"Well, I must say you did a great job with those materials I gave you, Thunder!" Rarity exclaimed, picking up the thin patchwork quilt that Thunder Rain had completed over the week. It was Saturday afternoon, a time Thunder had come to love. Later that day, he had told his parents he was going to practice flying with some of his friends, and, of course, they let him go. The truth was that Thunder merely wanted to sneak off to the Carousel Boutique and take sewing lessons with Rarity.
Arriving right after lunch, Thunder knocked on Rarity's door right as she was finishing up with a client.
"Now, go along now and tell me if there's any problem, I'd be more than happy to fix it!" Rarity called after a magenta pegasus who was walking out of her shop, a white bag clenched in her teeth. "Ah, Thunder! How have you been doing?" Rarity ushered the little dark gray colt in to her shop, closing the door with blue magic as she did so.
Thunder was overjoyed, he made it through a whole week of sewing and was just waiting to see what Rarity would make of his creation. Quickly whipping out the product of his labor he gave it to Rarity.
"How did I do?" He asked eagerly as the white unicorn looked over the patchwork quilt, "Do you like it?"
"I simply love it!" Rarity said, letting all concepts of fashion fly out of her head and judged the piece of work simply on how much practice her little student had gotten making it, "Now, today we're going to learn about batting and backing. You know how your quilt is all thin and floppy, not much good for keeping you warm?"
Thunder nodded his head excitedly, feeling an explanation coming on.
"Well, we can take a piece fabric that's a little larger than this and sew it on to the back...."
The rest of the afternoon was spent happily stitching the piece of backing onto Thunder's quilt, which, was more the size of a throw rug, all the while chatting about things general things, until the subject of parents came up.
"Your parents must be overjoyed to have such a talented young colt in their house!" Rarity said, helping Thunder with a particularly difficult corner.
Thunder flattened his ears at that remark, focusing on the needle that was bobbing up and down, in and out of the fabric like an uncertain fish. "No," he said, slightly guiltily, "They really aren't."
"Why ever not?" Rarity asked, puzzled that any set of parents could not like their child doing something as great as sewing.
"They think I should be a great flyer like them," Thunder said, a confused mixture anger and sadness brewing inside him, "But I hate flying!" Thunder broke into tears, "I just want to be sewer...like you, Rarity, but they hate it when I mention clothing and who knows what they'd do if they discovered that I sneaked off here!"
Rarity wrapped a hoof around the young colt, comforting him. "It's alright, we all have struggles to overcome in life, and sometimes it's our parents."
Thunder looked up at the white mare, thinking about what she said, "R-really?"
"Really. I mean, take me for instance, I was born into a farm family like Applejack's, I learned how to sew simple farm clothes and mend dungarees, but as much as I enjoy sewing in general, there's nothing I adore more than dressmaking.
"One morning, me and my parents were walking through town and it was on the eve of the Ponyville parade, a parade where everypony gets dressed in their finest clothes and shows them off and the winner gets a prize. Now when I saw this parade, my mouth fell open. I knew about sewing, but not about THIS kind of sewing. I loved it, and started making frilly impractical dresses, reading books on fashion and a number of things that my parents thought of as 'useless'. But, after I showed off one of my creations at the next Ponyville parade that next year, and WON my age division, they accepted me for who I was and let keep on following my heart.
"So you see, little Thunder, if you just keep doing what you love, others will come around to it," Rarity finished her story, and looked down to find a happy little colt wrapped around her legs.
"Thank you, thankyouthankyouthankyouTHANKYOU!" Thunder cried in happiness, amazed, awed and inspired by his teacher's story.
"Well, uh, you're welcome," Rarity said, somewhat awkwardly, trying to think of the right words to respond to that much gratitude. "I hear there's a competition for young mares who want to show off their sewing being held in the town hall in about three weeks time...you could join it!"
"But Rarity," Thunder said, getting up and fluffing her wings, "I'm a colt...not a mare."
"Ah," Rarity said wisely, helping her student back over to the the work table, "We don't have to tell them that, do we?"
Giggling with his mentor, Thunder Rain spent the rest of the afternoon and some of the evening, sewing backing onto his quilt and stuffing it.
That evening, a happy little dark gray colt with a bright yellow mane was flying towards home, a new quilt in clentched teeth, smiling from ear to ear.