Rarity was back in the hut.
Everything was gray and bleak and ugly, Rarity herself most of all. She was an animal, a thing that inhaled and exhaled, drank foul-tasting water and ate tasteless hay, and in due course excreted the resultant wastes from her other end. She did this until she knew in her heart that she was nothing and nopony, just a brute beast whose only purpose was to serve the ends of Starlight Glimmer, and the great multi-bodied entity that was Our Town, of which Starlight Glimmer formed the head.
When she realized this, they finally let her out to serve the community. She worked under Dashing Cape, the stallion whose name was a perhaps a crueller mockery than most of the names of the adults in Our Town, because all he could make were shapeless, vaguely-rectangular sheets of sackcloth. She had once found them very ugly, but now they were no uglier to her than was anything else in her meaningless world.
She had an Idea: she made tunics and jackets of the same fabric: the better to keep the Equal Ponies warm in the winter. Starlight praised her notion, and everypony smiled at her. The garments were hideous, but then so was everything, so it didn't matter.
Every three weeks her cycle came, and she suffered a vague discomfort in her private parts. She knew, of course, how this discomfort might be relieved, and sometimes did so, alone in her narrow, uncomortable bed. She thought of nothing much in particular when she did this: it was merely a physical sensation to be produced by rote physical exertions, relieving a physical need. At such moments, a Pony might have imagined a tender and passionate lover, but a beast neither needed nor was capable of such emotional illusions.
She also emitted marescent during the three days of her cycle, and the stallions noticed, and looked at her with a dull sort of interest. Sometimes, they even showed a bit. Ponies might have been embarrassed by this, but they were also mere beasts, and this meant no more to them than it did to her. She did not care enough to show any interest in return, and mares always chose, so she remained unmated.
Eventually -- after months or years of her new gray life, she did not know, because she bother any more to pay attention to the passage of the days and seasons -- she tired of her tri-weekly discomfort and hollow relief, and decided to mate. She did so by the most obvious means: when her cycle came again, and Dashing Cape gazed at her with a vaguely-aroused expression, she swished her tail between her own haunches, passing it over her moist privates, and flicked it gently across his nose, giving him a good long whiff of her marescent. Then, she turned her rear toward him, twitched her tail aside, and looked at him inviting over her shoulder.
It was a behavioral display as old as the Primal Plains, and it had just one meaning: Mount me. It was also an extremely vulgar and immoral display for any mare to make to anypony save her beloved, which Dashing Cape was not: he was a hearty, jovial and friendly stallion, especially by the muted standards of the Equal Ponies, and Rarity liked him full well, but back when she had been a Pony she would never have been willing to give herself to him. However, that was when she'd still imagined she had a self to give, and that self Fabulous. Now she was but a beast, and beasts are far less complex in their emotions.
He mounted her. Rarity had not been virgin for a decade; she had also not had full intercourse for nine of those years, so it was slightly painful. It was however slightly more pleasurable, or at least relieving; her instincts told her that this was what she was supposed to do when in estrus. Dashing Cape was her ally and comrade, and he was far from cruel: he supported himself and moved in such a way as to avoid hurting her. Nor was he exceptionally kind: she was not, after all, his beloved, merely a mare who had emitted the right scent and given him the right signals. There were neither fond words nor tender caresses, merely an opening and positioning and entering, mechanical friction reduced by natural lubrication, an itch being scratched by that friction; some mutual heavy breathing and grunting, a sensation of being flooded within, and then it was over and done with. It had been a simple biological function, no less and certainly no more profound on either of their parts than eating one of Our Town's tasteless meals.
Afterward, Dashing Cape was friendly toward her, perhaps slightly friendlier than he had been before. He neither despised nor loved her for what had passed between them; he presumably felt a certain increased positive affect associated with her presence, now. Such would be the normal conditioned response of a beast to receiving pleasant stimulation. He seemed happy. Or, at least, content.
Rarity was not. She felt nauseated at her own actions. She felt as if she had betrayed somepony or something, though she could not imagine whom or what. Surely it could not have been herself, her own sense of Fabulousness. Starlight Glimmer had taught her that any such self-image was naught but a hypocritical lie; she was nopony, and contained nothing special. This truth, once acknowledged, made her life much easier, since she no longer wasted her time and effort aiming at any ideals beyond simple survival, simple Sameness.
Still, the sensation of sickness would not abate, and she took to her bed, pleading illness, which was also a good way to dissuade Dashing Cape from offering to join her -- though she could not understand why she right now could not bear the sight of him. She was ahead of her work, anwyay -- even Equalized, she was still a very precise and rapid telekinetic -- and she felt that she needed the rest.
She napped the rest of the day, and awoke in the evening, and lay on her straw-stuffed mattress under her blanket of surplus sackcloth, and she could not help but think of a huge double king-sized bed with a down mattress and silk sheets, such as she might have slept upon a lifetime ago. And someone -- image of a pair of slitted, alert archosaurian eyes, a shimmer of scales -- with whom she had never shared that bed, but might have wanted to, someday, had her life remained Fabulous. Dangerous delusion, self-lie, he wasn't even a Pony. What would have been the point? Though the stories she'd read had caused her to believe that Dragons and Ponies might be inter-fertile ...
And thinking about that, she realized that there was a possible consequence to what she had done with Dashing Cape, aside from the strange self-loathing that she felt rising from the forgotten depths of her soul.
She might have made herself pregnant.
She thought of the possibility of a foal, young and innocent and new to life, laughing and playing, because such was foalish nature, imagining itself unique and special, because nopony had told it that there was anything wrong with doing so. A foal, loving and trusting its mother. Loving and trusting her.
The possibility filled her with a transient happiness -- until she realized the rest of the foal's fate.
Growing up in Our Town, gradually learning the limitations of its life. Learning that it was not special, not unique, that it was useless to strive, futile to dream. Realizing its Talent, manifesting its Cutie Mark, only to have both ripped away by Starlight Glimmer, forever suppressed by the Sameness. Growing to adulthood, in a world with neither love nor marriage, eventually mating out of base biological instinct -- as she had just done -- reproducing genetically so that yet another generation could be born to hopeless, loveless despair, forever and ever, generations of meaningless lives, from now until the time that somepony stronger than Rarity finally smashed Starlight Glimmer's dreary dream. Which would doubtless happen someday, but probably not before the last drop of what had once made Rarity Belle so Fabulous was squeezed out of her soul by the Sameness.
She felt a rush of energy -- and a painful pressure on her flanks. Her horror at her own actions, at the future to which she was submitting, had briefly brought her back to herself. She had to escape, for she knew that this surge would not last long. Already, she could feel her will fading, her strength lessening as the Sameness sapped her spirit.
A failed escape would be worse than no attempt at all, for she would be recaptured and re-educated even more thoroughly. This might happen again and again, her will being weakened more and more each time, until there was nothing left of the old Rarity, until she was naught but a helpless husk of her former self, kept alive and enslaved, a womb to breed new generations of slaves, and a horn to clothe them.
