrors. She continued on her way.
It occurred to her that the tunnel she was walking down was far too small for a dragon, especially one large enough to have accumulated the sheer amount of treasure in the main chamber. It was more suited to dogs or ponies, but she saw no signs of either. It was utterly silent, except for distant, echoing drips of water. It was utterly dark, all the light just reflections from her horn. It was utterly alone, without even a spider to keep her company.
*
Rarity was not above admitting she was lost. She was not above bemoaning the fact that she was lost very loudly, having long since realised there was a relationship between complaining about a problem and the problem being fixed. She spoke despite – perhaps because – nopony was around to hear her. The sound of her own voice, the familiar sound of complaining about a problem, reassured her that it was a problem that could be fixed.
“Red sand, red mud, red water, and they don’t even think to use bronze for the torches?” she sniffed, imagining herself in a Canterlot manor with an audience to chuckle along with her condemnations. “And the interior layout, honestly – If I were coerced into the designing of a cave, I would make the tunnels that incline upwards lead up. Not lead up just long enough to get a pony exhausted and then lead right back down to give the guest the feeling that all her hard work has been for nothing –“
Her contemptuous laugh sounded uncomfortably close to a sob, so she swiftly changed topics.
“Moreover, these support struts are not only unpainted, but they are virtually falling apart. I do believe a loud enough noise could bring this entire network tumbling down.“ Rarity was increasingly wondering if she would mind. The loud narration certainly not helping her chances, but she seemed in no danger of stopping. “And further, this place does not even provide the basic conveniences expected of caves. I have more experience with filthy caves than a lady really should, and I know that they are normally extremely wet and muddy. They are not" - she kicked her hoof - “dry and sandy! It’s a wonder the entire thing hasn’t caved in by now!”
She glared at her imaginary architect, a browbeaten, quavering pony cowering in the corner. With another haughty sniff, she turned tail on him and walked away.
It wasn’t until she realised that she wanted to go back and apologise to him that she realised how lonely she was.
“This is Twilight’s fault,” she abruptly decided. “Whenever I asked her to show me how to teleport, she rambled on and on about inconsequential mana theory and the history of obscure teleportation experiments rather than teaching it to me. ‘I’m just building up the necessary context’,” Rarity sneered. “The necessary context is someday your friend might find herself trapped, starving and needing to teleport to safety, you self-centred HORSE!”
The insult echoed through the silence. It carried away down the corridor, like it was being shouted back at her again, again, again...
She’d never asked Twilight to teach her how to teleport. She’d talked to Twilight about teleportation, but never asked to learn.
“Sorry,” she muttered under her breath.
She walked on in silence.
*
She had no idea how long she’d been down here. She had no idea how long the red tunnels would go on for.
“Maybe I’m dead,” she mused, though she felt far too hungry to be dead. “Maybe the dragon did eat me, and I’m a ghost, wandering these tunnels forever. Or maybe this is what the afterlife looks like?” she let the thought sink in for a moment, “That’s the most depressing thought I’ve ever had.”
She still couldn’t remember how she’d got here. It was like whenever she thought too hard about the transition between wherever she’d been before – Canterlot, she thought? – and where she was now, the thoughts just blurred and slipped away, like trying to remember a dream. Was this a dream? She bit herself on the leg to test it, let out a quiet ‘ow’, and then remembered that the earlier poke to the eye had tested that particular theory already.
There was another period of walking.
She was increasingly suspecting that the walking was meaningless. She could not bring herself to stop.
*
“I know what’s going to happen at the end of this,” Rarity announced darkly. “I’m going to turn this corner and find myself right back where I started.”
Alas, the universe denied her even that sweet irony. It was just another endless, dark corridor.
“Here lies Rarity,” the unicorn announced. “Walked around in the dark for a while. We will probably remember her.”
And, with all the dignity she could muster, she fell to the ground.
After a moment of thinking, she decided that her current position was rather unseemly to be found dead in, and adjusted to a more ladylike pose. And then she closed her eyes.
Death, infuriatingly, did not come. Instead she just kept being hungry and thirsty and tired and sore.
“Why can’t,” Rarity sighed, “this one thing go my way?”
A dream flickered through her head.
“Rarity! Am I plum diggity to see you!”
