Uncle John
Hearth's Warming Eve was upon Equestria, much as it had always been this time of year. Soft snow covered the ground and glittered in the morning sunlight around the Carousel Boutique. Rarity stirred in her bed, fighting the desire to get up. The sound of a door shutting down the hall made her groan. Hooves clattering against the floor made her brace, knowing what bundle of energy those hooves carried with them.
The door burst open with Sweetie Belle diving into bed with her sister, face glowing with delight. Rarity groaned and turned over in bed as Sweetie Belle performed a dance upon the sheets. She could practically feel the peace and quiet she once had shattering all around her.
"Must you?" Rarity asked with a heavy, tired sigh.
"But aren't you excited?" Sweetie Belle asked, her voice pitched high with enthusiasm.
"Not as excited as you, apparently," Rarity muttered.
"But Hearth's Warming Eve is only a day away!" Sweetie Belle said, her jumping around becoming increasingly jubilant.
"I am well aware," Rarity said. "Much like the last few days when you've done this same dance, in this same manner and we've had this same conversation."
"But today is different," Sweetie Belle said. "Mom and Dad are coming, remember?"
Rarity bolted out of bed, knocking Sweetie Belle onto the floor. "Oh no! I forgot!"
Panicked, Rarity tumbled out of her bed and galloped down stairs. Her eyes were wide and frantic as she looked around her shop. Everything was in disarray, cloth and thread lay strewn about carelessly. The shop looked as though a bomb full of arts and crafts supplies had gone off. Rarity dashed this way and that, cloth flying through the air glowing with blue magic as she hurriedly tried to fix the mess left over from the night before.
Sweetie Belle cautiously entered the main room, watching her sister try to clean the mess.
"I simply cannot let mother and father see the place like this!" Rarity exclaimed as another bit of cloth made it into its hold.
A knock at the door made Rarity screech to a halt.
“I’ll get it!” Sweetie Belle exclaimed before being cut off by Rarity who bolted to the door and pressed her back against it.
“No! You cannot!” Rarity exclaimed desperately.
“But what if it’s mom and dad?” Sweetie Belle asked.
“They can’t see my house like this, or see my hair like this!”
“You’re just being paranoid,” Sweetie Bell said as she reached for the door. Rarity stayed her hoof and the two struggled until Rarity was caught off balance and stumbled into a pile of cloth. Sweetie Belle stuck her tongue out at her sister and flung the door open.
Magnum and Pearl both looked into the home curiously.
“Uh, hiya Sweetie Belle, is your sister around?” Magnum asked.
“We heard a scuffle,” Pearl said with a bit of worry.
“Oh, that was just Rarity, come in!” Sweetie Belle said prancing away from the door. Rarity peered at her sister with a gaze of daggers from beneath the cloth. She perked up when her mother and father stepped in, however.
“There’s our first daughter!” Magnum said with a smile. “Have you two been fighting again?”
“No! Of course not!” Rarity exclaimed. “We were just… playing.”
“Looks to me like it went on for a while,” Pearl said, looking around the shop at the mess strewn about. Rarity groaned and took the cloth from her head. The sound of static made her cringe as her hair began to stand on end. She let out a slight whine, taking the cloth to fold it up and put it away.
“Is that a new hairstyle yer tryin’ out there?” Magnum asked, dragging a few bags in from outside.
Rarity let out a polite laugh. “I’m afraid you caught me a bit unprepared. I’ve been so tied up with my new line that I simply forgot about your stay for Hearth’s Warming Eve.”
Magnum and Pearl looked to each other, both raising a brow. Rarity could practically hear it. She cringed, knowing how terrible it must sound to hear that someone had totally forgotten their parents on such a holiday.
“I reminded her!” Sweetie Belle chimed in with a large grin.
“That’s so good of you!” Pearl said as she ruffled Sweetie Belle’s hair. “I’m glad you’re here to keep on top of your sister so she doesn’t go forgetting the important things.”
Rarity would have retorted, telling them all about the ‘help’ Sweetie Belle and her Crusader friends give by using her fabric without asking, messing up her home worse than this and using her kitchen for what they explained to be baking but could only be described by her as “enthusiastic science”. She decided, however, to not be so indignant. Especially on a holiday such as this. No point in rocking the boat, after all.
