The Beginnings of Chapter 1 · 8:23pm Nov 20th, 2012
It was a dark and stormy night when Rarity's sleepy eyes opened themselves the tiniest bit to investigate the dark room she laid in. She forced a moment of panic to subside prematurely as the blur in her vision cleared, showing her that the dark, looming figures leaning over her were just the four posters of her extravagant bed.
Her ears turned carefully.
An echoing clap of thunder opened her eyes more fully, sending her up in a blind panic until she could rationalize the noise and set it aside. She looked out the window as heavy drops of rain splattered against her window, filling her darkened home with a constant pitter-patter, like little hooves racing across her ceiling.
Her marble-white nose twitched.
She could smell the rain, even through the walls of her home. The stench of nature was a rare treat in her own home. Grass, mud, gravel, and stone would muck up her floors, sending her complusive behavior over the edge, but a fresh rainstorm delighted her to no end.
She let out a soft sigh, then smacked her lips, as if tasting the air.
Her mouth was dry. She groaned as she flopped onto her back and wondered if the trip to the kitchen to wet her lips would be worth the effort of climbing out of bed. No doubt a little sip of water would keep her content, and would definitely keep her mouth from tasting too awful in the morning, but that meant getting out of bee~eeed...
'Details, Rarity.' She chastised herself as she used her magic to force her blanket off. Midnight grogginess combined with a lack of aim sent the blanket off the bed and into a crumbled heap onto the floor. She regarded it with a moment of annoyance, but brushed it off. She climbed out of bed, stretched her back and legs, feeling little cricks and pops with a satisfied shudder, then walked out of her room.
It was times when she was standing at the top of the darkened staircase, nothing but the light at the tip of her horn showing her the way did Rarity ever regret a two-story home. It saved her the effort of travelling between her personal work area to the shop itself, but it meant that a journey for a glass of water was that much longer and more arduous. As far as she cared at the moment, it was an unfair compromise.
With an annoyed grunt, she forced herself to trek down the stairs. Each step felt measured and planned, as her sleepiness gave her a hint of vertigo everytime she moved downwards. It was another tiresome obstacle on her quest to slake her thirst.
She walked past the door leading to her boutique proper and continued towards another door on the other side of the room. Inside her kitchen, she opened the top cabinet to the right of her ice box, and levitated a glass down. She licked her dry lips again in anticipation as she filled the glass with tap water and took a sip. She was met with sweet, cool satisfaction of a journey complete, and her eyes lidded with heavy comfort.
She took a long draw from the glass and then set it on the counter. She turned away for just a moment to focus on the open drinking glass cabinet door and shut it with a flash of baby blue magic, and then focused her attention on her drink once more.
She paused, her eyes narrowing as she stared at it.
It was expected for her drink to ripple after just jostling it, but it seemed... unusual. She leaned her head down, eyes narrowed to get a better look at the water. It wasn't rippling... it was shaking.
Odd.
Rarity lifted her head and glanced left and right, wondering if there was anything else, when she began to hear the slight tinkling of her decorated china clicking together. She opened the dish cabinet and stared as the plates and bowls slowly moved around, as if lightly bouncing...
Her hooves began to tremble, but not of their own power.
Rarity stared down at the ground as she felt her hooves vibrating, the chairs and table in the kitchen banging against eachother, the doors to the cabinets jostling open as their contents tried to tremble out. Rarity's sharp mind immediately jumped to conclusions: "Sweet Celestia, I'm haunted!" She screamed.
The trembling beneath her hooves became even more violent, and her fantastical mind immediately jumped to a better conclusion: "Earthquake?" She asked outloud, choosing to forget her earlier outburst. "In Equestria?" She asked, then began to chew her bottom lip as she tried to figure out what to do.
There was high-pitched, almost polite crash behind her, and Rarity whirled around and stared at the sharp bits and pieces of the drinking glass and the puddle of water that laid around it. "Oh no..." She whispered to herself, then glanced to the rest of her cabinets.
Plates, bowls, serving trays, tea sets, and coffee mugs were threatening to hop right out of their places with each passing second, and despite her rattling mind, Rarity recalled a spell to prevent further mess. Her horn flashed rapidly while she quickly glanced up and down the rows of cabinet doors, and the doors slammed shut and stayed stuck that way. The dishes clinked and banged against eachother, but stayed off of her floor.