“Yes, quite... how long was I gone?”
“I durn reckon you were gone for six hours there.”
“Six... hours?”
“Yeah. Pretty good for a fancy pony, I didn’t expect you to last five!”
She sat up.
It didn’t feel like six hours. It felt like three days. But... how long had she ever spent walking like this in the dark before? Was she just being lazy? Was she giving up after less than a day of work? She had no idea.
She got to her hooves.”
*
No, this has gone on too long. She needs to be rescued.
*
“”Thank you.”
“You’re...” Rarity’s voice stumbled over the ‘welcome’.
Applejack blinked at her from across the table with her steel blue eyes.
“What? There somethin’ on my face?” Applejack said, looking at Rarity askance.
“No! Oh, no Applejack, I was just... distracted for a moment.” Rarity gave a short, airy laugh. She noted a few too many nerves jingling in with it, so she swiftly changed the topic. “And you just said ‘thank you’.”
“Yeah, so what?” Applejack said, guardedly. “I know some manners.”
“Normally you just say ‘thanks’, and usually in a tone not dissimilar to grunting at a particularly stubborn horsefly,” Rarity said, voice a little sing-song as she stood up and busied herself cleaning the remains of lunch off the table. She noted – without judging, she liked to think – that Applejack had even wiped her hooves when she came in from the rain. “Has Twilight been rubbing off on you, dear?”
Applejack rolled her eyes. “I take the time to articulate one right-sounding thing for your benefit and you go and reckon I’m forced into it by Twi’. In answer, no.”
“Then what is it?” Rarity said, vaguely aware she was pushing extremely hard at nothing. But the cleaning wasn’t taking her mind off the... thing. She stared intently at the red and white checkered dishrag, noting the patches of faint yellow discolouration that served as memories of the mustard Sweete Belle had spilled everywhere in her brief absence. Unbelievable, that foal –
“- and some of it bleeds across into speech.” Applejack finished saying. Rarity took her eyes off the dishrag.
“What?” she said, “I’m fine. What?”
“Rarity, you sure you’re feeling all right?” Applejack said, getting to her hooves. “Is this about the dragon?”
“ I’m not worried about any dragons!” Rarity said, too quickly. Then, “Why should I be worried about dragons?”
“Well, you haven’t exactly been the same since –“
“I have met dragons before, I have been in caves before, and I have been rescued before,” Rarity said coldly. “None of these things are new or troubling to me. I simply slept poorly. That is all.”
“Sorry, Rarity,” said the grey pony.
Rarity returned her attention to the stain on her washcloth. The stain had resisted all scrubbing. Her horn flashed, cutting the yellow from the fabric.
“You should be.”
*
“Professor Sparkle,” Rarity let the word linger in the air, feeling the resonance. “A natural fit, I think,”
“Thank you,” said the grey unicorn, blushing slightly as she stepped aside. Rarity stepped into the office and looked around.
If she had been the kind of pony to believe in ghosts, this would be a perfect place for a haunting. The ceiling was high and vaulted. Ancient and eldritch tomes were piled high, a single hideous Zebrican mask leered from the wall above, and Twilight’s desk was covered in paper rich in occult diagrams. Twilight followed her line of sight and laughed.
“Homework assignments. I wouldn’t cast any of those spells if I were you.”
“What do they do?” she said, looking over the papers.
“What do they do, or what do the students think they’re going to do?” Twilight laughed. “This one will send you to another world with no way back. This one will cause two ponies to switch bodies. This one will break a pegasus pony’s wing in mid flight. This one will lock you into a nightmare from which there is no escape...”
“That seems a bit... advanced for students,” Rarity said, not remembering of the kind from her – admittedly less structured – magic lessons.
“Oh, these students aren’t learning trivialities like how to chill the liquid in a tea cup,” Twilight said, sitting behind her desk. “They are learning how to break the world.”
“I – “
“Not that you’d ever need to know such things,” Twilight said, straightening her ugly red tie. Rain banged against the window outside, thick and muddy, like arterial blood from the throat of the world. “Not that most ponies should ever know such things. But ponies shouldn’t forget these things either. Ponies can forget many things, but the world will remember, and when they arise again we need to be prepared.”