She must not let this happen! But how to get away? Starlight would send the Pegasi after her -- even under the Sameness, Night Glider was a swift flier and expert tracker; and the others would follow, swarm her, bring her down. With but a fraction of her normal energies, Rarity knew that she would be but a mediocre fighter. She was no longer Fabulous. She would be overcome by the odds. It seemed hopeless.
Then she remembered Fillydelphia -- and that there was another way out.
Ignoring the pulse of pain at her flank, she reached out with her powerful and precise telekinesis -- she knew that she could maintain this for only a short time, under the suffocation of the Sameness -- and the sharp shears she used to cut the sackcloth came to her, limned in the glow of her aura.
She regarded the shears. Well-made -- they had been bought outside Our Town -- and honed to a razor's edge, by a seamstress who was no longer Fabulous, but still a perfectionist in the few aspects of her life she still could control. They would do. For a moment, she considered using them to fight -- but they would be a puny weapon against the magical might of Starlight Glimmer; and if she used them on anypony else, she would simply be slaying one of Starlight Glimmer's other victims.
She had no right to choose death for any of those victims, save one:
Herself.
She turned the shears in her aura, pointing them directly at her heart. Even with the Sameness sucking at her soul, she still had the skill and strength to end her life, either instantly or by wounding herself beyond anything the pathetic medical facilities of this Talent-drained village could hope to muster. All she needed was the courage to strike true.
She knew that she had the courage.
As she prepared to strike, she briefly wondered why she was doing this, whether her situation was really hopeless. She cast her gaze to her window. Outside the stars shone; the Moon was rising. It occurred to her that elsewhere, hundreds of miles to the southeast, Manehattan glittered bright and beautiful in its sparkling waters, a jewel in its bay. She suddenly wanted to see that great city again, to live. She wondered if death were really the braver choice.
Something seemed wrong with her mind. She felt her Sameness Marks throb, and imagined that it must be due to Starlight's spell. Though it never felt like that before, came the stray thought.
She dismissed her doubts, and once again prepared to strike.
At the last moment, she mourned one bright dream, that would now never have the chance to come true; and she fixed almost desperately on his image.
I'm sorry, Spike! she thought -- and something hissed in pain and rage, and swirled at the corners of her vision. She whirled in confusion, to see the mass of animate void, blacker than midnight, that roiled and flowed back into cohesion in the corner of her room's ceiling, its two -- or were there three? -- yellow eyes glaring at her in hatred.
She shrieked, and whipped the shears around to point straight between the vile orbs, and cried out "What on Earth are you?" and in the instant of asking that question she knew, knew precisely what this was -- and that it had come not from Earth, but from the Moon, and before that from a dreadful domain of dead stars and eternal dark despair.
"Night-Shadow!" she named it, in a voice full of loathing. She knew its kind far better than did most other Ponies, even among those who even knew they existed -- for she had once -- for a brief but terrible time in her life -- been ridden by one.
The creature hissed again, and abruptly flowed toward her, extending pseudopods of seething darkness.
She remembered the counter to it just in time, and concentrated hard. The image of Spike, holding the Fire Ruby, his eyes full of love for her, leaped into the front of her mind. She felt a warm rush of Love within her. The ebon tendrils struck her -- and splashed away into steam.
The Night Shadow squalled, and shrank back before Rarity's Love for Spike.
"Why are you here?" Rarity demanded.
*... help you ...* came the single comprehensible thought amidst a snarl of alien static, sounding like the telepathic version of a badly-garbled telephone connection.
"Help me?" asked Rarity suspiciously, pointing the shears right at the Shadow, though she was far from certain that mere metal could do anything effective to its alien substance. "How?"
*... captive ... need power ...* it attempted to explain.
"You offer me the power to escape Starlight Glimmer?" Rarity asked. "Of what sort?" She narrowed her eyes at the thing.
*... us .... together ... Nightmare ...*
"No!" Rarity knew now what it offered. The Night Shadow's magic, combined with her own, would no doubt be stronger than Starlight Glimmer's. The last time she had become a Nightmare, she had been stronger even than the unaugmented Princess Luna. The promise was genuine ...
... and false. The Night Shadow, once she allowed it in, would possess her, ride her, drive her to its evil ends. When she had been a Nightmare, she had betrayed the Realm ... fought her friends ... she had even hurt Spike. To be thrall to a Night Shadow was even worse than was the Sameness!
The Night Shadow hissed in rage at her rejection. Its mind-voice shrieked through a shower of static.
*... Dragon ... hates ... you want ... can have! ...* it pointed out.*... Why ... die? ...
"Just a mo-ment," Rarity interjected, her tone sing-song. "Even if my darling Spikey-Wikey ..." she saw with satisfaction the Shadow squall and shrink at the little flare of Love that the thought of Spike sparked in her. "Even if he were cross with me like that, that would have been for something I did after we defeated Starlight Glimmer and left Our Town. So -- how am I once again her captive?"
The Shadow snarl-squalled, then hiss-rattled. *... ambush ... tricked ... misfortune? ... it asked hastily.
Rarity raised an eyebrow. "That seems rather improbable. And how have I been in this place for months and months with nopony to come looking for me? I have friends -- very much including my darling Dragon -- who wouldn't simply let me rot in durance vile." She sniffed herself. "And I can't smell Dashing Cape on me any more ... and I don't remember bathing before I went to bed." She spun the shears in her aura. "No more weakness," she observed. A quick glance at her right flank, where three familiar blue diamonds were emblazoned. "I've got my Cutie Mark back!" she crowed in delight.
Realization struck her.
"This is all a nightmare!" Rarity declared. "I was never back in Our Town! I'm sleeping safe in my own bed in Ponyville! And I never --"
Her eyes narrowed, and she almost growled at the Night Shadow. "You vile thing! You tried to convince me that I -- and his capes were atrocious!" It was not really about the capes, of course, but Rarity did not deem it worthwhile to discuss sexual morality with a formless horror from beyond the stars.
The Night Shadow let out a shriek impossible to describe in terms of any equine vocal equipment. It quivered with rage, and gathered itself up to attack.
Rarity prepared for battle, her aura grasping various objects about the room.
And the Moon exploded.
Or, to be more precise, it flared into a great pale lovely light, cool and silvery and greatly cheering. Even more cheering was the Shape which formed from that moonlight: a dark blue Alicorn, blue mane glistening with stars like a personal night sky. Her beautiful blue eyes blazed with wrath as she regarded the Night Shadow.
"Foul fiend!" Princess Luna shouted. "Thou darest to torment mine own friend? Back, begone to the oblivion that spawned thee!" A spray of silver-pinkish energy washed from Luna's horn and played across the Shadow, who wailed in anguish, shivered and burst apart. The fragments fell into the sky, somehow drawn upward into the orb of the Moon.
