Rarity was on fire. Not the kind of “on fire” one might hoofbump about, but the kind of “on fire” that involved lots of screaming and heat.
Twilight Sparkle, staring at her enflamed friend dashing about, screaming for a bucket of water which she just couldn’t find, couldn’t help wondering how the day had gone so horribly wrong.
It was a perfectly nice fall night in Ponyville. If one didn’t include the town’s imminent doom in the forecast.
“The dam is about to explode!” Twilight screamed as she stared at Ponyville’s ever-perilous dam, beginning to crack under the strain of numerous cracks already present on its surface. For a moment, Twilight paused to consider her inner choice of words about how she had repeated “crack” so often, but dismissed it as having been away from Princess Celestia’s tower for too long.
“Use your magic or something,” Rainbow Dash slurred, hanging listlessly off a cloud. Dash became useless for a short while after cider season when she gave into despair over not getting some of the Apples’ precious nectar and inevitably ordered an inferior knockoff by mail or tried to brew her own; she was always out from bottle flu or actual flu for a few days as a result. Not even this big of a chance to be a hero to all of Ponyville could convince her to move.
Twilight glanced again at the dam, currently held back by the piecemeal efforts of a few brave pegasi.
“Dam it!” somepony said behind her.
Twilight whirled, intent on lecturing whoever was so crass as to resort to such a linguistically challenged choice of words. Even in the middle of a crisis, using such language just showed that somepony needed a thesaurus magically forced in their ears! At least then she could feel like she was doing something after her magic had proved useless. Leave it to the inconsiderate dam to explode the day after she’d nearly burnt her horn out re-shelving all the library’s books four times: a personal best!
Pinkie Pie stood, pink mouth agape in such a way that would have surely attracted flies were it warmer. Already, Twilight could smell the overpowering aroma of masticated sugar wafting from her friend’s mouth.
“Pinkie!” Twilight gasped, aghast at one of her friends being the culprit. “Such language!”
“Huh?” Pinkie’s ears flopped a few times, as though her inner radar was just now adjusting to Twilight’s presence. “Oh, what, you mean me saying ‘dam it?’”
“Pinkie!” Twilight drew her close with what little of her magic remained and lowered her voice. “There are foals present! What sort of example might you be setting?”
“Oh, Twilight, you’re so silly.” Pinkie effortlessly slipped from Twilight’s magical grasp (Twilight still wanted to know how an earth pony, even Pinkie, managed that) and bounded on a small rock nearby. “I was just pointing out that if that dam isn’t damming, then they should dam it! You know, plug the dyke up so it does its job and isn’t all wet!”
Nearby, a small orange pegasus foal tugged on her mother’s tail. “Mommy, what does it mean to plug a dyke and make it wet?” The child did not eat dinner that night.
“Anyway,” Pinkie continued, munching on a half-eaten cookie she pulled from her mane, “Isn’t it weird that nopony ever seems to notice that dam if it isn’t about to be destroyed? Or ever works there? Like it doesn’t actually exist all the time and like we’re all just the itsy-bitsy, little pony playthings of some—“
A pink earth pony with a bright yellow mane galloped up. “Oh, the horror! The horror! The dam is about to burst and we’re all going to be doomed!”
“I dunno, Lily,” Pinkie said, “Maybe we’ll just all suddenly realize we’re seaponies and swim away with our hoof fins!”
Twilight rubbed her aching temples. “Pinkie, I keep telling you, seaponies are a myth.”
“Madame Pinkie says otherwise, and she always sees the truth,” Pinkie said, speaking in a low tone and covering her muzzle with a leg mysteriously for a moment. After a few moments of silence, she dropped her leg back to the grass and resumed her normal cheer. “Or that’s what I hear from the rocks, anyway!”
“You can talk to… nevermind.” Twilight didn’t have time for Pinkie’s antics. Laughter wasn’t about to stop a dangerous dam. What they needed was magic to stop up the holes! However, with Twilight, really the only unicorn with any power worth writing about in Ponyville exhausted, there was nopony in town who could expend the massive effort needed to stop the impending disaster.