“Like Discord?” Rarity suggested. Twilight’s mouth twitched with a faint smile.
“Yes. Like Discord.”
For a moment, the only sound was the rain.
“I – I made you a little something, for your birthday.” Rarity finally recovered. “I do hope you like it.”
“Please, show me,” Twilight Sparkle said.
Rarity lifted the cover off the hangar she’d carried with her into the university, revealing the dress. Beautiful, sleek, chill, light purples and blues and the hint of stars. It was lightweight and shining, and yet there was a hint of farmer chic to it – green and brown, around the collar, inspired by Applejack. Twilight’s blue eyes lit up with a smile as she saw it.
“Oh Rarity! I love it!” she said, not moving from behind her desk.
“Oh, that is such a relief,” Rarity said, letting out a tense breath. “I didn’t have you around in person to model off, so I had to go by memory..." She lifted the dress up, and then slowly looked between it and Twilight. “... and my memory seems to have completely deserted me.”
Blue and purple? What was she thinking? She knew as well as anypony that Twilight’s hair was red, yellow and orange! And her coat was grey! These were not things a pony forgot!
“Don’t say that, Rarity, it’s wonderful,” Twilight said earnestly.
“No. No it’s really not,” Rarity said, staring at the dress. “Don’t worry, Twilight. I’ll fix this up. Just give me a few days, I’ll clear all this right up.”
Without waiting for Twilight’s protestations, she grabbed the dress in her teeth and galloped out the door. She ran down the stairs and out into the alley. Mud was still pouring from the sky, thick and cold, staining her mane and coat.
She threw the horrible mistake of a dress into the dirt. She stomped it once. She turned to leave. She turned back. With a choked cry of rage, Rarity tore the dress in half and hurtled it into the flooding river.
She galloped away.
*
“Are you okay, Rarity?” Sweetie Belle asked as she galloped in from the mud.
“No, Sweetie Belle,” Rarity said, drawing the sewing machine and fabric to her, not even bothering to clean off, “I might -” she said, then had to cut herself off as she started working.
“Hey! You always yell at me when I tramps mud in,” Sweetie Belle said, looking at the trail of mud Rarity had left behind her.
“I might –“ Rarity hissed, “might be losing my mind just a little bit.”
“Losing your mind?” Sweetie Belle echoed. Rarity swallowed and nodded, the fabric flying around her. “Can I help?”
“No, Sweetie Belle,” Rarity said.
“Can I at least go outside?” Sweetie Belle asked, “I mean, if you get to play in the mud I should be able to as well.”
“What? Oh. Yes. Sure,” Rarity said. A thought occurred. “And if you see Rainbow Dash tell her that she must have hurricaned up a pig farm or something, because this type of weather is outright unacceptable.”
“But you’re not going to clean it off?” Sweetie Belle asked.
“I am busy Sweetie!” Rarity hissed.
“Which means you’re not going to make me clean it off either?” There was a hopeful tone in that voice which, even distracted, Rarity saw the need to crush.
“If you think you are going to so much as touch your bed while encrusted with that filth then it is you who has lost her mind,” Rarity said. “We shall both have a bath. Later.”
Sweetie Belle nodded, decided that was good enough, and bounced out the door. Rarity resumed her work.
There was no music to it, no singing to help her focus. The cold, the wet, the mud all distracted her, ate away at her attention.
But they soon began to fade into the background. Once she started working all the reasons not to work became less important.
*
“You got a problem with the way I run my skies?”
Rarity snapped around. “You got a problem that’s stopping you from running your skies properly?”
“You think that it’s easy to spin a cumulus at twenty thousand feet during a hurricane?” Rainbow Dash growled, stomping into the Boutique. “You think it’s easy to fight off a storm like this one?”
“I just thought,” Rarity sniffed, “that you were meant to be the best.”
“I am the best.”
“Ah. So your best isn’t good enough.”
There was a threatening stillness in the air.
Rarity gently lifted the scissors with her magic, behind Rainbow’s back.
Then Rainbow Dash burst into laughter, flopping onto the ground in a filthy mess of grey feathers and mud. Rarity laughed too. She wished her laugh wasn’t so strained.
She replaced the scissors.
“Wow, Rarity, you looked really mad for a moment there,” Rainbow chuckled.