Rarity was not exactly sure just how Luna had accomplished what Rarity had just seen her do --- the kind and level of magic employed was far beyond anything the fashion designer had ever formally studied. She had sensed the side-scatter from the spell, and it felt somewhat similar to the Love Rarity had previously employed to hurt the Night Shadow, but far more powerful, and the emotion pulsed in a way which Rarity would have had no idea how to perform, even if she had known how to channel that sort of thing through her horn. The Love seemed fierce and protective; Rarity briefly wondered if this sort of amative analysis was what Fluttershy could always accomplish with her empathy.
Regardless of how Luna had done it, she had certainly helped out Rarity in her time of need, and done so in a highly-impressive manner. This deserved recognition on Rarity's part.
"Oh, bravo!" cried Rarity, clapping her hooves together. "Magnifique! You certainly showed that Night Shadow what for!"
A complex series of emotions flickered rapidly across Luna's face. Then she smiled, inclining her head to Rarity, and said:
"'Twas nothing, Lady Rarity, but Our duty to any Subject of the Realm, who by her own fealty hath the right to expect Our protection, from these vile enemies of all Ponykind."
For a moment, Rarity felt sadly unappreciated.
Then Luna smiled warmly, and added:
"Let alone a Lady to whom I owe mine own personal gratitude many times over, for helping liberate me from Nightmare, for being a true and loyal friend to Princess Twilight Sparkle, and for thy many signal services to the Realm, and personally to my Sister and own self, not the least of which has been thine own great artistic Talent. Thou art brave and good, Rarity Belle. It is mine own honor to help thee -- and thou art most truly Fabulous."
"Why -- why thank you, Your Highness," replied Rarity, bowing low to the Moon Princess, her cheeks warming at the unexpected and effusive compliment. Rarity had never been particularly close to Luna, beyond speaking politely to her at royal functions, and occasionally helping provide the Princess' wardrobe, and it was really nice to discover that Luna thought so highly of her.
"I require further words with thee," Luna said. "But first -- carefully and gently -- pray put down the shears."
"The shears?" Rarity had almost forgotten that she was levitating them, so far distant were her thoughts now from her former black despair. "Why, certainly, Your Highness," she said, precisely laying the shears down on a night-table, the dreamscape having morphed the chamber into her own bedroom at the Carousel Boutique in the meantime. "Will that do?"
"Right well," replied Luna, looking very relieved. "Rarity -- you were sleepcasting."
Sleepcasting was a potentially-dangerous sleep disorder, in which a Unicorn actually cast the spells she imagined she was casting in her dreams. Rarity remembered what she had been dreaming, regarding those shears, and gasped in horror.
"Goodness gracious!" she cried. "I might have killed myself!"
"Indeed," agreed Luna, her expression sober. "Though 'tis more likely thou wouldst merely have been wounded, as thou art not a trained sleepfighter."
"Thank you even more, then," Rarity said. A thought struck her, and she cast down her gaze. "You saw my dream, then." There were parts of it of which she hadn't wanted anypony else to know.
"Enough of it to understand the nightmare," replied Luna, her voice ringing clear. "Thou wert trapped in Our Town, facing the prospect of spending the rest of your life there: mating, foaling, raising children into slavery. To an emotionally-sensitive artist like thyself, this would have been even a worse Hell than it would have been to most Ponies." Her tone of voice gentled. "I understand thee, Lady Rarity. I am in mine own way an artist, and hardly dead to the softer emotions. I, too, would have been badly shaken by that dream."
"Then you do understand," said Rarity. "Your Highness," she remembered to add. "I apologize that you had to see the, well, really embarrassing part of that dream."
"When you mated with Dashing Cape?" asked Luna. "Lady Rarity, 'tis nothing. I have been dreamwalking for many, many centuries, and I have seen many, many, many carnal dreams. If they seriously embarrassed me, I could scarcely do my duty. 'Tis normal for Ponies to experience their sexual fantasies in their dreams, whether they be bright or dark ones. Or even extremely dreary ones."
"Indeed," said Rarity. "So dreary that I preferred death." She looked at Luna, troubled. "Am I sane?" Rarity asked her.
Luna smiled. "I may not be the best Pony of whom to ask that question," the Moon Princess pointed out. "Thou might recall the circumstances of our initial meeting."
"Oh, pish tosh," said Rarity, waving a hoof at her and smiling. "You just weren't quite yourself at the time, darling. We all have bad days." She wondered for a moment if she'd gone too far -- for a moment, Luna's expression was unreadable.
Then she smiled wryly at Rarity.
"Indeed," said Luna. "My bad day simply lasted a bit more than a millennium. But it has passed." She looked more cheerful for a moment, then more serious. "Lady Rarity, I would wager that thou hast known times of pain and tragedy in your life, perhaps more severe in some ways than some of thy friends. Though, in other ways, I would wager that thou might be surprised by what they have endured, and the extent to which they would sympathize with thee, and be willing to help thee with thy soul's burdens."
"Ancient Alicorn wisdom, Your Highness?" asked Rarity, arching an eyebrow at her.
"That," replied Luna, "and some fundamental logic. The Night Shadows flock around thee, seeking a lodgement through thee in our world. They torment thee more grievously because they have found a weakness to exploit, a flaw in thee through which they hope to corrupt thee. Understand: they cannot possess thee unless thou is open to them in some measure. They have possessed thee once before, and they hunger to do so once more."
"I'm the weakest link," said Rarity sadly, looking away in shame.
"Mayhap," said Luna, and then touched Rarity's chin gently with one hoof, turning her head up and looking directly into her eyes. "But know this, Rarity Belle, thou art strong indeed by any normal standards. There is merely a flaw they have found, perhaps by fortune, of which they know they can make use. And they will keep trying to use it again and again, until you acknowledge it and heal, bar them entry.
"And Rarity -- be not ashamed that thou art flawed. For I am flawed, and the Night Shadows took advantage of my flaw to seduce me to treason and the betrayal of everything and everypony I loved. I have sinned greatly; committed terrible crimes: worse than any that I think you can now imagine. Compared to mine own self, thou art innocence and loyalty personified. Dost thou despise me?"
"No, of course not!" cried Rarity. "You're ... you're simply wonderful! I admire you!" There was no calculation in that; it was the free expression of her heart, her response to the love and friendship Luna was demonstrating to her.
Luna smiled. "Perhaps more praise than I truly deserve, but I shall gladly accept it from thee." Then, her expression becoming more serious. "Then, Rarity, if thou can find it in thyself to admire me, do not despise thyself. I see thee with an eye jaundiced by viewing many centuries of evil and suffering and treachery, and I say unto thee: thou art brave, and good, and high of spirits, and thy heart is pure."
"Thank you, Your Highness," replied Rarity. "I ... I wish it was easier to feel that way about myself. I ... I'm not always as confident as I make myself out to be, you understand?"