Spike came running up to Twilight. “Twilight, Twilight! I can’t find Rarity!”
“Just keep evacuating ponies, Spike! I’m sure she’s okay.”
“What if… what if she’s working on some way to save us? Some kind of super-absorbent fabric or… or…”
“Go, Spike!”
Spike literally hopped to it.
“Rarity coming to save us all. That’s a laugh. I’m pretty sure I have more magic in my nose than she has in her entire h—”
“One side, please! Everypony, please, out of the way! I must get through!” a familiar, trying-far-too-hard-to-be-posh voice cried.
“Oh good. Our savior is here,” Twilight muttered, her eye twitching. The day had taken its toll on her, and the last thing Twilight needed was another of her friends being annoying.
“Please! I must get through for the sake of all ponykind!”
Particularly Rarity.
Twilight ignored Pinkie, who was now debating the merits of a pastry-based dress with herself, and dragged herself over to the crowd of onlookers at the hoof of the dam. Rarity, covered with sweat and looking as radiantly self-assured as ever, darted to and fro at the back of the crowd, trying to find some way through that wouldn’t get her dirtier.
Feeling more and more like she wanted to fall asleep until she drowned, Twilight tapped her showboating friend on the neck. “Rarity?”
“Oh,Twilight, thank heavens you’re here! You must help me get to the dam!” Rarity cantered in place, looking for all the world like a little filly who needed to use the restroom. Twilight would have laughed were she feeling even less polite.
“So you can save us all?”
“Why, yes! I rushed straight over here after my fashion show after I heard. I think I should be able to do this!” Her beaming smile spoke volumes on confidence, and at this foolhardiness, Twilight felt herself snap.
Drawing on her scant magical power to mimic Princess Luna’s infamous Royal Canterlot Voice, she boomed, “Okay, everypony! Get out of the way! You need not fear! Rarity is here to save us. Stand back and behold the mighty heroine in all her glory!” Most ponies immediately skittered out of the way, but a few quivered in place. “Well? Go on! Give her room! Saving lives, as Rarity does on a daily basis, takes a lot of space, you know!”
Rarity stared at her friend. Twilight sported more bags under her eyes than she took on an overnight stay to Canterlot, and her frayed mane only accentuated her occasional twitch. “Dear, are you alright?”
Twilight’s gaze would have withered an oak.
“All right, all right, I was only asking.” Feeling the eyes of everypony on her, Rarity sauntered to just before the dam. All the pegasi had retreated to the skies, as a few cracks were starting to leak water onto the coats of any below. Rarity sidestepped all the water steams, preserving her precious mane.
Her horn lit up. “All right, you dastardly dam! Leaking water all over my town! You are a crime against all this is good and fashionable in the world. Your color is so plain, not to mention how you’re about to flood us all!”
Twilight dragged a hoof down her face. “So useful. Celestia, but I could use some coffee right about now.”
To the collective shock of the townspeople, the entire dam lit up with the soft glow of Rarity’s magic. Cliffsides from a nearby hill came zooming towards the dam, only to be gently melded into the dam, stopping all the rushing water. However, this did leave it with the appearance of having suddenly contracting a strange, dam version of the pox, as splotches of brown did nothing to improve its appearance.
“Oh, no, no, no!” Rarity screeched. “That wasn’t what I meant at all!” A giant corona overcame her horn as her magic worked, flying in paint and ribbons from all across town. As loved ones began to embrace, ecstatic over the danger having passed, Rarity began to work furiously to beautify the dam.
Twilight stood, mouth agape, as she watched Rarity work. “B-but that… I don’t… when did Rarity… what just happened?” A sizzling sound made her glance at the dynamo herself, who was lighting the countryside for miles around with the intense light off her horn. Rarity was performing deeds that would have given Cadance a headache on a good day, let alone a unicorn who was more used to moving scissors than mountains!
