"Oh, I just can't wait!"
Rarity said with anticipating finishing off the last dish in her kitchen and levitating it into the cupboard. She turned away from the sink and made her way into her living room.
It was a sunny afternoon. The resident fashionista of Ponyville had spent the day tidying up her shop and home, The Carousel Boutique and just finished up. She brushed her mane and exited the boutique, making her way down to wait at the train station with a smile on her face. Awaiting the arrival of her little sister Sweetie Belle, who had been off visiting their parents up in Manehattan.
She was happily excited of course, not having seen nor heard of her sister in the period she'd been gone. No obnoxious distractions during her working periods, nor the constant lingering fear of what her little sister could be doing with her friends and fellow crusaders. Even though she was able to admit it was always nice to be free of such factors, she could not help but also admit there was a void in her everyday without her sister.
A train whistle brought an even bigger smile to her face, her eyes fixated on the approaching train which held her returning sister. She tapped her hooves in excitement, she wondered what the filly did in the big city. Did she shop? Oh, how Rarity loved the shops up in Manehattan. All of the best fashions she heard end up in the Big Apple.
As the doors opened and ponies started crowding the platform, Rarity thought of the many malls and attractions her younger sister must have visited. All the interesting ponies she and her parents ran into, all the building's she saw.
Ponies began to fan out around her as she fantasized of the cityscape at night, viewing all from the top suite of a hotel.
As a lone white unicorn horn poke out from within the crowd, Rarity's smile faltered.
Now, it was no secret Rarity was a mare of the fancier things. Of course, everyone knew that.
She liked the finest food, the finest music, the finest dresses. Now...If there was something that could turn the mare sour was one of two things-The first being the color green...she'd rather not explain her reason for disliking the color. The second, uncouth-ness. Brash, rowdy, chaotic and senseless. Clashing and outrageous in behavior and in appearance, was not Rarity's cup of tea.
And thus,
Like a universal record scratch turning heads as Rarity's eyes became mere pinpricks, a white filly stood out from the crowded platform. Her green eyes young with a halo of black around them, her lips curled into a smile at the sight of seeing her big sister after so long. Her pristine white fur hidden beneath a beaten leather vest. Her saddle bags bounced as she skipped her way towards Rarity with excitement, her hooves wrapped in black leather, studded bracelets.
Rarity's heart was beating in fragments, standing like a statue even as she was wrapped up in a tight hug from her young sister. But in her defense, you have to assume it to be a difficult task to return the embrace when eye to eye with the unholy mess upon Sweetie Belle's head, and the the red mass of what used to be her tail trailing behind her.
Nudging Rarity in the muzzle as her hooves shakily snaked around her sister to return the hug, was the remnants of what once was Sweetie's cute curly mane. Shaved to tiny curls on the side and the remains of this murder of fashion sticking straight up from the front and leading down her neck, resembling that of a certain zebra's mane style.
Flashbacks of brushing and combing and assisting in maintaining it's form shot through Rarity's mind, while Pagliacci rang out in a chorus of shattering glass.
"Oh it's so good to see you again, Rarity!" Sweetie's cheering voice muffled against Rarity's chest, oblivious to the horrid look on not only her sister's face but the ponies amongst them.
Rarity's eyes quickly shifted between her sister and the bystanders with them at the station, all scratching their heads and giving odd looks at the filly's display. Looks of disapproval soon followed, other fillies and colts had their mother's and father's hooves blocking their vision to the Sweetie's...questionable look and attire.
Without a second thought, the distraught mare swept up Sweetie Belle and dashed out of the train station.
----
The boutique's front door slammed opened with the force so great, the door's impact on the wall echoed throughout the entire building and every window shook. As quickly as it opened, it shut as Rarity carried the struggling filly in her magical grip, ignoring her younger sister's shouts and resisting.
"R-Rarity!" Sweetie shouted, kicking and flipping around in the blue magical prison that bounded her. "What are you doing?! Put me down!"
Rarity rushed over to the bathroom door and pushed it open, levitating her sister into the bath tub. "My poor sister, this will only take a second!" She said, as with the help of her magic she stripped Sweetie of the atrocity of an outfit from her.
"Hey! Give those back!" Sweetie screamed at her sister as her armbands and studs were pulled from her hooves. "What are you-Hey!"
Sweetie cried out as the shower head spouted lukewarm water over her rebelled head, her hawked mane falling sideways over one side of her face as a shampoo bottle levitated over her head. Rarity bit her lip in absolute panic mode, she had never such a mixture of disasters all on one specimen. Her own sister, no less! She had to fix this, in an effort to save her sister.
The shampoo bottles was squeezed in Rarity's magical grip and the curing substance piled on Sweetie's mane, much to the filly's discomfort. Rarity scrubbed hard at the mane, the crimson color staining her sister's mane not coming out or fading despite how hard she worked,. "Rarity! S-Stop!" Sweetie groaned. "That hurts!"
