Fate After Failure
Chapter 4: Rarity
Rarity was hard at work, doing what she had been doing all day; hour after hour, she was working on custom clothes for a local play. She was very proud to be tasked with this.
This is my time to shine! She thought when she was first chosen. Now, however, she was beginning to doubt herself.
Although she was getting better, each one had too many flaws, they simply weren’t up to her standards, and if they weren’t good enough for her, how could they be good enough for the play?
The piece she was working on had been her breaking point.
“It’s just not good enough! They’re missing something!” Rarity said, downtrodden. “Maybe I’m not meant to be a fashionista after all…”
Suddenly, her horn began to glow at its tip, and she began to feel pulled outside. She knew magic worked in mysterious
ways, and decided to follow her horn, trusting in the sudden burst of magic.
A few hours later…
Rarity began to doubt her horn. After walking to follow her horn for hours on end, she finally gave up and let it pull her itself. By now, she was just outside the city limits. After regaining her bearings, she saw a sign pointing in the direction of where
she was heading. On the sign, it read, “Stonehoof Mountain”.
A few minutes after passing the sign, she found herself in a dirt clearing, surrounded by trees and stones. Rarity was confused; why was she there? Why did her horn take her to a nearly empty space? What was she supposed to do now?
Now, Rarity was getting mad, all the time was wasted, and it’d be dark by the time she got home.
An entire day, wasted for no reason! Rarity though “What is your problem, horn?!”
All of a sudden, Rarity heard a rustle in the bushes to her right, then another in the bushes to her left.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” a gruff voice said, coming from behind her. “Why so angry, my little pony?” Stepping into her line of sight, the
voice belonged to a savage looking dog, tall and thick-armed, yet gaunt from days of undernourishment.
“Wh-who are you?” Rarity said, trying to hide her sudden fear. Trying, but failing, and the dog could smell if coming off of her like a fresh cooked steak.
The dog cackled at the question, and then changed his demeanor to a gentler sight.
“Hey, hey now, small pony, no need to be frightened.” He said. “My name’s Smooth Talker. We’re nice guys-” he waved his arm in the direction of his friends, who were crouching, trying to look civil to impress her-“and this is our turf. What are you doing here?”
“M-my horn pulled me here.” Rarity said, calming down, lowering her guard. “It was supposed to bring me somewhere…useful, but it just brought me here!”
“Useful, hm? Where do you think it was supposed to lead you? What do you need to make use of?”
“Well…” Rarity began, reluctantly. “I’m supposed to be making clothes for a play, but they’re simply not good enough, like they’re missing something.”
Smooth Talker got an idea from this new information.
“Make clothes? You’re in the right place, my friend here, he’s great at…uh…that!” Smooth said, improvising. He grabbed one of the shorter dogs wearing the nicest vest out of all of them, though he was not wearing it to look good intentionally.
He does look quite nice in that color, Rarity thought. He must know his fashion!
Smooth bent over and whispered into his friend’s ear, then the other dog stepped forward.
“Er, yeah, I’m good with clothes. I made this myself!” The dog had said, pointing at the vest and smiled a fake smile with false pride, but it was convincing enough to the little filly in front of him. Smooth leaned in again to tell the dog more.
“Yeah, I tell you what you need to make those clothes..er, fabulous! The secret? Gems! Lots of them!”
“Gems? That may be a marvelous idea, but this is a school play, I can’t afford buy gems for every costume…”
“That’s the beauty of it, pony, you are unicorn, and unicorn can find gems in mountains with magic!” Smooth Talker butted in. “And best part? You find them, and we dig them up!”
“Really? That would be great! That would make this the best play ever!” Rarity was elated that the prospect.
“Of course! But…” Smooth said, feigning uncertainty.
“What is it?” Rarity said, suddenly distressed.
“Well, there’s the matter of payment, little pony; we are busy, you see, and we can’t spend time helping a pony, we need to work for gems ourselves.” Smooth Talker said, trying to sound innocent, then pretending to get an idea. “Oh, I know what we can do! We get half of the gems you find! That’s fair, isn’t it?”
“Oh yes, that sounds like a great deal!” Rarity said, delighted at the deal.
“Perfect…” Smooth said, lowering his eyes at the gullible little pony.
One week later…
Rarity’s Deal with her new friends, the Diamond Dogs, was going smoothly, and with such a productive work force, she quickly had more than enough gems for the clothes.
After the play was over, Rarity was introduced as the costume designer and maker, and, to her delight, was given a bigger round of applause than most of the actors. When the audience had calmed down, her teacher had pointed to her flank, to reveal Rarity’s cutie mark, three diamonds.
The next morning, Rarity returned to Stonehoof Mountain, like she had done every morning for the previous week. Rarity found Smooth Talker leaning on a tree, like he had been doing as well for the past week. They both returned, although their deal was supposedly over; they both knew, however, that it wasn’t really over.
They were just getting started.
End of Chapter 4
To Be Continued...