The mess was soon put away and every corner of the Carousel Boutique was nice and properly free of anything covering up the floor. Magnum and Pearl had both put their things away in the room they would be staying for the week and the family was together for a lovely brunch that Rarity began to prepare.
“So how is the city for the holiday?” Rarity asked placing a plate before her father.
“Oh, it’s a hoot!” he said. “They’ve got decorations hanging from all the buildings and in the middle of the city a huge tree with lights all over it and a star on top!”
“We had our picture taken in front of it again this year,” Pearl said as Rarity poured her some tea.
“I wish I could come and see it,” Rarity said. “It all sounds so lovely.”
“Oh, you got no idea what you’re missing out on!” Magnum said. “Oh, that reminds me, we forgot to tell you who we ran into while we were there!”
“Who would that be?” Rarity asked, the tea now being poured into Magnum’s cup.
“Your Uncle John!” Magnum said happily. Rarity’s eye twitched at the name as tea began to flow over the edge of Magnum’s cup. He cleared his throat as Rarity set the kettle down and grabbed a cloth from a hook, clearly embarrassed.
“Y-you spoke to Uncle John,” she said, her voice sounding as though it’d had trouble putting both “Uncle” and “John” together in the same sentence, let alone the same universe.
“Well yeah, ya know he asked about you.”
Rarity thought her head was going to explode.
“We even said he should come over!” Pearl said, clicking her tongue obnoxiously after sipping some tea.
Rarity felt like she would have launched herself straight up into the ceiling until she cleared her throat. “I assume he declined, however. Probably busy with… whatever it is he does.”
“Oh no, he said he was gonna be delighted and is on his way. He got on the train after us,” Magnum said taking a sip of tea himself, also clicking his tongue.
“Uncle John is coming?” Sweetie Belle squeaked, jumping up and down on her hooves.
Rarity gave pause at this moment to reflect on the conversation she had just had. She wanted to make sure that it had actually happened and she wasn’t still in bed awaiting Sweetie Belle to burst in and assault her with Hearth’s Warming Eve delight. A smile crept along her face as she began to back away out of the kitchen.
“If you’ll excuse me, I must make certain I left enough soap out for the two of you.”
Rarity zipped up the stairs. Slamming her room door behind her, she flung herself onto the bed and let out a scream into one of her pillows. The muffled cry of anger soon subsided and she rolled over staring up at the ceiling. Her mouth flapped open and closed, trying to form words but only really managing the odd grunt here and there.
Her mind drifted to Hearth’s Warming Eve’s from long ago. When she had been a filly and her family would get together every year. Then there was Uncle John. Every family surely had one of them. The uncle that seemed to be dead set on ruining the holiday for everyone. Drunk, stinking old Uncle John. Rarity despised him from the moment he’d insulted her over and over again about her desire for fashion. Not to mention the way he treated everyone else.
A knock from downstairs made Rarity freeze and her heart leap into her throat. She gulped and turned her eyes towards the knocking. She crept out of her room and silently moved down the stairs to peek around the corner. Sweetie Belle was already at the door with a bright smile on her face. As she flung the door open, she took a deep breath to shout but deflated.
“Oh, hello Sweetie Belle, is your sister home?” Fluttershy asked.
“Rarity, it’s Fluttershy!” Sweetie Belle cried out, moving away from the door seeming disappointed. Rarity came around the corner quickly and looked back to Sweetie Belle.
“I’m going to be out Sweetie Belle, make sure mother and father are comfortable, tell them I’ll be back soon, thank you bye!”
She took a breath as the door closed and she shoved Fluttershy away from her house. Fluttershy curiously looked down to Rarity, wondering what the fuss was about.
“Uhm, Rarity? Why was your sister so sad to see me? Also, why am I being pushed away from your house. I thought you needed me to come over and help you.”
“My parents have arrived for Hearth’s Warming Eve, I’m afraid,” Rarity said with a grumble.
“Oh, but that sounds wonderful!” Fluttershy said. “I thought you wanted to see your parents.”
Rarity sighed and stopped pushing Fluttershy along. “It’s not that I don’t want to. But they’ve invited an awful pony to come and spend Hearth’s Warming Eve with us. My… ugh, Uncle John.”
“I never knew you had an Uncle John,” Fluttershy said.
“I try to forget he exists. They know how much I despise him, but yet they invited him over for Hearth’s Warming Eve! Did I tell you what he did one year to me?”
Fluttershy shook her head.