“Ahah-ha,” Rarity said. “Had you going, did I?”
“Yeah! You should teach me how to act like that! I could barely keep a straight face,” Rainbow laughed, getting to her hooves – and then following Rarity’s line of sight. “...Oh yeah. Sorry about the mud.”
“It’s fine. I can’t imagine what it must be like to fly through all that,” Rarity said, resisting the urge to fetch a mop.
“There’s no visibility, like, at all. These goggles?” She tapped the two solid mud circles on her head. “You can’t see anything.”
“Then how –“
“We sing!” Rainbow Dash looked proud. “Old pegasus tradition. When the mud or the snow is too thick to see through then everypony sings so we can hear each other and keep our positions and formations straight. I always thought it sounded kind of lame when they told us about it in flight school, but it’s totally different when you’re up there in the clouds.”
“What kinds of songs?” Rarity said, fascinated. As her attention lapsed, she unconsciously picked up the mop and started dealing with Rainbow’s muddy wake.
“There are a lot of war songs, from the old days. Pegatopian military code,” Rainbow Dash said. “Through The Night, that’s the famous one. But we do modern songs too. It’s like living the music and the storm at the same time.”
Rarity imagined. Blind ponies in the sky, working together through the darkest blizzards. Trusting each other. Working to subdue a thunderstorm with hooves and wings and music and courage –
“Hey, what’s this?” Rainbow Dash said, looking at her new dress.
“Oh... that? That’s a gift for Twilight. It’s her birthday,” Rarity smiled thinly as she was brought back to reality.
“Huh. I think it’d look great on her,” Rainbow Dash said.
Rarity’s smile became much more terse. A compliment from Rainbow Dash, while the sentiment was appreciated, was cause enough to make her reassess her work.
She blinked.
This wasn’t a dress for Twilight. This wasn’t a dress that would remotely fit Twilight. The cut was far too low, the colours were wrong again, there was far too much silver –
“Hey, isn’t Twilight’s birthday today?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“Yes, what of it?” Rarity said, turning and regaining her focus.
“Well, it’s a three day walk to Hoofington. How are you going to get it to her in time?”
“No it’s not, I was just... Oh, I must have lost track of time.” Rarity said. Without knowing why, she started to grin.
“It’s fine though.
“I’ll just use my magic –" her horn started to glow –"
*
Rarity can’t cast that spell
She doesn’t need to cast that spell
She was in Hoofington all along.
*
“- and a large, bejewelled umbrella floated into place “- and fetch my... umbrella,” Rarity said. She felt like she’d lost track of that sentence.
“Sorry we haven’t got that storm under control yet,” said Rainbow Dash.”
*
Rainbow Dash wouldn’t be in Hoofington.
This is Cloud Kicker
*
““It’s fine,” said Rarity. “Not every pegasus can be Rainbow Dash, after all.”
“Not for lack of trying, ma’am,” said Cloud Kicker. “With luck I’ll get the chance to try proper, though. You know she dropped out of the Wonderbolts?”
“Oh yes, I got a letter about that...” Rarity said. “I haven’t... seen her since. Poor girl, I wonder how she’s holding up.”
“With good company, I hope,” said Cloud Kicker. “Anyway, ma’am, I’ll let you get back to work.”
The weather pony saluted, and marched out the door.
Rarity put down the scissors and picked up the mop. As she cleaned the muddy hoof prints left by the weather pony, a strange song echoed through her head. She murmured the words aloud as she worked.
“Our life is a journey
through winter and night
we search for our way
in a sky without light...””
*
I don’t know what’s wrong with her.
She needs to cheer up.
Or be cheered up.
*
“Canterlot! She was still amazed – and still slightly envious – that Twilight Sparkle had been invited to hold her birthday celebration in Canterlot again. It must be nice having the personal ear of the Princess. Still, Rarity had to remember that she made her way in this world this far without fine breeding or aristocratic favour, and while those things would indeed be wonderful to have they would simply not serve as obstacles to her rise.
It was a beautiful starlit night, without a cloud in the sky. The muddy rain pelted down all around them, keeping them confined to the interior of the hall. Rarity found it awkward that they were celebrating a party in the shadow of a stained glass window commemorating their victory over Nightmare Moon. She found the existence of such a window awkward in the first place. “Welcome back sister, I got you this window commemorating your humiliating defeat”?