Smoke was rising from Rarity’s horn and coat. In a growing circle around her, steam rose from the pooled water as it evaporated. Twilight rushed down, only to stagger back from the intense heat. “Rarity! You have to stop!”
“Not now!” the unseen madmare cried, her body totally hidden by the billowing clouds of steam. “I’m almost done!”
“Rarity, please!” Twilight screamed, feeling her throat scald even as she backed away.
A scream of ecstasy came from the center of the steam, and all the moisture in the air was instantly swept away as the crowd beheld their savior, Rarity, in the center of a pillar of fire. “It’s done!”
“Rarity, you’re on fire!” somepony shouted.
The pillar shifted as the pony-shaped inferno galloped toward the crowd, not heeding how it parted before it. “Oh, I am, aren’t I? Doesn’t the dam look positively delightful now?!” Indeed, the dam was dazzling, sporting giant ribbons everywhere and done up like a Hearth’s Warming gift.
“No, Rarity!” Twilight croaked, pushing her vocal cords for all the volume she could muster. “You are literally on fire!”
The pillar paused and seemed to look down at itself, as though just now registering the searing heat. “Oh,” it said in Rarity’s voice.
Then, the screams of agony began.
“I just don’t understand, Princess Celestia,” Twilight sobbed into her mentor’s silky coat. “How could this happen?”
“There, there, Twilight Sparkle,” she cooed, stroking her grieving student’s mane with a gentle hoof. “There was nothing you could have done.”
Twilight sniffled and pulled away. The two were seating on a bench in an antechamber just off the throne room; Twilight had stormed in, demanding an explanation over what had happened to Rarity, only to burst into sobs over the thought of her friend, who now fit into a convenient urn displayed in Ponyville’s town square for her heroism.
“But no, how? Rarity shouldn’t have been able to do all that magic, let alone enough for it to set her on fire!”
“Actually, there is some precedent to this. Certain unicorns find that magic… works a little differently for them.” Her mouth turned up in a thin smile. “For some unicorns, having the adoration of many actually makes their magic more powerful. I’m not surprised Rarity was like that. After all, her talent was all about finding gems, things which only hold value thanks to their beauty to others. And since she had just come from a fashion show, the adoration must have been at its peak.”
Twilight blinked. Then blinked again. “I… huh? How come I never knew this? That doesn’t…”
“Unicorn magic is a complicated and mysterious thing, Twilight. It would take a very long time for any one pony to understand every facet of it, I’m afraid.” She tapped an idle hoof on the ground. “Hmm…” She peered at Twilight, regarding her as though for the first time.
“P-Princess? Do I have something on my face?” Twilight, panicking, rubbed her hooves all over her face, searching for some blemish or, Celestia forbid, a speck of ash. “I mean, I came straight here from Ponyville so I didn’t have time to wash up but I hope I’m not too awful. I mean, just the almost-destruction of Ponyville! That’s an excuse for looking a little unsightly, right? Right? I mean, you know I didn’t mean any—”
Celestia rested a gentle hoof on Twilight’s mouth, bringing a blush to her student’s cheeks and silencing her. “Please, relax, my little pony. For what you’ve been through, you look just fine.”
“Umm…” Twilight hummed until Celestia removed her gilded hoof. “Then why the sudden stare? Was it something I said?”
“More something I said, Twilight.”
Twilight shyly raked a hoof across the bench for a few moments before saying, “Still, why haven’t I heard about this before? It doesn’t make any sense. And if that’s how Rarity’s magic worked, why did she… she…” Twilight’s lip quivered as she thought of her fallen friend.
“Shh.” Celestia drew her in for a hug; she gently brushed Twilight’s mane. “Sometimes, a pony takes in or tries to use more power than they can handle. What Rarity did was very brave, but there’s only so much one horn can do.”
“I understand.” They sat that way, teacher comforting student, for a very long time, long past when Twilight had any tears to shed.