“He decided to spill cider all over my dresses that I worked very hard on for the school Hearth’s Warming Eve pageant. Said he would take care of it. Wound up making a bunch of ugly scraps of fabric tied together with string. I was a laughing stock because of him!”
“I’m sure he didn’t mean to…”
“The next year he set my hair on fire!”
“Maybe it was an accident…”
“And then the year after that he called me fat!”
Fluttershy bit her bottom lip and looked around as though she were searching for the appropriate response. Rarity, in the mean time, sighed and sat back onto the ground.
“I’m sorry, Fluttershy, I really shouldn’t be concerning you with any of this,” Rarity said.
“Oh no, it’s okay,” Fluttershy said, offering a nervous smile.
“Say, what did you have planned for Hearth’s Warming Eve?”
“I was just going to spend it with Angel and the rest of the animals that aren’t hibernating, like I always do.”
Rarity set a hoof on her chin. “What if I invited you over?”
“Oh, I don’t know Rarity, it’s a nice offer and all but…”
Rarity pouted and leaned closer to her friend.
“Okay,” Fluttershy said.
“You will not regret this, and you’ll be doing me a huge favor,” Rarity said now beaming with delight. “I’ll even make sure we return to your home later on and celebrate with Angel and his woodland friends.”
“That would be nice,” Fluttershy said softly.
The two set off back to the Carousel Boutique and arrived in time to find Sweetie Belle and her parents playing games and swapping stories about their holiday experiences. Magnum and Pearl especially had particularly engaging stories when they were young and celebrated the holiday. Sweetie Belle regaled them with stories of her Crusader friends and their antics in trying to get their cutie marks with Pearl every so often commenting with an “oh dear” or a “goodness me”.
Evening was soon upon them and Fluttershy had left after dinner, leaving Rarity and Sweetie Belle to clean up. Magnum and Pearl had gone to their room for the evening to get settled in and the thoughts of Uncle John were far and away from Rarity’s mind. All seemed to be well, at least until the a knock came to the door. Sweetie Belle set her drying cloth onto the table and wandered from the kitchen to answer it as Rarity hummed and put the last of the dishes away into her cabinets.
“Uncle John!” Sweetie Belle exclaimed from the other room. Rarity went wide eyed as a dish fell from the edge of the cabinet and shattered on the floor.
“Hiya Sweetie Belle,” John said in a gruff voice. He was a pale blue Earth stallion with a short, scruffy brown mane and tail. Upon his head was a beanie cap where his ears poked out. His faced seemed stubbly, as though a beard were trying to make a desperate escape through his coat. Rarity noted that, even from the kitchen, he reeked of cheap cigars.
She quickly tried to clean up the broken dish scattered on the floor as Magnum and Pearl were heard coming from the other room.
“John!” Magnum exclaimed with a laugh. “How the heck are ya?”
“Hey Magnum, great to see you and Pearl again!”
Rarity cringed, the thick Manehatten accent was like venom running through her ears. Memories of his constant chiding and hacking coughs flooded her mind. Her teeth clenched and felt as though they would turn to powder under any more pressure.
“Rarity, come and say hello to your Uncle John!” Pearl called as Rarity felt her heart sink. Resigning herself to her fate, she turned and moved towards the doorway of the kitchen.
Coming into view of John was commensurate with coming into view of a shark. That was how Rarity felt up to the point John moved quickly towards her and gave her a tight hug. Several thoughts ran into Rarity’s mind. One of them was she was clearly dreaming and she would soon wake up to Sweetie Belle jumping up and down on her bed. The second was this was some sort of ruse. Uncle John was known for them.
Released from John’s grasp, Rarity looked between him and her parents. An awkward silence fell upon the house that felt as though it were dragging on for ages. Finally, John cleared his throat.
“Well, I just wanted to let everyone know I was in town and staying down the road.”
More silence followed.
“Well, I guess we’ll have to get together for Hearth’s Warming Eve and catch up,” Magnum said through the unease. After a silent goodbye, John wandered away into the night and the door to the Carousel Boutique was closed.
“That was nice,” Pearl said, trying to relieve the tension still clinging to the air.
“Yeah, real great to see him,” Magnum added.
“I really liked seeing him again,” Sweetie Belle said.
Eyes turned to Rarity who said nothing. She instead spun around and made her way towards the kitchen. The family dispersed, leaving Rarity to her thoughts once more. She could feel something was up as she swept her kitchen floor free of whatever bits of plate remained. She simply couldn’t place her hoof on it.