She winced. What was she thinking?
What was –
“Hey Rarity! Are you having fun? Did I add too many streamers? Did I spike the punch too much?”
“You who the punch?” Rarity asked. Hadn’t that meant -
“Spiked. You know. As in salted!” Pinkie Pie, the poorly named grey earth pony, blinked with a wide smile.
“You put salt in the punch.” Rarity said flatly.
“I wanted to see if it was possible to get the Princess drunk,” Pinkie said in a low whisper. “Rainbow Dash bet me I couldn’t.”
“Aha-ha-ha,” Rarity said, eyes drifting across the room where Princess Celestia was downing what looked like her fourth glass of punch. She was talking closely to Twilight Sparkle, one grey wing wrapped around her student, but the only words Rarity could make out were “My wings are so pretty!”
She also noted that Rainbow Dash was drinking a fair bit of punch herself.
Fluttershy and Applejack were standing off to the side, exchanging dark glances.
Rarity didn’t even want to consider how badly this was likely to turn out.
“So-ooo, what did you get Twilight?”
“I got her a new tie!” Pinkie held up a horrible red tie, the same shade as her own. “It matches mine,” she said happily.
Well, Rarity thought, it was progress... of a sort.
“And what did you get her, Rarity?”
Rarity’s eyes were drawn to the dress she’d made. Silver and blue and far too large and elaborate, wafting like gossamer, swallowed by its own inner darkness. It was the wrong colour. It was the wrong everything. It was the best dress she had ever made and it was not a dress for Twilight Sparkle.
“I’m a Princess,” she heard the words slurred from across the room. “Would you like to be a Princess too?”
“I think that means I win our bet,” Pinkie Pie said brightly.
“Princess Celestia, I think Twilight an’ I will be goin’ home now if you don’t mind.”
“Why don’t you girls all come fly with me?”
“Pinkie,” Rarity said, “if you don’t mind, I think I’ll duck out for a bit of air.”
Pinkie was too busy watching Applejack try to extract Twilight from the Princess’ clutches, while trying to avoid falling into the Princess’ clutches herself. Rarity smiled awkwardly, backed up and fled the room, into the rain.
She took the dress with her.
*
“We thank you for the dress, Lady Rarity,” said Princess Luna quietly.
The royal library was huge and dark, and the books were the least strange of the treasures hidden within it. Stone statues of ancient wizards; crystal artefacts, old machines. The air smelled of dust and paper, the air was quiet and still, and the atmosphere was the intimidating, deathly quiet of a crypt. Rarity shivered in the cold.
She realised, swallowing, that she had never seen Princess Luna in the dark before. Far from being the frail, awkward pony she seemed in direct sunlight, the goddess seemed to fill the empty blackness. The dim torchlight twisted and wove around her, dying just after reaching her coat, as though the shadows of the library were strangling the light. Now and then, a star passed in front of her face and she caught a glimpse of deep teal eyes and a stare like iron.
“You like it? I realised after I’d made it that it would suit you –“ Rarity started.
“May I ask you something?” Luna said, cutting her off.
“Uh –“ Rarity completely lost her train of thought. “Of course.”
“What is the occasion?”
Rarity gaped for a moment, but her mouth said the only thing that came to mind. She’d made the dress for Twilight’s birthday. But now that she thought about that, she had already been to Twilight’s birthday weeks ago and given her a dress then. And the dress had been perfect, except for the fact that it didn’t suit Twilight at all –
Luna’s gaze was steady. Rarity said the only thing she had in her mind. “Because it’s Twilight’s birthday.”
“You have made me a dress to celebrate another’s birthday?”
“No. I made this for Twilight. But it turned out wrong, just like the other one,” Rarity said haltingly.
Luna blinked slowly. “What was wrong with the other one?”
“I... forgot Twilight’s colours.”
“What are Twilight’s colours?”
Rarity was silent.
“You know as well as anypony that Twilight is purple, Applejack is orange, and that Rainbow Dash is not any shade of grey.” Luna said quietly. “What is colour?”
“What do you mean?” Rarity asked.
“Colour is the reflection of light,” Luna said, spreading her wings.
