Fluttershy looked rather taken aback at her unexpected visitor’s words. True, Rainbow Dash dropped by her cottage fairly often, but she’d never asked for a sewing lesson before. The butter-yellow pegasus scuffed at the ground as she made a cute thoughtful little frown, and her cyan friend couldn’t help but wonder whether she was considering the possibility of a highly elaborate costume. Celestia, she hoped not.
Her saddlebags were thrown over her back, Rainbow noticed, and they looked rather rumpled. She resisted the urge to barge in and find an iron to fix the problem.
“Oh, hi Rainbow,” Fluttershy finally said. She shifted her long pink mane slightly, and a bit of metal poked out from within the tresses. “I’m glad to see you’re okay. If you don’t mind me asking, why are you so interested?”
“It’s a, uh, pretty long story.” Rainbow brushed the question aside with a dismissive hoof. “But I’d reeeeally appreciate it if you’d keep it on the down low, you know? Fashion isn’t my thing usually. No, wait, I mean it isn’t my thing ever. Except I was just thinking about it, and on the off chance that it actually was my thing – I mean, not me specifically, but out of morbid curiosity and stuff. For a friend. And for exorcism. And I just … yeah.”
Fluttershy blinked.
“So anyway … do you think you could do that for me?”
“Um, well, I’d love to tell you about what I know, but I was just going to watch—”
“Whoa, what a mess!” She brushed lightly past Fluttershy, distracted by the unexpected state of her friend’s home. While normally the cottage was kept in pristine condition even considering the animals that lived there, the familiar cleanliness had been hijacked by the classic passerby tornado look. Papers and birdseed carpeted the floor, the rugs were rather sloppily folded into unidentifiable shapes, the couch had been flipped upside down, cushions lay scattered here and there, and the birdhouses dangling from the ceiling seemed lopsided.
The impact of the untidiness suddenly hit her, the way any other natural disaster would. It’s fine, she told herself. Decoration isn’t the same thing as fashion, probably. There’s a reasonable explanation for this. Nevertheless, her eye twitched. She smacked at the movement reflexively, an action that she immediately regretted as half of her vision exploded into colorful stars.
“Oh yes! I’m sorry about all this, Rainbow. I wasn’t expecting anypony to drop by, and I just had to turn everything inside out to find the cellar key! And if I don’t hurry, I might miss it!”
Rainbow resisted the urge to grunt with pain as she gingerly poked at her throbbing eye. “Miss what?”
“The migration! It only happens twice a year, and I’ve just got to be there. Oh, but I need to find my key first, and I just don’t know where it could be—”
Acting quickly before Fluttershy could get a chance to hyperventilate, Rainbow simply pointed at her pink mane, where the glint of metal was almost concealed.
“What?” She followed Rainbow’s hoof uncertainly, but brightened upon understanding. With an embarrassed giggle she pulled the key out of her mane. “Oh, thank you so much," she said, suddenly sounding much calmer about the whole thing. “I’ve been searching for this all morning.”
“No problem.” Rainbow leaned in a cool manner against the upturned couch, trying not to consider how dirty it would look when it was flipped back over. Pale green with thick gray powder would be an awful combination, she knew, and …
She smacked herself with her wing. Nope, she thought decisively. Not even going there.
Luckily Fluttershy had turned around, pushing one of the rugs out of the way to reveal a trapdoor. Eager for any distraction, Rainbow cleared her throat. “Ah, so what’s in the cellar that’s so important?”
“Some jam.” In the space of just a few seconds, Fluttershy unlocked the trapdoor, darted into the tiny cellar below, emerged with a jar filled with rainbow-colored substance, and locked it again. Several birds, mice, and squirrels emerged from various hidey-holes, looking eager at the sound of the trapdoor’s squeak; upon noticing they were too late, though, the animals retreated with looks of utter dejection and defeat. “The migration happens twice a year, so there has to be enough Zap Apple jam for it. That’s all they’ll let me feed them, you know; they’re a bit picky.”
“But what would – never mind.” She watched in mild confusion as Fluttershy deposited the jar of jam into her saddlebags. “Anyway, I’d rather learn about it sooner than later. The sewing thing, I mean. Do you think I could just … tag along or something? You could teach me something there.”
The yellow pegasus glanced off to the side thoughtfully. “Well, I guess I might be doing a few stitches while I’m there. If you really want to come, then—”
“Great!” Rainbow forced herself not to get too excited. “This should be a breeze!”
