Rarity stood in the middle of her circular design room, lost in thought as usual. She stared intently at her latest masterpiece, sticking out her tongue inquisitively, as usual. And as usual, sudden and powerful inspiration struck. With a loud gasp, she galloped across her room to search in her drawers for what she was sure was just what the dress needed.
“Perfect!” she said, looking over her work. The miniature model looked perfect. It was a simple light green summer dress, complete with white lace on the skirt, and the newly added white flower to put in the mane.
Rarity squealed in excitement. Never had such a simplistic looked so fantastic in her opinion. She only hoped her client loved it as much as her.
The shop bell rang loudly from downstairs. Rarity threw a cover over the filly-sized model. She didn’t want her favorite client to see it too soon.
Standing at the base of the stairwell was a small feminine unicorn. She stood with her saddlebags resting by her on the floor, staring up into the excited eyes of her older sister. She sighed softly out of the corner of her mouth, an action that went largely unnoticed by her ecstatic sibling.
“Welcome Sweetie Belle!” she called as she rushed down to embrace the stoic filly. Sweetie hugged back wordlessly, and they held the position for a moment before pulling away.
Rarity looked over her sister, admiring how much she had grown in the last few years. Her small smile shined softly as Rarity’s eyes fell onto her flank, a picture of a treble and bass clef in the shape of a heart emblazoned on the calm white surface. The smile faltered only for a moment before returning to its pristine beauty, another gesture that went unnoticed by the older mare.
“Such perfect timing! Our parents picked a great occasion to send you over for the weekend. I whipped up a little something special I want you to wear to Scootaloo’s birthday party. It’s upstairs. I just know you’re simply going to adore it!” She made her way up the stairway, expecting her sister to follow behind. She only heard the sound of her own hooves making contact with the wooden stairs.
“Well, you can’t very well see it from down there, Sweetie! Why don’t you follow me?”
Sweetie Belle looked to her hooves, still trying desperately to hold on to her smile. “M-maybe later, Sis. I need to… unpack,” she mumbled, lifting up her saddlebags and walking around the corner to head off to her guest room.
Rarity frowned. “Alright, I’ll be upstairs if you need me!” she called to her sister just as she heard the sound of door to the room shut loudly, ringing throughout the Carousel Boutique.
Rarity waited patiently upstairs for her sister’s arrival, choosing to use the time to work on another dress. It had been about an hour since Sweetie Belle had arrived, and she was starting to get worried about the fact that she hadn’t heard a single sound from downstairs. After getting frustrated with one of her designs, she decided she was going to go talk to Sweetie.
She made her way slowly down the hallway to the end where the guest room door was. To Rarity’s shock and distaste, she was met with the contents of Sweetie’s saddlebags strewn about in the front of the door. In a momentary stroke of anger, she floated the stuff and threw it all into the bag which was lying open against the wall. Floating the evidence in front of her, she charged into the room.
“Sweetie Belle, Honestly? I thought we made it past this whole making a mess thing!” she yelled as she stepped foot into the small bedroom. Sweetie Belle was lying on the bed, her stomach resting on the mattress, looking up at her enraged sister. Her fur was matted down around her eyes.
“You’re right, Rarity. I’m sorry,” she said, her lip starting to quiver.
Rarity’s expression softened drastically.
“Sweetie Belle, I-I didn’t mean to...”
Sweetie Belle couldn’t hold back any longer. She burst into tears. Rarity rushed over to her sister.
“It’s really not a big deal, Sweetie. I certainly didn’t expect you to get so upset about it,” she said, not comprehending the reality of the situation.
Rarity took a seat on the bed.
“That’s not i-it,” Sweetie Belle said between swift inhales. She gulped and cried with new vigor as her thoughts got the better of her. “Scootaloo didn’t invite me to her birthday party!”
Rarity was shocked. She wrapped a foreleg around her sibling. “Why on Earth would Scootaloo not invite you? You’re best friends! You’re both Cutie Mark Crusaders for Heaven’s sake!” Sweetie buried her face into Rarity’s chest.
“Not anymore!” she yelled, her voice muffled against Rarity’s body.
“Well, shouldn’t you be happy that you finally got what you wanted?” Rarity reasoned.
Sweetie Belle shook and continued her sorrow, not able to speak. Her sister held her close, shushing her quietly and trying to help her calm down. She stroked her mane softly, allowing her to let it all out.
After a few moments, Sweetie seemed to calm down a little bit. Rarity looked into her eyes empathetically.
“Alright, I want to know what happened, if you so choose to tell me.”
She sniffled before speaking. “Scootaloo seemed really happy when I first got my cutie mark. She was excited that one of us finally did it. We had a big slumber party in the clubhouse and everything to celebrate. But Scootaloo started acting strangely when Applebloom kept asking me questions about how it happened. She started pacing back and forth and looking out the window. We asked her what was up, and she said nothing was wrong, and went to lie down in her sleeping bag, telling us she was tired and wanted us to be quiet.” Her voice cracked a little bit as tears started to run down her cheeks again.