With a rush of air, all the candles went out, plunging them into utter darkness.
It was silent here, and still.
Hooves began to pace around her, clicking on stone.
“Where are you, Rarity?”
“I’m right here,” she said, mouth dry.”
Click
““No you’re not.””
Click
““But I – “”
Click
““Don’t think about the colours. Think about the darkness. Where are you, Rarity?”
Rarity’s head finally connected the dots, but she almost wished she hadn’t. Her heart jumped into her throat as her head whipped towards the princess. “I’m still in the caves?”
The hoofsteps stopped. “It is a possibility.”
Rarity squeezed her eyes shut and opened them into the darkness. She couldn’t think of what to say next. The thought that volunteered itself immediately was, ‘have I gone mad?’. Trapped in those caverns miles beneath the earth where nopony would ever find her, had she lost her sanity and retreated into her own mind?”
Click
““Is this the world you would really construct for yourself?” Luna asked, voice drifting out of the darkness.
“Are you saying somepony else is doing this to me?””
Click click
““Is it such a surprise?””
Click click – a candle appeared in the distant blackness
““Who? Who’s doing this?” Her heart pounded in anger. She’d been trapped here for days, it felt like – why?
“I do not know,” Luna said.
“If none of this is real –“ Rarity said, “Then who are you?””
Click click - two candles
““You,” Luna responded plainly, “Or rather, your magic. There is something wrong with your mind, which is why you sought me out.”
“Then help me! How do I escape?”
“You are being lied to, Rarity,” Luna said. “Lied to deeply. Lied to comprehensively. Even I am lying to you.””
CLICK. CLICK. CLICK. The sky was bright with candles.
““- but you’re meant to be helping me!” Rarity almost screamed in frustration.
“I am. This is important, Rarity. Everything you have been told is a lie, Rarity. Everything, Rarity. I am going to lie to you, Rarity.””
I promise that I will appreciate you.
*
“She stood on the catwalk, admiring eyes of thousands upon her. The dress was spectacular, a simple creation of dusty red, as thin and translucent as dust. It didn’t go with her colouring at all, but still they cheered. She could make anything work.
The spotlights focused on her, blindingly bright. All she could see of the audience was grey silhouettes cheering in the audience. Everypony loved her. She was on the top of the world.
“Fillies and gentlecolts, that was Ponyville’s own Rarity!” said Fancy Pants coming out onto the stage to meet her. The applause went even higher. “And I do say that she’s succeeded in putting her town on the map! Miss Rarity, what gave you the idea for this line of dresses?”
“Well, I got lost in a cave,” she said modestly. The crowd roared.
“That’s why Rarity is the best designer in Canterlot,” Fancy Pants said. “She gets out of the studio and takes her inspiration from the world! I can’t think of any other unicorn who’s serious enough about her work to do that. And if you could make one change to the world, Miss Rarity?”
“I’d make it darker,” she said.
“Ha! A true Lunarian!” Fancy Pants said. “And our last question –“
“Actually,” Rarity said, raising a hoof and cutting him off. “I can make that change right now.”
Her horn flashed.
The spotlights wrenched free of their bindings, fell onto the screaming audience below, and for a moment there was total darkness –“
*
I promise I will understand you.
*
“”Sweetie Belle!” Rarity shouted. “Wipe your hooves when you come in!”
“But you didn’t,” Sweetie Belle sulked.
“That’s because I was busy,” Rarity sniffed, though the justification made no sense. She shoved aside the silver dress roughly and turned to face her sister. “Listen, Sweetie, what I had to do could not wait. But you must take care of yourself. The difference between a Lady and a pretender is the ability to maintain composure.”
“Composure?”
“Yes. Even when going mad,” Rarity said, nodding happily.”
She’s not going mad
“Rarity picked up the scissors. She smiled vaguely.
“Uh, Rarity?”
“Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing,” Rarity said. “I know exactly what I’m doing.”
She walked slowly towards her sister, tail swishing along the ground, flicking little specks of mud to either side of her. The wind battered at the windows, mud rain slashing across it.
Sweetie Belle bolted for the door. Rarity’s horn flashed and it slammed closed. She kept her steady pace towards her cowering sister. She paused, scraping her telekinesis along the scissor blades, sharpening them delicately.
