Gifts Ungiven
By Slate Sadpony
Rarity leaned back and smiled, placing her spectacles down on the table and sliding her needle back into its pincushion. In front of her stood a small dress form, carefully sculpted and molded to resemble a young filly. The dress Rarity had built upon the model was an exquisite balance of color and simplicity, clearly practical yet working hard to be showy as well. A mixture of soft whites, pinks and purples, it perfectly matched the particular fur and mane of Rarity’s sister, Sweetie Belle.
“What do you think, Opal?” said Rarity, examining her work. “It’s certainly a lot finer than what I made her last year. And the year before that — well, let’s not talk about that one.” Rarity yawned and then began to gently stroke her cat between the ears.
Opal purred and clawed at the carpet. She closed her eyes and went to sleep.
Rarity smiled and pulled Opal into her lap. She really did like the dress, and the yearly Hearth’s Warming Eve Dress for Sweetie Belle had become one of her favorite traditions. With young Sweetie outgrowing her clothes every year, and destroying those which she had not outgrown, it was a good way to give Sweetie something both personal and practical. Besides, what with their parents drowning Sweetie in toys and games, clothing tended to be different and unique by comparison. And who wouldn’t want to get a Carousel Boutique original for Hearth’s Warming?
Rarity heard a knock on her door and trotted over, gently pushing Opalescence aside. She opened the door and rolled her eyes as Sweetie tracked in mud and slush. The little filly stomped her boots on the floor and pulled off her scarf, tossing both in a pile.
“Sweetie, I thought I taught you better than that.” Rarity picked up a mop with her magic.
“Oh, sorry.” Sweetie looked down at the tracks on the hardwood floor. “It’s just so cold outside!”
Rarity quickly mopped up the mud and slush. “This is why I installed that nice doormat, Sweetie. At least stomp off the snow before coming inside,” said Rarity. “Just look at your outfit, darling! What happened to that nice parka I made for you? Or the matching boots and scarf?”
“Oh, I lost them,” said Sweetie. “My closet is so full, and I think that they ended up in that pile of clothes that Mom donated to the Orphaned Foals’ Shelter.”
Rarity winced. She’d put dozens of hours into that outfit. “I still need to powder my nose a bit and get ready. Pinkie left some holiday cookies on the table. Feel free to help yourself."
“You always take too long,” said Sweetie Belle.
“It won’t take too long, I promise,” shouted Rarity from the top of the stairs.
Rarity closed the door, making certain that Sweetie Belle wasn’t behind her before turning to the dress laid out on her desk. She folded it and lowered it into the box, adjusting it slightly. Before putting on the lid she brushed the fabric flat and ensuring that every ribbon and embroidered edge was right where she wanted it. Next, she coated the box in a gold, reflective paper, taping the edges gently and folding it around the corners exactly. With that done, she had only to use her t-square ruler to ensure the ribbon made a pair of straight, perpendicular lines. She set down her work and smiled as she examined it. Perfect and exact, just as it should be.
Just as she finished, Rarity heard a loud crash coming from the kitchen. She came down the stairs in a rush, struggling to not drop her present as she ran. “Sweetie, what are you doing?”
“I was looking for my present!” said Sweetie, emerging from underneath a pile of pots and pans. “At first I was trying to get a cookie-eating cutie mark, but then I ran out of cookies.”
“Sweetie, those were intended for everypony, not just you,” said Rarity. She sighed and looked at the cookie tin, finding only crumbs. “Besides, why would I hide your present in the kitchen?”
“Maybe you wanted to give me some cooking equipment so I could try for a cooking cutie mark!”
“Didn’t you try that right before the Sisterhooves Social?” said Rarity, helping Sweetie into her coat. The mess would have to wait. “And when you tried to make cupcakes with Pinkie Pie?”
“That was baking, not cooking!” said Sweetie, putting on another frowny face as well as her snow gear.
“Either way, this is your present,” said Rarity, holding up the box. Sweetie made a grab for it, but Rarity easily kept it out of reach. “And you’re not opening it until tonight. I put a lot of work in this, and I’m not having you ruin it by opening it early.”
“But I want it now!” said Sweetie.
Rarity rolled her eyes and stepped out into the cold, waving the present out in front of her. “Then you’ll just have to follow me all the way to Mom and Dad’s house. Now let’s get going! I don’t want to arrive late when there’s hot cocoa on the stove.”
***
Rarity leaned back into her chair and sipped her hot cocoa, taking small, ladylike sips. As always, the present swapping of Hearth’s Warming Eve involved Sweetie Belle. Rarity and her parents were just there to see Sweetie enjoy herself. Rarity leaned back in her chair to watch the excitement.
“What do you think this is, Rarity?” said Sweetie Belle, shaking another one of the presents under the tree with her hooves.
Rarity grinned. “I think you should open it.”
Sweetie dug in with her teeth and hooves, destroying the wrapping paper, ribbon and even the cardboard box in seconds. Sweetie Belle’s ears and eyes drooped as she held up a sweater, carefully knitted but tackily designed.