Sometime Later It Begins Again
Twilight Sparkle stood before a small marble pillar erected in the middle of Ponyville’s town square. It was a modest thing, not too flashy or particularly eye-grabbing in any way. It was kind of just there, standing as a stark reminder of the unfortunate events some months ago only to those who bothered to give it any mind. Most only did so when they bumped into it. Honestly, whoever was charged with finding a place for it chose a poor spot sticking it in the middle of the path.
Atop this pillar sat a golden urn, not much bigger than a mixing bowl and studded with bright, purple gemstones. Twilight saw herself in the urn’s dusty reflection and noted just how crestfallen her features were. She scuffed a hoof into the ground and lowered her head, feeling a wave of guilt wash over her. A small plaque had been placed at the foot of the pillar, coincidentally out of sight to the average passerby, and the words it read panged her heart.
”In memory of Rarity. Fashionista, friend, savior, and the adoration of many.”
Those last few words in particular stung her. Twilight glanced back up to the urn that she knew housed the remains of one of her closest friends. It felt like it was only yesterday when the Ponyville Dam was on the very edge of rupturing and flooding all of—
Twilight stopped herself. “Oh, right,” she mumbled, mulling over the fact that the very same dam nearly burst again just yesterday morning. In fact, it almost broke apart many times before. Twilight tried to recall all the times when its shoddy construction and continual ill repair threatened Ponyville, but there were so many instances she just couldn’t come close to counting them all. She simply couldn’t. She made a mental note to seriously find out if more could be done to fix that thing than supergluing it back together and sealing it with duct tape.
Twilight glanced at the plaque again and returned to her thoughts. Her horn sparked and a number of pebbles floated up off the ground and played in the air beside her. Her eyes narrowed at their innocent orbits and one by one, they shot off in random directions like little bullets. A distant scream confirmed what she had concluded all along: she was, in fact, a very powerful unicorn. But then why, she wondered, just why she was unable to fix the dam herself that one fateful day, the day she lost her friend and learned of an unsettling truth? She thought back to that one conversation with Princess Celestia several months ago, where she collapsed into her arms like a sputtering foal.
“There was nothing you could have done,” Celestia had told her then, and while she fully accepted that idea, Twilight still couldn’t come to grasp the explanation she had been given. The idea that a unicorn’s magical capabilities was directly related to “how admired” they were was utterly absurd! But the more she dwelled on the matter the more she saw how much sense it made, and the more confounded she became as to why she never figured this out herself, let alone been told it. It made sense because Princess Celestia was obviously the most popular pony in Equestria, therefore it’s only right that she’s the only pony powerful enough to raise the sun. And then there’s Princess Luna who had appeared practically out of nowhere to a kingdom that forgot her long ago, not to mention try and overthrow it again—a scenario where it made more sense for her to have stayed forgotten—but to have suddenly regained her status in such a short amount of time was very indicative of her prowess. Twilight wondered if she could raise the sun or the moon, but she didn’t even know where to begin for such a spell, and so she found herself feeling incredibly small. What a pathetic excuse for the Element of Magic she was.
Twilight felt silly having missed out on what was apparently common knowledge, that the more popular a unicorn was in the eyes of their peers, the more powerful they are with their magic. It made so much sense. Except for the apparent fact that Rarity was more popular than she was at the time, so much so she had overloaded and burst into flame and what remained of her ashes having been sealed inside this inconveniently placed urn in recognition of her sacrifice. Twilight felt uneased that she wasn’t just unpopular, but of all ponies Rarity was looked up to more than she. Honestly, Twilight was Celestia’s personal student for crying out loud! She was the key figure in saving Equestria many times over! How could anypony not come to appreciate her?
Perhaps she was being selfish. Obviously, Rarity had been around Ponyville longer than she had, so logically, she had more time to become renown than Twilight did. Still, it irked her that saving Equestria did nothing to help her image. Then she remembered what was coined as “The Smartypants Incident” and her mood fell drastically. Of course she’d done many commendable things, but she arguably had done just as many objectionable things if not more. Her mood only worsened as she recalled all the wrong she’d done around town and, what’s more, connected all these events to the exhaustion and fatigue she was keen on feeling soon thereafter. She gulped, coming to realize that perhaps the only things keeping her from losing her magical powers altogether were her ~~five~~ four closest friends, Spike, perhaps her family and Cadance too, and of course Princess Celestia—that last one in particular alone explained why she was so powerful right now. Should she move to Celestia’s bad side, no doubt her magic would wither up and die like a dried sponge.