Sweetie Belle tried desperately to use her magic, but Rarity lifted her up in the air easily. She brought the scissors up, gently alongside Sweetie Belle’s horn. Sweetie Belle screamed.
“Shhh,” said Rarity, snipping the scissors. Orange hair fell to the ground. “Shhh, shhh, shhh.” Snip, snip, snip. Cutting right alongside the scalp, sending hair like autumn leaves swirling to the ground. “Maintain your composure,” Rarity murmured as she sliced through Sweetie Belle’s mane.
“Rarity,” Sweetie Belle gasped, “please...”
“Do you know what this is, Sweetie Belle?” Rarity murmured, continuing to cut her sister’s hair.
“Rarity –“
“You know that I should get mad at you being muddy, don’t you?” Rarity said, “You know that I should get mad at you for being an insufferably messy distraction from what’s important? You know that. That’s what I’m meant to do.”
She flicked her scissors down to Sweetie Belle’s tail. Huge clumps of hair fell to the ground with each snip.
“I’m supposed to care for you, Sweetie Belle, and care for your appearance. Gosh I’m predictable,” she mused to herself.
“Please,” her sister begged through tears.
“I’m not being predictable any more, Sweetie,” Rarity said, unceremoniously dropping her bald sister to the ground. She sat in the middle of piles of her orange hair, stunned. “I have had enough of this.””
*
I promise to stand beside you!
*
“The muddy rain pounded outside, but inside there was warmth, and music, and dancing. Rarity and Twilight stood side by side, staring out into the thick brown storm.
“Where does this rain come from?” Rarity said quietly. From behind them came the sound of music, dancing, laughter.
“You don’t recognise it?” said Twilight Sparkle, surprise in her voice.
“Recognise it from where?” Rarity blinked.
Twilight gave her a silent, expectant stare.
“What are you saying, Twilight?”
“Haven’t you noticed anything strange recently, Rarity?” asked the grey unicorn. “What day is it?”
“It’s... it’s your birthday.”
“What day was it when you came to see me in Trottingham a week ago?”
“It... it was...” Rarity was silent.
“It was my birthday,” Twilight said, nodding. “Who has the power to make something like this happen? Who has caused weather like this before?”
The thought coiled like a snake in her mind. “Discord.”
The rain pounded the stained glass windows. The party music continued, tinny in the background.
“Don’t worry, Rarity. We will defeat him,” Twilight said, “We will use the Elements of Harmony and confront him again. He will regret causing all this suffering.”
Princess Celestia walked towards them, holding the diamond encrusted box that held the Elements of Harmony. She opened it, revealing the beautiful jewels. Each one floated over to one of the grey ponies.
Rarity smiled as she accepted the diamond-shaped Element of Generosity.
She smiled as she dropped it on the ground and put her hoof through it.
“DON’T LIE TO ME!” she screamed.”
*
I’m not lying to you!
*
“The dragon roared. The green fire scorched the roof of the vast cave. The treasure under her hooves shook as the enormous beast came forwards. Red dust fell from the ceiling with each massive crash of feet.
Rarity stood, surrounded by floating diamonds. Rage, incoherent and total, ran through her veins. She snatched up a beautiful amethyst from the ground and flung it at the dragon as hard as she could. The gem screamed through the air and struck, piercing scales and lodging in the dragon’s neck. It roared with fury and surged forwards. Rarity snatched more gems and hurtled them. She didn’t wait to see if they hit or if they did damage - she just lifted and threw as fast as she could.
The treasure surged and flowed like water as the dragon came forwards, shaking and shifting under her hooves but she held her ground. The mouth opened, deep and red and filled with fire, big enough to swallow her whole. She fired another gem right down its throat.
Then the fire came.
And then, was darkness.
Princess Luna surged forwards, mane alight with stars. Her horn flashed and the dragon screamed – a high, terrible sound like the breaking of a prehistoric age. Blood fountained, spraying the gold and mixing with the red dust.
Rarity galloped forwards –“
And when she looked into his eyes she realised who he was. And her heart softened, and filled with love -
“- and she sent the diamond through his eye and into his brain.”
*
And it felt like the world was living in that split-second of a crash.