As the morning sun crested the forest surrounding Ponyville, its citizens were treated to a snow that had fallen from the previous evening. As the citizens filled the streets to joyfully throw snowballs and play, one pony didn’t seem in the mood for games. Rarity huffed as she wandered through the town.
“Hey! Rarity!” a voice came from above.
She stopped and looked up to the clouds where Rainbow Dash poked her head from.
“Oh, hello Rainbow Dash,” she said.
“What’s up?” Dash asked, fluttering down. “Why aren’t ya out and having fun like everyone else?”
“I’m afraid I haven’t the time,” Rarity said. “I’ve got to get to Fluttershy’s for help.”
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s just a simple matter, Rainbow Dash, nothing that needs undue attention,” Rarity snapped which gave Dash pause. “I’m sorry, it’s simply not going to be that good of a Hearth’s Warming Eve if I don’t find Fluttershy.”
“I’m going to pretend I understand that,” Rainbow Dash said, clearly confused. “Anyway, I think I saw her just over there in town.”
“Thank you Rainbow Dash, happy Hearth’s Warming Eve,” Rarity said.
“Happy Hearth’s Warming Eve!”
Rarity moved into the town square, her blue eyes turning this way and that on the outlook for her yellow friend. Everywhere she looked she couldn’t see hide nor feather of Fluttershy. The park, the fountain, all with a distinct lack of her friend. She began to wonder if Rainbow Dash had in fact seen Fluttershy until a hint of yellow caught her attention. Rarity let out a loud gasp and she galloped to a snow drift to hide behind. She poked holes in the snow to peer out of and watched a sight not to be believed.
There among the shops stood Fluttershy and next to her, Uncle John. Rarity felt mortified for Fluttershy, wondering what terrible things he was telling her. She fully expected Fluttershy to run off crying at any moment. Except it didn’t. Nothing at all happened. As a matter of fact, Fluttershy was laughing.
Rarity frowned, watching from her friend from the snow bank. What could Fluttershy possibly be thinking, talking to such an individual? After all of the mean spirited things and holidays gone by in which he’d been a right prig, Rarity couldn’t understand why the change all of a sudden.
They began to move from the stall down the row and Rarity leapt at the chance to follow them as close as she dared. As they stopped off at another stall, Rarity slipping up to one across from them to listen into their conversation.
“Thanks again for coming along and helping me out,” Uncle John said.
“Oh, it’s no problem!” Fluttershy said with a bright smile.
“I just wish I had done all this shopping for my brother and his family in Manehatten!” John said.
Rarity watched as they moved away and was prepared to tail them until a familiar voice called out next to her.
“Hi Rarity!” Twilight said happily.
“Get down!” Rarity exclaimed in a hushed voice, pulling Twilight behind a nearby vendor’s stall. Rarity peered around the corner, watching as both John and Fluttershy turned around to see what the commotion was.
“What is going on?” Twilight asked with an air of concern.
“That’s my Uncle John,” Rarity said peering around the corner again.
“You have an Uncle John?”
“Yes, and he’s a very mean, very horrible pony,” Rarity hissed, narrowing her eyes at John.
Twilight craned her head around the corner as well, her eyes settling on John. A few moments crawled by as she observed he and Fluttershy talking and laughing. “He doesn’t seem that bad to me.”
“I don’t know what he’s up to, but he’s certainly not going to be fooling me,” Rarity said.
“Rarity, don’t you think maybe you’re overreacting?” Twilight asked, lifting a brow.
“You don’t know him like I do, Twilight,” Rarity said sharply. “He’s simply a brute. He has done everything in his evil power to ruin holidays since I can remember. One time he got drunk and ruined mother’s meals by falling asleep in them. He’s broken father’s golf clubs. He’s called me fat!”
“But you’re not fat,” Twilight said.
“Tell that to the me five years ago!”
“He doesn’t seem to be doing any of that though,” Twilight said. “In fact, he seems to be enjoying himself and ponies around him seem to be enjoying him.”
“Do not believe his treachery!” Rarity said until a familiar clearing of the throat came from the other side of the vendor’s stall. She squeaked and rose to her hooves, coming face to face with Uncle John and Fluttershy.
“Hello, Rarity,” Uncle John said with a gentle smile.