“Twilight?” came a worried voice off to the side. Twilight blinked and glanced to her right to see her friend Fluttershy now standing beside her, her bright eyes wide and filled with concern. “Twilight, you’ve been standing here for seven hours straight. Are you feeling alright?”
“Yeah, I’m just...” Twilight began to say but sighed. “I’m just remembering what happened to Rarity.”
Fluttershy’s ears drooped. “Oh,” she said solemnly, but slowly a warm and sincere smile spread across her lips. “What Rarity did was amazing, Twilight, and you know that. She will forever remain in our hearts as not only a hero, but a beloved friend who was admired by all.”
Twilight frowned. “I know, but it’s just... I just can’t stop thinking about her. I feel like when she left us she took a piece of me with her.”
“She took a piece of all of us,” Fluttershy was quick to assure, causing Twilight to flinch. “Rarity is the kind of friend one meets once in a lifetime. But now she’s in a better place, and I think that once you come to accept this, only then will you be able to move on.”
“I have accepted that,” Twilight said. “I think. But I still just can’t get over the fact about how powerful she was that day.”
Fluttershy nodded. “Rarity was one of the most memorable ponies this town will have, so that has a great deal to do with what she did. She touched more lives with such sincerity and generosity than any one pony could ever hope to achieve; I don’t think anyone could ever forget her.”
Twilight lowered her gaze to floor.
“B-but that’s not to say she died in a bad way!” Fluttershy squeaked, eager to quickly get her friend out of her curiously worsening mood. “Even now, I think she’s one of the most popular ponies this town has had!”
Twilight choked back a sob.
Fluttershy patted her friend on the back. “Just... don’t beat yourself up so badly. I thought the Princess told you there was nothing that could be done? Yes, Rarity died, but... in her passing... we did walk away with our lives. Please, Twilight, don’t be so sad. It hurts me to see you like this.”
Twilight wiped a tear from her eye and looked back up to her friend. “You like me, right Fluttershy?”
“W-why of course!” Fluttershy exclaimed, a little taken aback. “You’re one of my best friends, Twilight! Whyever would you think that I don’t?”
Twilight said nothing to that and drew her friend into a warm embrace. Fluttershy squeaked in surprise, but quickly returned the motion with a hug of her own.
“Honestly, I haven’t thought much of Rarity,” Twilight eventually whispered over Fluttershy’s shoulder, trying her best to smile. “I mean, I never forgot her, but only recently have I really started to think about her. About her, her work, her family... I hate to admit I never stayed in contact with them long after her death. Sweetie Belle was probably devastated, and losing her sister before she could even do magic herself? The poor filly...”
Fluttershy blinked. “Who?”
Before the synapses within Twilight’s mind could so much as construe a single word, Rainbow Dash suddenly impacted the ground beside them with a thunderous boom. Both Twilight and Fluttershy jumped in surprise, squealing as their heartfelt hug became a frightened lock onto each other for dear life.
“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight yelled, pushing off of Fluttershy and coming to her hooves. “What in the blazes are you—”
“No time to explain!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed, grabbing her completely off guard by the arm. “Twilight! Fountain! Now!”
Fluttershy then stood up only to get knocked down again as Rainbow Dash shot off, dragging a screaming Twilight behind. Her wake rushed around the pathway with a powerful force, tipping the marble pillar precariously onto it’s edge. It stopped for a moment before rocking back into place, making the only evidence of Rainbow Dash’s presence being a very dazed and confused Fluttershy.