Luna replied "The same is true of mine own self, Lady Rarity, at times. I remind myself that these times that the murk will pass; the night will once again become clear and bright and beautiful. And ..." she looked very seriously at Rarity, "... I spend time in the company of mine own friends."
Rarity smiled. "I am fortunate to have such friends as I do -- they make me feel more fabulous."
"There is one friend in particular," Luna said, "who is quite worried regarding thee. He stands without thy home right now, and I fear thou didst shriek aloud when thou didst fight the Night Shadow. If I were thee, I would wake and open thy doors to him. He means thee only well, but if he imagines thee in peril, no mere wooden doors will serve to check his passage." Luna smiled at Rarity. "For who would be foolish enough to attempt to bar her door to a Dragon ..." Luna faded into mist on those last words.
CRASH! There was a sound of splintering wood, and Rarity came awake with a start.
At first she could see only blackness, and that briefly worried her, before she realized that she still had her sleeping-mask on. She lifted the mask, and found herself, as she expected, in her bedroom back in the Carousel Boutique. She had known this, but still -- after that terrible nightmare -- it was a great relief to confirm that she was not the slave of Starlight Glimmer, not the lover of the stallion who simply happened to be the most conveniently situated, not about to kill herself to avoid bearing foals into a life of pointless suffering. She was herself, Rarity Belle of Ponyville, and she was still capable of Fabulousness!
"Rarity!" came a very familiar voice. "Are you all right? If you're in trouble, I'm coming to save you!"
Dear Spike, she thought fondly, a warm happiness spreading through her soul. My hero. He's smashed my front door. Even that last realization could not diminish her joy. For, abruptly, she had an image of a determined, purple little armored archosaur, bashing and clawing and breathing fire to demolish whatever defenses Starlight Glimmer might throw up, wading through an entire village if need be to rescue his love. And she knew that, as long as Spike drew breath, she would never be without hope of salvation.
"I'm all right, Spikey-Wikey!" she called out, before he could wreck any more of her home in his attempt to help her. She rolled out of bed, drew her pink night-robe around her, put her hooves into her house-slippers.
There were some minor crunching and splintering noises from downstairs, then "Oh, okay! I heard you screaming ..."
Rarity opened her bedroom door, stepped out and looked down from the railing into the main chamber. Though she of course expected it, still her heart leapt at the sight of the small purple-and-green Dragon that stood just within the door, brushing wood splinters off his lovely rain-glistening scales. He turned his head up to meet her gaze, and his dear features were the most handsome imaginable to her, for it was Spike. Her Spike, she could not avoid thinking.
"Spike!" she cried happily, and, casting aside much of her dignity, cantered down her curving grand staircase toward him, her robe land nightgown lifting and fluttering around her as she ran, in a manner which she certainly had to admit was tres dramatique, and which in her mind was accompanied by a great rising orchestral passage, with multiple violins emphasizing the theme of her love. It's rather a pity real life doesn't include musical accompaniment, she thought briefly, and then she reached Spike, and had no thoughts to spare for anything else.
She stretched out a foreleg to embrace Spike. Then, at the last moment, she remembered what had happened before, and she hesitated. Only for an instant, but it threw off her rhythm; her talent, exquisitely-attuned to all sorts of social pattern, made her immediately aware that what she had done constituted a subtle rejection of Spike. She was painfully aware of her faux pas, but it was too late ... she'd emotionally pushed him away, again ...
... and Spike, completely ignoring this, leaped, flinging his arms around her neck, pressing his cheek against the side of her throat right where she was so wonderfully-sensitive, and Rarity gasped at the sheer joy of his presence, his reality, his enthusiastic caring for her, in such colorful contrast to the apathetic gray squalor of the nightmare. She did not need Fluttershy's amatopathy to sense Spike's love; it was utterly-evident to Rarity in the tenderness of his touch, the happiness on his face, and the faint, exciting tang of dragonmusk, rising to reinforce his always dear and welcome scent.
Rarity's foreleg almost reflexively came around to hold Spike, to press him into her chest, and her neck curved around to press her own cheek against the rear of his own head, feeling his quivering spines as a pleasant roughness, soothingly scratching her hide through her hair. Spike accepted her, and he admired her. She was so glad of his friendship, so lucky to have his love. She held him tightly against her. and her own happiness was almost unbearable. She closed her eyes, and tears of joy flooded down her face.
For a long time, Rarity simply held Spike, luxuriating in his love. She sank to her belly to put her head on a level with his, wrapped her other foreleg around him and stroked his back gently with her hooves and aura. She kissed his cheek, very delicately, and trailed her lips down his neck, just to what would have been perhaps the edge of indecency, had he been anatomically-identical to her Kind, and perhaps was anyway, since he had been raised in Pony body language and might well have understood the implications.
He responded to her touch, pressing his own head into her, kissing her throat and the side of her neck, also treading right on the edge of what was permissible, given that they had not declared any love, either to each other or to the wider world. He knew the moves of this dance, Rarity knew, for the very good reason that she had taught them to him over the winter. He did not mind pacing out the measures. As always, he had learned rapidly from Rarity.
She was aware that she was being even more romantically-aggressive than before, but now they were in private What was more, she was doing it competently, seductively, in tune with Spike's own natural rhythm, once again attuned to her Talent and to her beloved alike. She could tell by the quickening of his breath, the way he touched her, and the increased emission of dragonmusk that she was arousing him, giving him pleasure.
Beloved, thought Rarity. That is what he is to me in my private thoughts. And I know he loves me in return. Why can't I just say it? Why can't I tell him outright that I love him, instead of simply implying it, by actions which could instead be interpreted as mere shallow hedonism, a lack on my part of decent morals? But she knew why. If I tell him that, I'll have to mean it. I will not tell Spike I love him and then drop him for the stallion of my dreams. I will not treat him as Rush Rocks treated me.
She knew this was sophistry on her part, and of the worst kind. In both directions. Their feelings had already gone far enough that she would hurt him if she dropped him. She would hurt herself if she did. That was the problem: she needed him, and yet she could not promise to him. She could not ... it occurred to her that what she was talking about was an Understanding, or as the country-Ponies put it, an Intention. No, she told herself. I can't mean that. He's still just a colt ... this isn't that serious.
She was lying to herself, and she knew it.
Spike finally pulled back a little and looked at her, concern on his face. "What's wrong?" he asked her.
"Wrong?" Rarity said. "Why, nothing's wrong ... I'm just glad to see you."
"No, not that," Spike said. "There's nothing wrong with that." He, too, would not explicitly state that they had almost been making love. "You were screaming before. That's why I ..." He suddenly realized what he'd done, and said sheepishly. "Um, sorry about the door."
She glanced at the door, which had been broken off its bottom hinge and partly splintered through in a roughly Spike-sized area. She'd need to be a new one.
"Oh, think nothing of it, darling," Rarity reassured him. "I was thinking of changing it anyway -- it was clashing with the new decor."