“Isn’t it lovely?” said Mother. “I just saw that in the store the other day and remembered you’d outgrown — or lost, I don’t remember which — your old sweater and decided you needed it.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Sweetie tossed the sweater aside and dug into the next present. “A dress?”
“I know your sister makes lots of them for you,” said Father. “But the salesman said that design is really in this year!”
Rarity sighed. It might have been “in” a few decades ago, but the dress was certainly “out” by now. Hadn’t they agreed to split up the presents in the usual way? Cookies and toys from Mom and Dad, clothes from Rarity. She glowered at her parents, who smiled sheepishly.
Rarity set her mug down, fidgeting with her hooves as Sweetie opened present after present, all of them ugly clothes. Where were the toys? No “Li’l Baker’s” toy oven. No “Paint Me Pretty” color-changing carriage set. Not even any dolls.
Sweetie Belle kicked aside the empty boxes, huffing as she reached for the last gift — the one marked “From Rarity” on the label.
“Hold on a moment,” said Rarity, grabbing the gift from Sweetie’s hooves. “I don’t think this is ready just yet.”
Sweetie looked to her mother, blinking a bit and trying to come up with something to say, but Rarity held her ground.
“Honey, give your sister her present,” said Rarity’s mother.
Rarity backed towards the stairs, smiling awkwardly. “I just realized that there’s one last thing I need to do to it,” she said.
“Rarity, please!” whined Sweetie.
“It won’t take long.” Rarity hoisted the box out of Sweetie’s reach, keeping it far from the filly’s flailing hooves. “Just give me an hour or two, I promise.”
“Fine,” said Mom. “But dinner is in two hours. Don’t be late.”
“I won’t.” Rarity dashed up the stairs, holding the present in front of her.
***
Rarity locked the door behind her. In her absence, her parents had converted her childhood room into a storage area, but at least they'd left the bed clean and with fresh linens. She tore open the box and rolled the dress out on the sheets. She couldn’t give this to Sweetie. She needed to make something else. And fast.
“Maybe I should — no, I can’t just modify it. It’s the fact that it’s clothing that makes it unfit,” said Rarity, pacing as she thought. “But what would Sweetie want other than clothes? Whatever it is, there isn’t a single store in Ponyville open at this hour. I’ll just have to improvise!” She examined the boxes in her room, opening a few and checking the contents. Most were what she expected — seasonal decorations, old photo albums and other knickknacks her parents could neither bear to throw away nor find a good use for. As she continued digging, however, things changed.
Small dresses, clearly intended for a teenaged filly began to appear, followed by smaller and smaller clothes and shoes. “These must be my old clothes from high school,” said Rarity, pausing to examine them. “I thought mother got rid of these things ages ago!” She blushed a bit at the outdated nature of the fashion she had worn so recently in her life. Could such trends really pass by so quickly? Had they indeed existed at all? Still, she thought they might be inspiring or useful, and so she set them aside, carefully draping them across the bed and various other boxes.
At the bottom of it all stood her old toy chest. Finally, she saw the sorts of things she wanted. A cracked toy oven, some deflated and crushed stuffed animals — all positive signs. She knew there had to be something good in there if she just kept digging. When she spied a certain small plastic hoof sticking out, she finally knew what present her sister would want most.
“Dress Me Daisy!” she exclaimed as she extracted the toy from underneath the crushed remains of a filly’s make-up kit. “Your mane is a bit out of sorts, and Celestia only knows where your clothes have gone off to. But you’re still every bit as pretty as you were when I was a filly.”
Carefully setting Daisy down on her dresser, she examined it, pleased with the condition and shape of the doll. Setting her hair right would take some effort, but Rarity could handle a case of the tangles, even when those tangles were cheap acrylic. The hard part was that Daisy lacked her most important accessories. The extensive array of clothes that went with her were nowhere in the box, and something told Rarity that her searching would be futile. Like all young fillies, she had not yet learned the strength and integrity of fabric. Besides, after all those years in storage, the clothes were no doubt in sorry shape. Not to mention the fact they would be painfully out of style. Rarity sighed, slowly applying her brush to the doll’s mane and tail while she thought aloud.
“I can’t just give you to Sweetie Belle all by yourself,” said Rarity. “She has dozens of pony dolls already. And dragon dolls. And even those Wonderbolts action figures that Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo gave her. We need to make you special.” Rarity tried to think back to her childhood. The whole point of Dress Me Daisy was that she could wear an almost infinite array of outfits, all of which were miniature versions of then-popular fashion designs. Being an exact one-sixth sized doll, any dress could easily be made in Daisy’s size. This had made Daisy such a perfect toy for young Rarity. Daisy didn’t care that the outfits she wore were unfashionable, impractical or even badly hoof-made. She would still wear them with style and a smile, always excited to serve as a model for whatever outfit Rarity chose.