“I’m on to you!” Rarity shouted pointing an accusing hoof in John’s direction before rushing off into the market.
As Rarity galloped into her home, she made a dash for her room and shut the door. Throwing the cloak from her body, she began to pace, mind turning with ways she could show everyone just how terrible her uncle really was. There was a part of her that wanted to believe he was a changed pony. Perhaps after all of those terrible holidays he was finally trying to atone for his misgivings. No, she thought, there’s no way he’s done that.
Rarity huffed and tossed herself onto the bed. She glared at the ceiling as the internal struggle carried out in her mind. A knock on her door made her grunt. In from the hall came Uncle John which made Rarity cringe, the thought of someone like him now in her inner sanctum. He paused at the threshold of Rarity’s room, however, simply nodding to her and awkwardly looking about.
“Yes?” she asked with a hiss.
“Look kiddo, I know we’ve had our differences,” John said.
“Hah! Differences. What we’ve had is wars ever since the start!”
“I know, I’ve been a real lout,” John said with a sigh. It took Rarity a moment to even grasp how understated the word ‘lout’ really was when describing himself. She felt her eye twitch as emotion rushed into her head and seized control.
“A lout? You’ve been the worst kind of pony I’ve ever known in my life. All of those holidays when mother and father would put up with you. Well let me tell you something, if you think you’re going to ruin Hearth’s Warming Eve in my house you’ve got another thing coming!”
John backed away, ears flattening
“Honestly! You come into my home after all of those years of making our lives miserable!” Rarity huffed, her words practically pelting John. “You just watch your step buster! Celestia as my witness I will...will...agh!”
A tense silence hung heavy in the room as Rarity felt the fire that had once been on her tongue start cooling. John stepped backwards into the hall and stared at the ground, adjusting his beanie cap once more. As Rarity calmed, she began feeling like the bigger lout for that sudden outburst. With a sigh, she ran a hoof along her hair and sat up on the bed.
“I apologize,” Rarity said.
“No, no, you’re well within your right,” John said as he poked the wood floor below him. “Maybe it wasn’t a great idea for me to come here after all.”
Rarity reached out to him in an attempt for John to stop, but he was too quick. He was already out of her room and heading down the stairs. That was when Fluttershy flew to Rarity’s door. She could feel the judgemental eyes of the yellow pegasus burning against her. With a groan, Rarity turned away.
“I know what you’ll say, but I tried to say something nice,” Rarity said. “Perhaps all those years of repressed emotion just spilled out.”
“I know you’ve had problems,” Fluttershy’s gentle voice came as she moved to her friend’s side. “But maybe give him a chance? He doesn’t seem at all as bad as you’ve described him.”
Rarity stared at the wall across from her intently. She knew that somehow this was a terrible idea. That some how this was all going to come back to bite her. She was hoping, however, that she was going to be proven wrong.
Rarity rose from her bed and plopped onto her hooves. Grabbing her cloak, she gave Fluttershy an approving nod. “You’re right, we should catch him before he gets too far into town.”
As night came and the town was settled in their homes with their friends and families, Rarity found herself with Fluttershy, Sweetie Belle, her mother and father, and Uncle John around a table to enjoy a holiday feast Pearl had been preparing all day. There was mirth and joviality clinging to the air as stories were swapped and Hearth’s Warming Eve honey hay was served.
Rarity noted the evening was going off without a hitch. For once, a Hearth’s Warming Eve with Uncle John that wasn’t all about things going wrong or how she could possibly do better in her life or how she needed to be lithe. With her friend Fluttershy by her side and her family, she had the feeling this was going to be the best Hearth’s Warming Eve there would ever be.
“So, I brought presents for everyone!” John exclaimed. The family cheered and gathered around a bag that John had brought in before dinner. “Unfortunately I didn’t bring anything for dear Fluttershy, but perhaps she can take a raincheck until next year.”
The family laughed as John began to dig into his bag and brought out a box marked for Pearl. She floated it over to herself with a big grin on her face. The golden strap fluttered away gently as the red wrapping paper was carefully torn away and set aside. The white box was soon opened and she looked inside with wide, blue eyes. The look on her face shifted, however, as they examined the contents of the box.
Floating from it was a blue and red device that looked like it would serve as a seesaw for incredibly small ponies. Pearl looked it over for a moment more before looking to John.
“What is it?”