"Okay," said Spike. "Why were you screaming?"
"Just a bad dream," Rarity said. "Just ..." she lowered her head, tired of trying to evade his question. She looked him directly in his handsome green eyes. "I'm lying," she said flatly. "It was a bad dream, but it was not just a bad dream." She gathered up her courage. "I was in Starlight's village. Her slave. I had to live there; I had found a mate," that was the closest she was going to explain that part of the dream to Spike, "and I realized I did not want to raise up foals into slavery. So I ..." she winced, "... in the dream I was going to kill myself. But I was sleepcasting, so I really picked up my shears and pointed them at myself."
Spike gasped, started to move toward her.
"There's more," Rarity said, motioning him back. "It wasn't just me making the dream. One of them was back."
"You don't mean ..." Spike said.
"I do," Rarity nodded, her expression grim. "A Night Shadow. It wanted to merge with me, tried to trick me into thinking the dream was real and my only escape was to become the Nightmare." At Spike's look of extreme alarm, Rarity explained: "It didn't trick me. I figured out it was a lie. I fought it -- and I don't know who would have won, because Princess Luna saved me. Destroyed or banished it, I'm not sure which."
"All right, Luna!" said Spike enthusiastically.
"I'm worried," Rarity said, drawing her night robe tight around herself and shivering, but not with the cold blowing in through the broken door. "I think that my experience in that hellish little town damaged me more than it did the others. I'm tired, but I'm afraid that if I go to sleep again, the Night Shadows will return."
"Can you block them somehow?" Spike asked. "Love repels them -- if you think of somepony you love, that should keep them away. And Luna once told me they run out of strength pretty fast if they don't have a host, which is why they usually can't take anypony who doesn't actually invite them in, at least with some part of her mind."
Rarity nodded. "I wasn't sure what I'd do, but now that you're here ..." She paused, realizing that this was not exactly the kindest thing for her to ask. "Spike -- would you sleep with me?"
"Um ... huh?!" Every single part of Spike's crest snapped up to rigid attention. "Are you sure ...? ... I mean of course I will, Rarity!"
"You do understand what I actually mean, Spike?" Rarity asked. "I mean, physically sleep beside me in my bed. I didn't mean ..."
"I didn't think you did," Spike said. "I wouldn't imagine you'd want me to ... well ..." his voice trailed off, and he looked away, his face flushing deep purple.
You'd be surprised, Spike, at what I might want, even if it was a terribly bad idea, Rarity thought. You have far too high an opinion of me. In fact, your opinion of me is one of the major reasons that makes me be better than I am. But of course, she didn't say it. "Spike," she said instead, "I didn't mean -- I've never meant, that you're not the most handsome and amazing and wonderful Dragon ... or being of any sort, really ... that I've ever known," she almost cooed at him. I just mean that, right now, all I want is your companionship, to help protect me against the Shadows. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
Spike drew himself up in what was meant to be a heroic manner. "Of course I do, Rarity," he replied, his eyes shining with love for her. "I'll make sure that nothing and nopony -- or noshade -- can harm you in any way!"
Rarity smiled warmly at him. She did not feel in the slightest like laughing at him. For she knew that, beneath his exaggerated gesture, he was a hero, who would do anything to protect her. She remembered how he had come to her rescue on the dream-Moon, when the worst had happened, and she had been in thrall to the Night Shadows. She remembered how he had dreamed himself a giant, smashed through the Shadow-guards, and reforged the Fire Ruby with the power of his love.
I'm waiting for the image of a perfect stallion I devised when I was a child, Rarity realized. The image I followed to my own near self-destruction in Fillydelphia, and later to my embarrassment with Blueblood and Trenderhoof. Why am I even still doing this? What Pony could I possibly meet who would understand me, care for me, protect me more thoroughly than my Spike? The longer she knew Spike, the less important this image of a perfect stallion seemed to her; the more important the reality of the Dragon.
She seriously considered giving herself to Spike in truth.
He's still too young, she reminded herself. It would be monstrous. Perverted. Wrong. A betrayal of my friendship with Twilight.
That was her last defense, and she was standing behind it. For now. At least until he got a bit older.
They cleaned up the foyer, which was covered in wet splinters. Rarity put the door back in place and temporarily re-hung it on its hinges, manipulating it with her aura. Spike heated the key parts with his breath focused in a pinpoint blue-white torch, then shaped them, nonchalantly handling the red-hot metal in his bare claws. They hammered some plywood into place over the hole in the door It was a less-than-perfect repair job -- the door looked shabby now and she'd still have to replace it -- but at least there wasn't a hole in her front door letting in the chill and damp anymore.
Rarity got towels and helped Spike dry; she restrained herself from helping him in ways which he might have perceived as erotic. She made and served him some tea; they used up most of the biscuits remaining after her earlier meeting with Fluttershy. I am really going to have to go shopping tomorrow, she thought.
After all this they were both really tired, and went to bed.
They got under the blankets, and lay a bit awkwardly on opposite sides of Rarity's big, soft four-poster bed. Spike very obviously did not want to do anything that even seemed like making a pass at her, while Rarity did not entirely trust herself to refrain from doing so for real.
Dear Spikey-Wikey would be terribly shocked if he knew some of my thoughts, Rarity mused. I'm glad that he shows absolutely no sign of telepathy. In the legends she'd read, some Dragons could read minds.
Happily, they were both very tired, and soon dropped off to sleep.
Rarity awoke in the early dawn to a warm, dry, scaly little form hugging her side and snoring.
She looked at the Dragon with an expression of absolute love, which it was really quite a shame that he wasn't awake to see. She smiled, and hugged him back, and then didn't let go, because she rather liked how he felt in her embrace, especially sleeping.
She was still very tired, so she slipped back into sleep.
At various points during the night he and she must have rolled into various positions, because when she woke again he was hugging her from behind, still snoring. She considered detaching herself from him; it was full daylight now, and she was normally a very energetic Pony, but being hugged by Spike felt so nice that she instead drifted off to sleep again.
If there were any Night Shadows prowling about, they stayed away from Rarity, protected as she was in the warmth of Spike's love.
Late that morning they awoke together, drowsing side by side. She made herself get out of bed, and Spike followed her into the kitchen, where she made coffee and they ate the absolute last of the biscuits.
"I'm sorry for the simplicity of the fare, darling," she said. "I need to go shopping today."
"It's no problem," said Spike. "If I'm really hungry I'll make myself a second breakfast at the castle."
She wasn't sure what to say to Spike beyond such trivialities. In the nine years since Rush Rocks had betrayed her, she'd never had full sexual intercourse again, but she had sexual affairs, of varying degrees of physical participation, with various stallions. A few times she'd even wound up in bed with them.
She'd never slept with them. She'd never actually slept with any male, aside from Rush Rocks. Until now.