"It's not coming out..." Rarity began to panic. "It's not coming out!"
"Duh!" Sweetie glared, forcing her sister's hooves off her head. "Of course not, it's dyed!"
Rarity's jaw hit the floor in gasp. "Dyed?! Oh that does it!"
----
"Spike!"
"Ahh!" Spike screamed, standing atop a ladder and holding three books in one claw while grabbing at the top shelf of books. He let out a sigh of relief, having survived his job to fall to his death another day. Re-re-arranging books on the highest shelf was not the highest on his personal list of ways to die, believe it or not.
"Spike, have you seen my brush?" Twilight, dripping wet and fresh out the shower called out to her assistant. "It's not in the bathroom!"
"A little busy at the moment, Twilight!" Spike groaned, looking between the books he held and the distance between him and the hardwood floors of the library at the moment. "Are you sure it's not just in the medicine cabinet again?"
Twilight huffed. "Of course not! I've checked there at least three-" She paused, disappearing behind the door for a few moments before reappearing at the door again. "-four times already!"
Spike rolled his eyes. "Well unless you want 'The Scientist's Cookbook' shelved with 'Apples: The Book', you might just have to deal."
Twilight pouted, stomping her hooves weakly. "Spike-"
"Rarity! Stop it!"
"What the- AHH!" Spike turned too fast towards the door way and tumbled off the ladder. His life, though as short as it was seemed to have past through his vision like movie, before his momentum with lost and he froze mid-air within a lavender bubble.
Twilight stood at the bottom of the stairs, her mane wrapped up in a towel along with her waist. At the front of the library, Rarity huffed and puffed with a mostly dry but entirely disgruntled Sweetie Belle, her once proud standing crimson Mohawk now hanging in thick curls at the side of her head.
"Rarity?" Twilight said, stepping closer. "Are you...okay, Sweetie Belle what happened with your mane...and your tail?"
Sweetie stomped, crossing her hooves and turning away from her sister as a long damp red curl fell over her muzzle. "Hmph! Rarity went and messed it up! It used to be tall and cool!"
Rarity rushed over to her friend and grabbed her by the shoulders, looking her directly in the eyes. "Twilight! Something's horribly wrong with Sweetie Belle!"
"W-What?!" Twilight yelped in response.
"This morning I was cleaning up the boutique and I left to go meet Sweetie Belle at the train station, but when I got there she was all wrapped up this dreadful outfit with black leather and spikes and pins and Eye liner and her mane is just so- Mmph!"
Twilight stared wide eyed back at her friend, her hoof placed over her mouth and slowly pushing her back a few steps. "Okay, okay. Slow down, let's start from the beginning.
Rarity took a deep breath. "Sweetie Belle's...become a ruffian!"
"A muffin?" Spike scratched his head.
"A miscreant, a thug! She hopped onto that train all those months ago a sweet innocent little filly and now..." She buried her face into her hooves. "...she's been transformed and I just don't understand how!"
Sweetie Belle pouted, her bottom lip quivering.
"Now hold just a minute, Rarity." Twilight said, sitting besides her crestfallen friend and laying a wing to her back. "There hasn't been sort of transformation! I mean, sure the mane thing would kinda catch me off guard too..." She shot an apologetic look towards the filly before turning back the fashionista. "But she's still Sweetie Belle."
Rarity sniffled. "You didn't see it, Twilight. The leather, the bands around her hooves! You didn't see the looks everyone on the platform were giving her, likes she's one of those bad rebel ponies you'd see in theater dramas!"
"Rebel?" Sweetie furrowed her brow, then turning to Spike. "There's nothing with how I look now, is there Spike?"
Spike looked a the filly up and down, slightly dazed. "I...I don't think so." He said, almost in a trance. "It's actually...kinda hot."
"Spike!" Twilight snapped at her young assistant, her eyes waving to the distraught unicorn. While Sweetie went silent, and simply blushed in reply.
Rarity shook her head, then turned it to her sister. "I...I need a moment." She then stood up from the floor and made way towards the front door. Once it opened, she stepped outside and shut it behind her.
"Whoa, I've never seen Rarity so shaken up before." Spike said, but his pondering was dashed he heard sniffling from behind him. Twilight too turned to the only other pony in the room, who too began to cry softly.
Spike and Twilight made there way over and comforted the young unicorn, Twilight wrapping her wings around them as Sweetie wrapped her hooves around Spike as she sobbed.
"Shh. It's alright, Sweetie Belle." Twilight said to the young unicorn.
Sweetie only whimpered into Spike's shoulder.
"So um...I like the color of your mane. Cherry red or raspberry?"
"Spike, not now."