“It’s a Flank Master 3000, you looked like you could use it!” John answered happily.
“Er, thanks.”
Rarity began to grow quite suspicious by this point as Magnum grabbed his present from Uncle John. She remained hopeful that was simply a fluke, perhaps even a joke present. As Magnum opened his present, carefully doing away with the wrapping paper and opening the plain white box, his expression turned from joy to confusion.
“Mane cream?” he asked.
“Well, you’re getting up there, want to keep that hair nice and young before the missus runs off with a younger stallion, ya know!” John said with a raucous laugh.
Magnum covered his moustache as Rarity narrowed her eyes. Pearl set a comforting hoof on her husband’s shoulder as Sweetie Belle hopped up and down demanding she be next. As the present was handed off to her, she tore into it with her hooves, messily throwing paper everywhere. As the box was opened, she cheerfully held up in her hooves a book before the realization hit her.
“Wait, a dictionary?” Sweetie Belle said, giving Uncle John a strange look.
“Never too young to know what all those words you’re throwing together mean,” John said with a nod.
Rarity knew what was coming as John dug around inside the bag. Her gift. It was like waiting on a nightmare. The sheer disappointment that had been poured out of the bag already was enough to set her on edge, but seeing the gilded paper and cheerful green bow made her even more uneasy. Like a moment frozen in time, she slowly hovered it towards her and began to methodically unwrap it as though she were delaying the inevitable for as long as she could. Soon the box was opened and contained within she set her blue eyes on a cider bottle.
“Oh, sorry, wrong gift, forgot I didn’t have time to wrap yours, here you go,” John said as the bottle was promptly snatched from the box and replaced was the most hideous thing Rarity could have ever dreamt. The horrifying floral design, the machine stitching of the lace pattern around the legs and collar, the size, oh sweet Celestia the size! Extra, extra large. She felt faint from the very notion as Uncle John took a swig of the bottle and shoved a cigar into his mouth.
“Happy Hearth’s Warmin’ Eve everyone!” he said and took the sack into his mouth. A hacking sort of laugh escaped him as he trotted towards the door to leave the distraught family.
“Rarity?” Fluttershy said to her friend who was staring into nothingness.
“That weasel,” Rarity muttered. “I shall end him.”
“Now let’s not do anything harsh,” Fluttershy said nervously backing away.
“I shall end him if it’s the last thing I do!” Rarity shouted as she stormed away towards the door.
She ran out into the cold, eyes alight with revenge on her mind. In the dim light of the lamps she couldn’t find John. She growled and cried into the night as Fluttershy came up beside her and pat her shoulder. Fluttershy tugged Rarity along, ushering her back inside the house.
“I knew it!” Rarity exclaimed. “I knew that rat wasn’t to be trusted!”
“I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation,” Fluttershy said.
“There’s only one explanation, and that’s Uncle John is a rotten old pony who was winning us over to give us those horrid presents!”
“Maybe I could use this,” Pearl said, her Flank Master settled on her back. “I have been eating a lot more recently. Could use the exercise, you know?”
“And hey, who doesn’t want to stay young?” Magnum added.
“I like words,”Sweetie Belle offered.
“That’s not the point!” Rarity said as she spun around. “Don’t you see that he’s trying to ruin the holiday again? All of these gifts and those backhoofed comments and his lack of etiquette!”
“Dear, try not to be so hard on John,” Pearl said.
Rarity’s eyes flashed as she turned them towards Pearl. “Mother, he insulted both you and father and Sweetie Belle! He insulted me!”
“I’m sure he didn’t mean to,” Magnum said.
Rarity scoffed, rolling her eyes at the very notion. “He’s been doing it every Hearth’s Warming Eve! Mother, he fell in your meal!”
“Rarity, he had been up all night helping us wrap presents,” Pearl said.
Grumbling, Rarity made a motion to her mane. “He set my hair on fire!”
“He was lighting the candles on the windows that year and you weren’t looking, though,” Magnum said.
Rarity felt her voice faltering, but she wasn’t about to give up. Not now, not after all those years. John was simply getting lucky, that was all. “H-He made those wretched things for the pageant that one year.”
“I tried to help,” Sweetie Belle said.
“B-But th-the...the golf clubs.”
“Those old things? I told him to break ‘em!” Magnum said.
I can’t be wrong! Rarity thought as she collapsed onto the ground and covered her head with her hooves. She couldn’t have been wrong. There was simply no way! “Calling me fat?”