Why did it make such a difference? Why did it make her feel as if he was hers, and she his, even though they'd never ... it was something about the intimacy. The trust involved in falling asleep in bed with a male, whether stallion or drake. The belonging one felt, when one woke up in bed with someone else. It was almost like being a small filly again, and sleeping with her parents -- but Spike wasn't one of her parents, and she viscerally knew it.
She couldn't get past the later betrayal and anger and hatred to remember if sleeping with Rush Rocks had been like this. She remembered him always poking at her, even when she was tired and just wanted to sleep, as if he was scoring points off her in some pointless game which only one of them could win. His love was zero-sum, maybe negative-sum, she thought, in the terms Fluttershy had taught her. Spike -- his love is positive-sum. We both win.
There was no way she could say this all to Spike. She was embarrassed by the intensity of her own emotions. But she had to say something to him. He'd been with her instead of taking care of Twilight; he'd exposed himself to possible criticism and embarrassment, she understood this well -- and he'd done this all to be with her, and to protect her. She knew he'd enjoyed sleeping with her as much as she had, but she also knew that he was at least somewhat aware of the potential social consequences.
"Thank you, Spike," she said. "For ... protecting me last night. For being there for me. For ... well for being you, Spikey-Wikey. You're my hero." It came out awkwardly, compared to her normal smooth synchronization with social rhythms, but she was on territory she hadn't been on for almost a decade -- actually, territory she'd never been on, but only thought she'd explored, even back then.
Spike suddenly hugged her. After a startled moment, she returned the embrace.
"Any time," Spike said. "I ... I wish I could ... never mind."
It gave her an idea.
"We will again sometime, darling," she promised him. "In the meantime ... well, you'll see later." She smiled archly at him.
"I have to go see about Twilight," Spike told her. "She's probably back from talking to the Royal Sisters now."
He'd mentioned in passing, earlier, that Twilight had written to and was going to have a conference with Celestia and Luna, so this came as no surprise to Rarity.
"I'll come to the Castle to see Twilight too, after I perform a few errands," Rarity told him. "I'll see you then." She saw him off at the door, and kissed a hoof to him as he departed. "Until later," she said, and felt briefly, strangely shy.
After Spike left, the first thing she did was hunt among her fabrics. She found some peluche, in the exact shade as her own off-white body; some indigo yarn, two azure buttons, a few other odds and ends.
Humming happily to herself, Rarity began to make a plush toy.
What a bleak opener. Fortunately, best princess and number one assistant to the rescue!
6623270
Happily, the opener is but a bad dream. Note how it's crafted to be as repulsive to Rarity, personally, as possible consistent with the actual nature of Our Town.
And we see the real peril of Starlight's effed-up dystopia: eradicating purpose and meaning from life to serve the ends of a vindictive idiot who looks to me like nothing more than a personification of the imbeciles in Standards and Practices.
Dang. That was a nightmare, on several levels.
Sleepfighting? Interesting concept. I imagine Luna would be a master of it if she needs to be asleep to visit dreams.
Yeah. Ponies just bursting into song in random places at the drop of a hat? Who does that?
Funny how diamond-shaped cutie marks seem to reflect sensitivity to social patterns, whether they're crystalline or argyle.
A wonderful moment of love, restricted only by a barrier that will erode with time. Also a lovely origin story for Spike's Rarity plushie from "Castle Sweet Castle." This chapter was a beautiful upward curve. Good thing; I have the feeling that the next one isn't going to be nearly as pleasant.
6623744
Though ironically, the most nightmarish part of it is before Rarity realizes that she's under psychic attack. But then, you know, the Night Shadow was just drawn to and increasing Rarity's despair. The details of Rarity's dream were self-generated, and are just an intensification of her real-life worst fear -- living a dull and meaningless life. Starlight Glimmer's dystopia meshed with that fear perfectly, which is why Rarity was the most damaged by her captivity.
I like to think that Luna can normally start fighting back before she wakes up, which makes it hard to attack her in her sleep. It's not, of course, normally meant as a suicide technique.
Even though Rarity's aim would have been dubious, sleeping, she probably would have jammed the shears into some part of her own anatomy, which wouldn't have improved her health. These are big shears too, intended to be able to cut heavy fabric. It would have been like stabbing herself with a long fighting dagger. It might have killed her, and almost certainly would have inflicted the sort of wound that would take weeks from which to recover.
Rarity normally uses her telekinesis in a fight to protect rather than harm herself.
That was the exact scene I had in mind (from "Rarity Takes Manehattan") when I wrote that piece of her thoughts. That's Season Four, this is right after the opener of Season Five, so it's already happened, too.
I (and Rarity) are of course thinking of the grand staircase variant on the classic Meadow Run scene from endless movies (and plays). Because she's Rarity, she actually thinks about the fact that she's doing the scene, as she does it for real -- even though her only audience is Spike, and probably Opalescence somewhere in the background (if Opal isn't hiding because Spike just broke through the door).
As I think I've said somewhere else, Rarity was not being fundamentally unreasonable in her attraction to Trenderhoof. He was (and is in many ways) a Kindred Spirit to her. He's simply weaker and shallower than her. Spike's another Kindred Spirit to her, and stronger than Trenderhoof.
One thing I liked about "Simple Ways" is that, even though his role in the story was unsympathetic (he was humiliating Rarity by ignoring her attraction, and annoying the heck out of Applejack) the writers remained aware that he wasn't really a villain. In consequence, there's been very little fanfic of Trenderhoof as a bad guy, which is good because he's not -- he's at worst pretentious and shallow; and one could argue that he's just a weaker version of Rarity herself.
Exactly. In most American states this would be a Jail Bait Wait, but in the Vale of Avalon the age of consent is 14 and in my chronology Spike's 14th birthday would have happened in Season Four. The barrier is to some extent real, though, as Spike is still immature in many ways. Rarity's plan is to wait until his majority. (I don't think she's going to be able to hold out that long, but she's trying).
I deliberately contrasted the extreme passion and then loving trust and even warm domesticity of Rarity's scenes with Spike with the bleak coldness of her mating in the dream. Note that, in the dream she actually has full sexual intercourse with poor Dashing Cape (who isn't a bad Pony at all in real life, just a rather friendly messed-up clothier who is in reality beginning the long process of psychological recovery from the Sameness) but that not only isn't it emotionally-enjoyable, it's repulsive to her when she thinks about it after the fact (and the awareness that she didn't really do this is one of the things that makes her glad when she wakes up).
She doesn't have sex with Spike in real life; she technically doesn't get to first base with him (though she kind of cuts around it toward second) by Equestrian cultural standards. (Ponies don't keep their mammaries where they are casually-accessible, but they find nibbling or kissing on their lower necks to be very erotic because of the standard equine mating posture). But what she does with him is, essentially, making love (especially in the older usage of the term, from the 19th to early 20th centuries), and it makes her feel very happy and loved. Oh, and she does sleep with him. Literally, and also in the emotional meaning of the term.