The darkness was absolute, contained within the interior of his eyes. Red patterns flowed through the emptiness. Nothing was right. The story had gone wrong. It was supposed to be so simple.
It was supposed to be a love story. It was supposed to be a simple love story. It was supposed to be so easy. Why couldn’t he tell a simple love story?
“Rarity.”
He looked up. The two ponies stood before him. Rarity – white, radiant, shining with the finality of perfection. Luna, standing beside her, calm and impassive and serene. They were like sisters, standing inviolate amidst the ruins of the dream.
“Is it over?” Rarity asked, quietly, as if she already knew the answer.
“Yes, Rarity. It is over,” Luna said.
He felt himself being lifted. He raised his hands in surrender.
“Luna?” Rarity asked vaguely.
“Yes?”
“You said that you would lie to me.”
“I did.”
“Then tell me,” said the unicorn. “Who am I?”
“You are Rarity the Unicorn,” said Princess Luna.
Rarity nodded quietly.
Luna’s head snapped backwards. There was a sickening crunch. She fell to the ground like a sack of wet meat.
Rarity looked him in the eyes.
“Who am I?”
You are the one I dream of. You are the one I love. You are the one who possesses every waking thought and every dreaming desire. You are my destiny. You are my everything. You are Rarity!
“No,” said Rarity. “I am less than that. I am less than her. I am a fantasy. I am a daydream. I am compliant and beautiful and in need of rescuing. I am an illusion.”
No! I need you!
“Your first lie to me was ‘Rarity woke up’. But I am not Rarity, and I did not wake up.”
And Spike started to cry.
What is wrong with me? Why did everything fall apart? Why can’t I even have this one dream? Why can’t I rule in my own head?
“Because,” said the pony in the mask, “the dream is not enough.”
What?
“Do you think you could contain everything Rarity is in your own head, your own words, your own story? Did you have one original idea in this little tale of yours? Or was it all stolen? Was it all borrowed?” she asked, letting down her orange and golden mane, brushing dust off her grey coat, “Was this dream sufficient?”
No. It wasn’t. It felt weak and hollow.
“Your idea of Rarity is false,” said the masked pony. “You have built up an image of her in your head, a collection of anecdotes, a sum of personality traits and familiar scenarios you can put together and say, ‘This is Rarity!’. But it’s not. And that illusion can take on a life of its own.”
Is that what you are?
She smiled. “Yes.”
Who are you?
“I am the Mask,” said she. “Born in fear. Forged in darkness. A cheap substitute for a face. An excuse. An expectation.”
Then why did you do all this? Why break everything apart?
“Because the expectation can never match up to reality,” said the pony, taking off her mask and smiling with steel blue eyes. “Because it is time to wake up and meet the real Rarity. I can’t be your fantasy anymore.”
But that doesn’t make any sense. You’re not a part of me, how can you be my fantasy?
“Sometimes fantasies take on lives of their own.”
Is that a lie?
“Yes.”
*
Spike woke up.
The cave was warm and dry and dusty. A single shaft of sunlight beamed down through the fractured roof, filling the room with a warm glow. Vines dangled from the roof. The treasure was filthy under all the dirt.
By his side slept a white unicorn, smiling peacefully. Her hair had untangled into a rough purple mess.
“Rarity?” he asked with a dry voice.
“Spike?” Rarity said, opening her eyes and looking up at him.
“I had a dream,” he said with a gentle smile. “But it doesn’t seem to matter anymore.”
They climbed out of the pit. They stood atop the mountain in the dawn sunlight and looked out over Equestria. A tropical rainforest spread in all directions, thick and lush and shrouded in a veil of fog. The ocean rolled in the distance like the end of the world. They didn’t know where they were, where they had been, or what to do. They didn’t have anypony there to meet them or anywhere to go next.
Rarity laughed and brushed back her hair, streaking it with red mud. It was something Spike had never seen her do. It was something he couldn’t have imagined her doing. It was a complete surprise, this tiny new thing far more fascinating than anything in this new world.
“I guess I didn’t know you as well as I thought,” Spike said.
“Oh? Why not?” Rarity asked softly, rubbing against him.
“You just rubbed mud through your hair,” Spike said.
Rarity laughed.
Then she stopped laughing.
“I did WHAT?”
*