'Mess.' She thought quickly, staring back at the pieces of glass on the floor. It was trembling enough that she could barely see it, even with the light from her horn, but she managed to blanket the area with a telekinesis spell to pull the glass off the floor.
WHAM.
'Boutique.' She finally realized with a terrified squeak, and she dropped the glass promptly. She ran into her store front and watched a shelf break under the force of the shaking ground, sending fine hats all over the floor. "... You monster." She hissed at the force of nature as she eyed the spoiled headwear.
She quickly levitated them off the floor, about to set them on manniquins when the faux ponies began to topple over, sending weeks of hardwork spilling across the ground in wrinkled piles, making her teeth grind together in terror. She quickly lifted them to right them and straighten the dresses, but the hats fell out of her grip. She grabbed the hats, but the shaking ground sent the mannequins toppling over again. "Oh no." She whimpered as she grabbed the mannequins and the hats, and then a mirror on the wall fell from its place and shattered on the floor, sending shards across the ground. "Oh no!"
She grabbed the mirror with her magic to lean it against the wall, when a roll of fine fabric caught her eye as it, and several of its brethren, free of the tyrannic grasp of the dreaded window display, rolled over the shattered remains of the mirror, getting bits stuck in and tearing the beautiful cloth. "Oh no!" She shrieked, dropping the mirror's case to the ground to grab the cloth, when the mannequins toppled over again, sending the dresses and hats all over. "OH NO!" She shouted this time, grabbing everything at once, the hats in her teeth, the mannequins in her magic, ignoring the mirror remains, kicking the fabric away, when a loud thump upstairs made her drop everything.
A million possibilities ran through her head of what this awful quake could be doing to her personal design room, when the thought of losing all her valuable work got her legs moving. She shoved the mannequins aside with kicking hooves and ran into the wall when the earthquake caused her to lose her balance, but she ignored the dull ache in her side to charge upstairs. Each step was measured and careful, to avoid missing a step in the drastic movement of the ground below her, and she stumbled and jumped her way to the top of the staircase.
She all but splintered her door with an impressive kick and stared at her design room. Cloth lay everywhere on the floor, cluttering her hoof room. Pins and needles were spread across every available surface, from each table and each design desk. Pieces of paper were laying all around the floor of her desk and on top, displaying dresses half-designed or nearing completion. Fabric rolls were drooping off of wall handles, bits and pieces cut out of them for other designs, while her various measuring and cutting equipment lay every which way but next to eachother.
Rarity stared at the messy scene, and brought her hoof to her forehead and sighed in relief.
Just as she'd left it.
The quake began to subside, and the noises of her house softened until they were quiet. Rarity let out a short, happy chuckle, setting her worries aside for the moment as she looked around her treasured work room. Then, something caught her eye. At the end of her work desk, there was a blank spot. On the floor by the work desk, what should have been on the work desk was instead filling the floor by the work desk. She approached it quickly, and lifted it with her telekinesis, then gasped in terror.
Her sewing machine hovered in front of her, the pinning apparatus bent and pieces of its construction falling off. Her eye twitched as she stared at it, as she realized how much of her work relied on the handy thing, and just how much it would take to replace it.
Rarity sucked in a deep breath.
The little town of Ponyville stirred in the aftermath of the earthquake, coming to terms with what just happened, and completely unaware of the screams coming from the Boutique.
Nice!
sounds like a dark fic.
Rarity is going to freak out more in the morning when she sees all the damage...
You never give me stuff to do....
Awesome, Growing Pains AU :V
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"Growing Pains AU"
... How is this related to Growing Pains?
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I guess my humour sucks
Still sad to hear about Growing Pains, but got to love wrecking Rarity's stuff in any manner possible. TEASE!
I do hope Sweetie Belle wasn't there... Otherwise it would be quite shallow for Rarity to think about business when her sister might be in danger...
Stop teasing us like that, it's mean!
And do keep up this good work!
Rofl, impressive work. I couldn't help but laugh when Rarity wasn't upset about her design room. "Just as she'd left it"!!
Just as she'd left it.
This line always reminds me of Pirates of the Caribbean.