I figured she had to have done so at some point, or she wouldn't have made him the plushie. That's a lover's gift, and its meaning is "this can keep you company in bed when I can't." And I think that's what it was intended to reply by the writers, who don't dare in our paedophilia-paranoid society to directly state that Rarity and Spike are "lovers" even in the mostly-chaste sense of the term -- even though, ever since the last few episodes of Season Four, their affect and body language toward one another makes it clear that they are (at least in the emotional sense) precisely that.
I'm limited in what I can do and remain close to canon, though, in that it's also obvious to me from the show that Rarity and Spike have not yet openly declared their love -- to others or in some ways even to each other. The likely reason is the one I pick -- Rarity's fear of corrupting his youth with her own lust -- for a number of reasons, one being that it's the sort of reason that would be stronger given that Rarity has fundamentally sound morals and genuinely loves Spike. This also means they're not actually having sex.
Everypony who knows both Rarity and Spike well has by now figured out that they're in love. This includes of course Sweetie Belle and the CMC. Sweetie Belle is mildly jealous about this, because she finds Spike very impressive and attractive. (Sweetie has only a slight crush on him, though, as she also likes some of her other male friends, such as Button Mash and Snails). Twilight Sparkle has in the last few months become aware that Rarity is starting to return Spike's romantic affections: this disturbs her because he's her baby brother, but she's fairly glad that he's fallen for Rarity instead of somepony unworthy of him.
Rarity, who pays attention to social patterns, is also quite aware that her friends are aware of this.
6623352
Yes. Our Town would be a pretty hellish place to live in long-term. More so for Rarity Belle than for many Ponies, but most other Ponies would still find it a fairly depressing and pointless life.
6623910 Which makes the long-term plan for her a moral absurdity in the world in which we live. In the real world, a dangerous and vain crackpot who subjected people to that sort of pointless, dehumanizing trauma because she thought that a philosophy based on a septic melange of a misapprehension and her own personal disappointments was a means of salvation would spend the rest of her life in a prison cell IF she didn't end up like a villain on Special Victims Unit and get shot after they declare a mistrial so Mariska Hargitay and Ice-T can look shocked despite that happening every other episode. Here, it's "you have been bad so have Sparklebutt teach you to be good" because we're pointing it at kids who aren't supposed to learn about the irredeemable. It's not NICE to tell little girls aged four through nine that some people should be locked up for good because they're a threat to themselves and those around them.
6623352
Since Glimmer is basically encourage marriage-less sex, I don't see the connection.
If Rarity killed herself in that vision, isn't she as much deciding the fate of her unborn foal as Glimmer is?
Tantabus, "I merely did as you created me to do, mother. I punish those who WISH to be punished."
You write them well, and in depth, but the alien parasite thing will always remain a sore spot for me.
Dear Spike, she thought fondly, a warm happiness spreading through her soul. My hero. He's smashed my front door.
Better than Cheerilee, and too bad he would have been late, oh well.
Yeah, in the pony pov verse, I imagine the Tantabus sensing Rarity's desire to be punished, and gave her the hell she thought she deserved, and Luna covering up the Tantabus' existence when she drew it back into her own mind.
6624433 We're dealing with her turning it into filling out a coupon or something like in 1984. Not something that appeals to most people, I should hope.
6624475
The real enemy should have been the ideal of Equalization itself, not Glimmer turning out to be a hypocrite.
6624541 if the writers didn't want Glimmer to be a hypocrite then they would have made the staff of Sameness real. Perhaps a weapon or something used to make jailing certain powerful ponies possible. She was never intended as a true believer
6625372
I disagree. If she wanted power, she wouldn't be lord over ponies in the twisted motherly way possible, and she wouldn't be enjoying a LOWER standard of living than the average pony in Ponyville!
6624435
That's an extremely good point!
It doesn't mean that Rarity wouldn't have had this nightmare, though. To begin with, Rarity's not thinking completely logically at this moment, both because of her emotional trauma from her actual experience at Our Town, and because she's literally dreaming at the time. In real life, was Rarity a captive in that situation, she would be constantly scheming to get free, not having sex with Dashing Cape just because it was an easy thing to do at the moment. Nor would she assume she was pregnant even if she did that. Rarity's following nightmare-logic here, in which she's really reliving her experience with Rush Rocks in Fillydelphia in different guise. And the Night Shadow was feeding her despair (not, as Rarity assumes, controlling the details of the dream; the Night Shadows wouldn't even understand why that particular sequence of events would depress Rarity).
The Night Shadows are the anti-Ponies; they are creatures of hate and despair as the Ponies are creatures of love and hope. What can I say: I liked the original Nightmare Rarity arc, and greatly improved them. I also, of course, was a fan of Sailor Moon when I was a young man: the Night Shadows are very much inspired by the Negaverse creatures. Also, of E. E. "Doc" Smith's Lensman series; the Shadowverse is basically dominated by its equivalent of Eddorians.
The Ponies see ways to make bigger and more inclusive societies through making peace with and understanding and mutually-benefitting with other creatures. The Night Shadows only understand domination and predation. The reason why their Universe is so hopeless is only partly because of partial heat-death; it's also because they can't really conceive of the possibility of learning to make fundamental improvements. All they can see is finding other Universes and devouring them. They imagine that this is wisdom.
Rarity, as Generosity, very much exemplifies one of the traits which make the Ponies better than the Night Shadows. She always thinks in terms of finding mutually-beneficial solutions by which conflicts can end with both sides winning through helping one another; she tries to construct networks of trade and friendship. (The one time she didn't was when she destroyed Rush Rocks at school; she really hated Rush Rocks at that point in her life, but if she'd stayed on that path much longer, she would have been corrupted by her own hatred).
I most definitely do do stories about Ponies corrupted by their own flaws. For one thing, the Night Shadows can't even get at most Ponies worth riding without being invited in or taking advantage of extreme despair. Both Crimson Quartz and Princess Luna summoned Night Shadows, to become Sombra and Nightmare Moon. Rarity was overwhelmed by her old despair; also, in case you haven't noticed, I am deliberately writing her as manic-depressive (and so does vanilla canon, they just don't use the term!) Moon Dancer hasn't been possessed by anything yet in the story I've written, save her own dark side -- her anger at a world that doesn't follow her own priorities and doesn't understand her or like her very much.
Actually, if Rarity had stabbed herself in her sleep, she probably would have been wounded, rather than dead, and Spike would have rushed her to the hospital. Possibly in a straight line and without too much attention paid to obstacles.
6624433
Rarity is a romantic: there is no way she would be happy in a world of purely-functional sex. Part of her despair was not only that she'd yielded to it (which she had to, of course, to torment herself to the fullest in her dream) but also at the thought that sex makes babies, and her children would grow up in the same dreary world.