Rainbow Dash rocketed across town and into the marketplace. She expertly landed stationary on her hooves after pulling off the sudden deceleration, but Twilight had kept going, and she cartwheeled across the road and into a stall of cabbages. The unfortunate salespony wailed at the loss of his livelihood as Twilight lay sprawled atop the wreckage, her eyes spinning in their sockets. Rainbow Dash walked over and pulled her dizzy friend to her hooves and led her down the path towards the marketplace’s notable, inconspicuous fountain display.
“Look!” Rainbow Dash said and threw Twilight forward, who just barely stopped herself from teetering over into the water.
Twilight paused to let her vision stop swimming before looking at the fountain in front of her. “What is it?” she deadpanned, looking to her friend with a frown of annoyance.
“The water pressure!” Rainbow Dash pointed at the top of the fountain. “It’s gone!”
Twilight glanced up to the top of the fountain and concluded that, yes, in fact, the fountain had apparently stopped working properly. “So?” she asked. “Just call a plumber or somepony. Did you really have to drag me over here for this?”
“Twilight...” Rainbow Dash dragged a hoof over her face. “Don’t you get what this means?!”
“That Ponyville’s water system is worse than I thought?”
“Yes!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed. “This means the dam is malfunctioning! Again!”
At this realization, Twilight’s heart plummeted into the furthest reaches of her stomach. She glanced around the marketplace, at all the innocent and happy ponies going about their lives, at all their smiling faces and delightful interactions. Then, looming ominously in the distant background, stood Ponyville Dam, where a big band-aid had been placed over the latest leak. It was only a matter of time now before it started to fail completely, and unless Derpy was going to be making another delivery of giant band-aids just as it starts to collapse, then Ponyville would be doomed. Again.
Twilight’s train of thought fizzled as she suddenly wondered why this fountain acted as an early warning system, and for that matter why Rainbow Dash seemed to be the only pony who knew this and never bothered to alert anyone in the past.
“We gotta do something!” Rainbow Dash wailed. “The Wonderbolts are supposed to be coming to town later and it would totally be awful if the town was flooded!”
Twilight shot her a look. “Where was your enthusiasm the day Rarity died?”
Rainbow Dash ignored her question. “Twilight, please, you’re like the smartest unicorn ever! You gotta know by now how to prevent this from happening! Again!”
“I don’t!” Twilight admitted. “Wouldn’t the mayor by now have hired some professional to fix that thing for the long term?”
“My taxes are high enough already! I don’t know anything about politics!” Rainbow Dash said. “I only know awesome stuff! Can’t we, like, zap it with the Elements of Harmony or something?”
Twilight went to speak but quickly found herself blindsided by Rainbow Dash’s idea. It was a brilliant idea, actually. Why had she never thought of this before? Why had nopony ever thought of this before? The Elements of Harmony may be the deus ex machina, but Twilight was not above doing something like cheating if it now meant she could save the day. She’d become not just popular, but outright admired! Her image around town would start to repair and with it her magical prowess. This was an opportunity she was not about to let slip beyond her grasp.
Rainbow Dash lifted a hoof to her chin. “No, wait, we can’t do that. Rarity’s dead. No Element of Generosity.”
Twilight almost tripped over herself. “Figures,” she grumbled, silently cursing the universe and fate itself for whatever cruel grudge it apparently had with her.
“Maybe we could ask Princess Celestia?” Rainbow Dash offered. “I mean, if this fountain is any indication, we should have like a month before the dam starts to break apart again, barring any external forces of course.”
Twilight made a mental note to later scold Rainbow Dash for not having previously told anybody about this crucial information. But now, she had other thoughts on her mind, and she liked what was coming around. She was quickly piecing together exactly how to not only save Ponyville, but rebuild her image in the process and therefore improve her magical abilities, like the real Element of Magic should have.
“No, better idea!” she exclaimed, shutting Rainbow Dash’s mouth with a hoof. “We will use the Elements of Harmony!”
Rainbow Dash gave her a look. “Uh... how? Rarity is dead.”
Twilight pointed a hoof at the distant Ponyville Dam and declared, “By making a new friend and finding a new bearer for the Element of Generosity, of course!”