“Every day we hung out, she kept getting quieter and quieter. She wouldn’t talk about anything but getting a cutie mark. She started being mean to me; not in a loud way, but more like she would tell me to shut up or ignore me. I would ask her if something was wrong, but she would just say everything was fine.
“She would walk next to Applebloom and whisper things to her. I would ask what they were talking about and she would say, ‘oh, nothing. Just blank flank stuff.’ Sometimes she would whisper to Applebloom while pointing at me. Applebloom would start laughing nervously, then walk over to me and act like nothing happened.
"Applebloom would invite me to hang out with her without Scootaloo. It started to worry me. I even started getting attention from Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. They would invite me to tea parties and stuff, but all I wanted to do was have fun with my old friends.
"Then one day, Scootaloo snapped at me. She said I-I was becoming just like Diamond Tiara!” she cried, her voice threatening to crack under despair. “I don’t even know where that came from! She said I couldn’t be a Crusader anymore, and I said that it’s not my fault I got it before both of them, and she said I couldn’t come to her birthday party, and she didn’t want to be friends anymore!”
She wailed and cried as Rarity held her in both of her forelegs. She didn’t know what to do. The Cutie Mark Crusaders have been friends for as long as she can remember. She remembered them coming over to the boutique often for sleepovers and other things, and became rather fond of Scootaloo and Applebloom.
She recalled a time when she was walking and making conversation with Rainbow Dash. Somehow the conversation turned to the Crusader’s. They laughed and talked about all the times they had caused havoc for each of them, and the town in general. Then the conversation turned for the dark when the subject of Scootaloo came up.
Rainbow talked about how the filly comes from a really bad home. Her parents are hardly ever home, and when they are her father is usually sauced up and her mother is a frantic mess. They never pay any attention to her, either too inebriated to care, or too busy working to pay any attention to her. She runs away from home often, sometimes for days without her parents reporting her missing. She is, of course, either sleeping over at Sweetie Belle’s or Sweet Apple Acres.
Rainbow said she even one day caught Scootaloo sleeping all alone in the Crusader clubhouse one night during the winter when both Rarity and Applejack’s family were out of town for the holidays. She tried to explain to Rainbow that she was just trying to get a subzero cutie mark, but Rainbow told her how dangerous that was, and took her to sleep over at her cloud home.
As she searched for something to say, Rarity realized that the most likely reason that she was acting so cruelly to Sweetie Belle was because she never got any attention. But when one of her close friends earned her cutie mark, she saw what little praise she did receive shift over Sweetie. Scootaloo felt threatened by her, thinking that she would never get her cutie mark and becoming more and more jealous of her friend until she couldn’t hold back anymore. She lashed out at her violently as a result.
Tears of empathy welled up in Rarity’s eyes as the mumbled whines of her sister bounced off her white chest. The irony of the situation was sickening, and it must be unbearable for Sweetie. What was the entire goal of the Cutie Mark Crusader’s ended up being the thing that ruined their friendship. It was absurd, but it wasn’t Scootaloo’s fault, and it definitely wasn’t Sweetie’s.
“Listen, Sweetie. I know things seem bad right now, but you have to understand that there are some things that you don’t understand. It may be hard to think about, but Scootaloo is in a lot of pain too. I think if you give it time, you two will make up. She just needs some time to figure out what she did wrong, and I’m sure she’ll come back and apologize,” she said, looking warmly into her sister’s watery green eyes. Her sister wiped her tears away.
“Do you really think so?” she said, her frown slowly receding from her face.
Rarity affectionately nuzzled her dear sibling. “Don’t you worry. Now, I think you need to rest up a little bit, you’ve had a hard day.” She stood from the bed, leaving an only slightly satisfied Sweetie left to sulk on the sheets.
“W-where are you going?”
“Oh, I’ve just got to go take care of something that should have been done a long time ago,” she said, heading out the door.
Sweetie Belle was left in her room, alone with her thoughts. She cried, more softly this time, as she lay her head down on her feather pillow, exhausted from her emotional outpour. She closed her eyes as images of the days when she didn’t have a cutie mark filled her head. The days when everything was just a little bit simpler.
Rarity walked with a purpose up to the end of the street. Her destination was certain, she was heading straight to the foalcare agency in the center of Ponyville. She would have to inform Rainbow about the plans she had, as they directly related to her. She figured if a pegasus was in need of a role model, then Rainbow Dash was the best one she knew to fit the ticket, if given the responsibility. She only hoped she was ready for what was coming to her. She felt good, knowing that she was potentially going to be saving the life of a filly in a dangerous living situation.
Furrowing her brow, Rarity continued her march down the street.