She didn't like anything else about Our Town either, of course. But that was her most dramatic problem with it. It horrified her when Fluttershy told her about Starlight Glimmer's ideology in the first place.
6625685
To be precise, she wants power rather than wealth, and she wants power on very specific terms: she wants to be loved like a mother by her subjects. Which, of course, is a twisted version of the way that the Ponies of Equestria actually feel about Princess Celestia.
The desire for warped mother-love checks Starlight Glimmer from certain actions. For instance, compared to Human despots, she really does not like to kill, both because her basic psychology is still Pony and because the authority-figure she's ultimately copying, Celestia, goes far out of her way to avoid killing. She also can't flat-out physically-torture Ponies; the psychological torture and emotional manipulation she does engage in, she justifies as being "for their own good," with a dash of "it hurts me more than it hurts them."
She's okay with living a bit better than her subjects, because "Mommy" needs to have privacy and special equipment to run the town. But she wouldn't be okay with sitting on a golden throne and eating banquets while her subjects lay in mud and starved, because that wouldn't be being "a good mother."
Where her carnal attraction to Double Diamond, whom she treated as more "favored son" than "husband," fit into all this ... I never said that her concept was a sane or healthy one. Nor that Starlight Glimmer was a sane or healthy Pony.
I like(?) that bleak opening, the despair of Our Town affecting even lovemaking, sex, and reproduction. That was incredibly creepy. Reminded me a bit of Orwell's 1984.
And the ending of this chapter is really very sweet. Luna and Spike to the rescue! And the finish with Rarity making that little plushie of herself for Spike, heh. I remember that fan art myself.
I especially like the idea of sleep-casting. It would work wonderfully in a story I'm currently working on, the long-talked-about sequel to My Little Balladeer. May I borrow the idea for use in it?
6628675
Further described in His Recipe For Love (M-rated, sex and gore).
6627143
I'm glad you liked what I did here. Rarity's concept of long-term life in Our Town was even worse than the reality, but not by much. Rarity, of course, would be less happy there than maybe any other member of the Mane Six, with Rainbow Dash and Pinkie running second in that regard.
Of course Rarity was following dream-logic here, which she started to realize when the dream got more lucid talking to the Night Shadow. In particular, Rarity would not yield as easily to despair in real life as she did in the dream, which in the manner of dreams sort of ran-together very long periods of time.
That was very much a Big Damn Hero moment for Luna, and secondarily for Spike. They both rescued her; Luna directly from the Night Shadow and Spike from her despair and loneliness -- also, by his presence and behavior making it very obvious to Rarity that she'd been getting all worked up over nothing regarding his reaction; Spike loves her far too much to be driven away by Rarity acting weird on one occasion.
I very much intended the last part to be sweet. Over the winter, since the events of "Inspiration Manifestation," Rarity and Spike have been growing closer together. Rarity hasn't been as all over him in public as she once was, but this is because she's become more intimate with him in private. Their subsequent body language toward one another throughout Season Five has been extremely friendly and trusting, and the few times that it's come up, it's obvious that Spike is every bit as protective toward her as he was before, if not more so. (They even parodied them as the Final Couple in a slasher movie in "The Scare Master," if you noticed, doing the scene where the girl falls down when pursued, and her boyfriend darts back, pulls her to her feet, and they resume their escape).
They're also very obviously not really trying to keep it a secret from the others any more -- Spike is sleeping with a Rarity plushie, and Rarity is the likeliest candidate to have made it in the first place. There's no way that any of the Mane Six haven't noticed that Rarity's started to return Spike's affections. Not even Twilight can be oblivious, since she probably knows where Spike spends his time (so that she can get in touch with him if something important comes up).
I don't see Rarity and Spike as being quite lovers in the physical sense of the word yet, but they are most definitely becoming lovers in the emotional sense of the word.
6627143
Oh, of course you can use the sleep-fighting concept!
6628903 Thanks! I appreciate it.
This chapter was beautifully written. If I wasn't a sparity fan already I would be one right now. But then again, the whole story is great to read. Sorry for not more constructive critiscm.
It just captured me.
6636394
I'm glad you liked the way I'm handling the relationship between Spike and Rarity. I'm trying to keep the Shadow Wars Story Verse as much as possible compliant with the canon actually depicted on the show, and I'm pretty sure that the show doesn't mean them to be lovers. Yet, anyway.
On the other hand, the show definitely does mean Spike to be sexually-attracted to Rarity. And ... if I'm interpreting the changes shown in her behavior across the show's seasons aright ... she's increasingly returning this attraction. And it's also very romantic and sentimental between them.
This seems most logically-consistent, to me, with Rarity loving Spike but being afraid that he's still too young for her. But that is a problem which solves itself with time. The obvious reason she does not flat-out tell Spike: "I love you as a mate, but we should wait until you are a little older to actually become lovers" is that she is afraid that one or both of them will fall for someone else first, and she does not want to lie to Spike about something this important, because then she'd be hurting him deeply -- and she loves Spike far too much to willingly do that.
Another reason, of course, is that she's Rarity, and she would never word it that way. She prefers to say things dramatically and passionately.
I must confess, I have a slightly harder time getting through the chapters dealing with Rarity and Spike. I'm one of that strange breed of people who just can't get invested in that ship.
6626142
Huh. I thought Pinkie Pie was the manic-depressive of the group, much as Twilight Sparkle is the Aspergers Syndrome Pony. I used to be able to name a condition to go with each of the Mane Six, but I've mostly stopped caring about it in recent seasons, and forgot what my old diagnoses were.
>She might have made herself pregnant.
You know this isn't how biology works, right? And no, she wouldn't have "killed her unborn child." Unless Pony conception happens *immediately,* which is impossible, and implantation immediately after (also impossible) there was no way she was pregnant by then. Further, calling a new conception a "child" is an insult to real children.
You could be a good writer if you kept your views and your lack of education out of your work.
8848129
The question isn't "How much do I know about how biology works," but rather "how much does Rarity know about how biology works," and also "how much of this knowledge is accessible to her in the context of a nightmare?" It's also relevant here that my Rarity lost an actual fetus (about halfway to term) when she was fourteen years old, and is hence emotionally far from neutral on this topic, something referenced elsewhere in my writing and possibly elsewhere in this very chapter.
Ponies in the middle of nightmares induced by marauding Night Shadows are neither in the calmest nor the most rational moods. They are entirely unconcerned with whether or not their dreams are "insulting," whether to real children or to real fetuses or even embryoes. If your dreams, even when beset by extradimensional demons, are more lucid than that -- well, Princess Luna may have a job for you!
Rarity is a highly-intelligent Pony -- one of the leading minds of her age and cool under pressure. But she's not a biologist, she's not entirely rational on the topic of unwanted pregnancy -- and she's dreaming.
Also, while I love and admire my Rarity, she's NOT ME. Author and character -- even beloved character -- are not identical. I could write an essay on the points on which I agree and disagree with Rarity Belle.