Rarity turned to look at the assorted clothes strewn about the room and then smacked her forehead with her hoof. “Am I a dressmaker or am I not?” She placed Daisy down on the counter and picking up a pair of scissors. Grabbing a nearby tape measure, she measured Daisy, taking notes on a scrap of paper. “Mother won’t like this, but then again, Mother should have discarded these outfits long ago.”
Armed with her scissors and measuring tape, she attacked the out-of-date dresses. It took a little trial and error at first, but fortunately, she had been very close to her adult size in her high school days. She hardly needed to make any changes at all, other than the scaling down. Some of the replacement buttons were definitely not on the one-sixth scale, and the zippers had to be replaced by velcro, but she beamed as she examined them. She clutched one to her chest and grinned.
“I can’t believe such small dresses are such hard work!” The stitching could be a bit better, and a sewing machine certainly would have helped in some areas. But those were things that she could fix later, when she wasn’t exhausted. Besides, if Sweetie ended up loving this gift, she would know what to make Sweetie for her birthday.
Rarity sat down on the bed and began to apply the outfits, one after the other, to Dress Me Daisy. Her mind drifted back, filling with fond childhood memories. The begging and pleading she’d done to her parents to keep Daisy “fashionable,” the hideous but lovingly made outfits she’d made herself, and the hundreds of hours she’d spent making Daisy the star of “fashion shows” attended exclusively by stuffed animals. She gave Daisy a light hug. “I didn’t realize I was going to miss you, Daisy. I just hope that Sweetie loves you like I did.”
Rarity gently brushed the doll and set it down on her dresser. There was one last thing that seemed off: every one of her outfits had gone out of fashion years ago. She looked like an attendee at an Oingo Ponigo or Leitmotif concert - or worse, wearing out-of-date clothes in a deliberately ironic and unfashionable manner. “Oh dear,” said Rarity, sighing and rubbing her eyes with her hoof. It would be morning in a few hours, and she had not slept a wink. “Cute as you are, I can’t just leave you like this. What message would it send to Sweetie Belle? She’d probably think I just grabbed some old, ugly doll clothes and chucked them on you to make her happy.”
She sighed and looked around, hoping to find something a bit more recent. Her own clothes were hardly an option, since she’d only brought a winter coat to get her across town to and from her parent’s house. She could run back to Carousel Boutique and help herself to anything left in stock, but then there was the very real possibility that she wouldn’t make it back in time. That left her with only one reasonable option, and she cringed at the mere thought of it.
“I worked so hard on this,” she said, picking up Sweetie’s holiday dress. Even by lamp light it looked spectacular, the faux silk fabric shimmering slightly. “And it’s for a young filly, not a grown mare. I’ll have to wing the measurements and hope for the best.”
She looked at the dress, then at Daisy, and then back at the dress. Wincing, she picked up her scissors and got to work.
***
“You’re the best sister ever!”
Rarity awoke to the feel of small hooves around her midsection, realizing too late that she had been sleeping dangerously close to scissors and needles for several hours. She didn’t even remember going to sleep. She rubbed a hoof against her cheek, trying to remove the corduroy marks left by the slips of fabric on the dresser.
“How...How did you get in here, Sweetie?” said Rarity, turning around to face her sister.
“Well, it may not be my super special talent,” said Sweetie, holding up a carefully bent bobby pin. “But Rainbow Dash showed Scootaloo how to pick locks, and Scootaloo showed me. When you didn’t come down for dinner last night I got worried!”
Rarity raised her eyebrows. “I missed dinner?” she asked. “And it’s morning already?” She could take up the lockpicking issue with Mom and Dad later.
“Morning with the best sister ever!” Sweetie clutched her dress in one hoof and Dress Me Daisy in the other. She was rubbing her cheek up and down Daisy's. In the light, Rarity could see that her seamstressing had been nowhere near her normal level of excellence, but Sweetie didn’t seem to care. “You didn’t just make me a really cool dress,” said Sweetie Belle. “You made another one for this totally awesome doll!”
Rarity smiled, deciding she would leave the comments concerning the dress’s distressed state and the doll’s ill-fitting clothes for a later date. Such things could always be fixed. “I’m glad you like your present,” said Rarity. “I really hoped you would.”
“She's so cool!” said Sweetie, hugging it tight. “I really like her mane! And these other outfits are awesome!” Sweetie bounced around the room, kicking her hooves and squealing with delight.
Rarity smiled and put a hoof around her excited sister. “I’m just glad you had a good Hearth’s Warming Eve,” she said, then moved slowly toward the door. “Now let’s go see if Mother made some of that wonderful coffee of hers. Then maybe later I can teach you how to make dresses for Daisy. It’s very simple. You just take an existing pattern and divide all the measurements by six.”
Sweetie Belle beamed, following her sister. She continued to bounce around down the hallway, holding out the doll in front of her and clutching the dress to her chest. “This is the best Hearth’s Warming ever!”