“He’s just concerned, dear,” Pearl said, settling a hoof on Rarity’s shoulder.
Rarity let out a groan into the wood floor. She could feel tears welling up inside her eyes. Her heart stung at the idea that all this time she hated Uncle John for absolutely no good reason. Her throat felt as though it were tightening up like a drum.
“What have I done?” she asked desperately into the air.
“It sounds like you might owe him an apology,” Fluttershy said coming to her friend’s side.
Rarity looked to her family. For a brief moment the flash of an idea that this was a hoax played out in her mind. As she stood up, however, and her eyes looked to the Hearth’s Warming Eve dinner still set out they had enjoyed and the carefully wrapped presents that were so well prepared she pushed all of those thoughts out of her mind.
“You’re absolutely right,” she said with a nod. “I must find him.”
Rarity galloped into the night towards town to find the room Uncle John had been renting out. The streets of Ponyville by this hour had been long abandoned as snow began to fall once more. Rarity desperately went home to home, but could find no trace of him. She was all but about to give up her search when the familiar stench of cigars flooded her nose. She turned towards it and followed it all the way to a back door where Uncle John stood.
“Uncle,” Rarity said as he moved towards him.
John gave a surprised look as he turned his head in her direction. Clearing out his throat, he adjusted the beanie cap on his head and gave a nod. “Heya kiddo.”
A long pause came as the two stood juxtaposed. John let out a sharp huff of air, wondering to himself if he were about to receive another tongue lashing. Rarity in the mean time tried to figure out how best to word what she had to say to him. Closing her eyes, she decided to simply speak from the heart.
“I feel as though I’ve been quite unfair to you,” Rarity said, dipping her head down.
“Don’t say another word,” John said, raising a hoof in her direction. “Listen, I know I haven’t been the best uncle in the world. I play a lot of pranks and I’m not always around. For all I know, you’re all thankful when I’m finally gone. I don’t always know what to get you guys either. You’re my closest family too, isn’t that a riot?”
Rarity floundered for words. If only she’d known all this time. “I wouldn’t say so.”
“So I get gag gifts, things that maybe you’ll look back on and think are funny,” John offered with a slight smile. “If it hurt your feelings, I’m really sorry.”
“No apology necessary,” Rarity said. She felt her body move before her brain had actually made the decision. Throwing her hooves around John’s neck, she hugged him tightly. John’s surprise turned to a soft smile as he returned the embrace in kind. Moments went by as snow fell around them illuminated only by gentle light.
“I should probably get to sleep,” John said, pulling away from Rarity, motioning towards the door. “Got an early train to catch.”
“Good night Uncle John, m-maybe we should see about doing this again next Hearth’s Warming Eve.”
John nodded with a grin. “I’d like that. See ya in the funny papers, kiddo.”
The door closed, leaving Rarity a bit perplexed by the last statement. With a shrug, however, she decided to wander back to warm up in her home with the rest of her family.
It was late in the morning when Fluttershy opened the door to the Carousel Boutique and looked about for her friend Rarity. She found her hunched over a sewing machine, working on what looked to be a colourful floral patterned dress. Rarity peered over the rim of her glasses and greeted her friend with a smile.
“Fluttershy, hello!” Rarity said.
“Hi Rarity, did your parents leave already?” Fluttershy asked.
“Yes, along with Uncle John,” Rarity said as the machine spun down in front of her.
“Oh, how was that?”
“They said they had a very good time here and they looked forward to doing it again next Hearth’s Warming Eve.”
“That’s wonderful!”
“I even have Uncle John to thank for this wonderful idea I’ve had for a spring line up. Though that hideous dress he got me wasn’t the best starting off point, it inspired me none the less!”
With that, Rarity brought the dress Uncle John had given her into view. Curiously, a small package fell out of it, clattering onto the floor. Rarity looked over the sewing machine as Fluttershy picked the package up in one of her wings.
“What is it?” Rarity asked curiously.
“Diet pills,” Fluttershy said.
The floral nightmare held by Rarity’s magic began to strain and tear as Rarity herself looked ready to burst. Fluttershy could swear the universe would have collapsed at that moment with Rarity being the cause. As the dress tore from Rarity’s magic, she sighed and lay her head down on the sewing table as the tattered dress fell to the ground.
“I hate my Uncle John…”