With extreme effort, Rainbow managed to force her eyelids open again. “Fluttershy, I thought we were rushing to get here.”
“Oh, we were,” Fluttershy agreed, daintily adding a speck of jam to the eight thousand nine hundred and sixtieth crumb of bread. “I had to be sure we were here early, in case the migration had already started. And then I had to prepare their food. Oh, they’ll be so happy!”
Rainbow grunted, casting her eyes across the meadow they had set up camp in. Besides a few bushes dotting the grass here and there, as well as the occasional bird flitting across the sky, there was no living thing in sight. She wished that anything would happen, even a breeze; that way she might get to watch a tumbleweed roll by. As it was, she could only lay sprawled on her stomach and wait for the mice or whatever they were to show up.
“Fluttershy,” she said, “we’ve been here for two hours.”
“Three and a half, actually.” Fluttershy paused in her tedious task to take a sip of tea. Rainbow couldn’t fathom how an entire tea set could fit into those saddlebags, but her experience with Pinkie Pie told her it was probably better not to ask. “But they can be devious. There was one time when I only had to wait forty-five minutes. It was very surprising.”
“Ugh.”
Rainbow knocked her hat over her eyes irritably. She’d insisted that they wear safari hats on this little expedition, as much to suit the expected adventure as to shut her fashion thoughts up. Besides, it made her look like Daring Do, and that was always a plus.
She wondered idly how her idol might react to boredom. It was a thing that happened to everypony; even Daring probably had to wait for a train or something. Rainbow considered what Daring would do in her horseshoes, but all she could think of was discovering some hidden city beneath the meadow, and she wasn’t sure how to do that. There were usually badly-hidden levers involved, or ancient puzzles that spelled out ominous messages, and neither seemed likely on this well-lit day. Of course it was possible there would be a boulder involved, and she might be able to find one in the far-off mountains.
After all, landscaping was sort of a form of fashion, right?
“What the hay does fashion have to do with—”
“They’re coming!” Fluttershy gasped suddenly, abandoning her efforts on beginning the ten-thousandth group of crumbs in favor of seizing a pair of binoculars. “They’re coming, they’re coming! Keep your voice down, Rainbow Dash; we don’t want to scare them off!”
Following her friend’s gaze, Rainbow looked up to the broad blue sky and beheld a massive trail of colors, courtesy of the flapping wings of … a flock of—
“Butterflies?” Rainbow’s voice almost cracked from incredulity. “A butterfly migration?”
“They have to fly north in the springtime,” Fluttershy said helpfully, adjusting one of the knobs on her binoculars. “It’s getting too hot for them in the south. But during autumn—”
“I can guess.”
As they approached, the butterflies floated gently down towards the two pegasi. For one irrational moment Rainbow nearly panicked; but the winged insects merely landed on the jam-covered crumbs, one by one, and proceeded to eat delicately and quickly. When they fluttered away again, the crumbs themselves still remained.
“But they didn’t even eat it all!” Rainbow protested, gesturing at the departing butterflies.
“Well, butterflies can’t actually eat bread,” Fluttershy explained, lowering her binoculars and beaming up at the flock. “But they like their jam with a bit of flavor, and bread gives it the perfect touch. Like I said, they’re very picky.”
Rainbow said nothing as the butterflies flew at their annoyingly slow pace. She knew that under other circumstances she might compare them to wonderful fashion accessories, but right now she was just so bored …
The butterflies continued to arrive. They fluttered down. They ate the jam. They fluttered up. They left. More butterflies arrived. There seemed to be no end to them. Flutter. Pause. Flutter. Pause. Flutter.
Ugh.
“Some of these are really rare,” Fluttershy gushed quietly. “I don’t get to see them all that often. Like the Megido Butterfly there. They tend to rapidly divide themselves into copies when startled, or occasionally hop backwards in time by a minute or so.”
Even with the mental image of an exploding butterfly, Rainbow somehow managed not to test that statement out.
“Oh, and there’s a Quantum Weather Butterfly! Their wings have an infinite perimeter around a finite area, you know. They’re some of the most magical butterflies. That’s how they have their own localized weather.”
A bleary glance above confirmed this. “Huh,” Rainbow grunted, watching how the bug was indeed fluttering in its own microscopic snowstorm. That was kind of interesting, at least.
“And – oh no! A wounded butterfly!”
“Do they limp when they fly?” Rainbow asked, almost interested in what would undoubtedly be a hilarious species.
But Fluttershy, quickly picking up her needle and thread, trotted off toward a grounded butterfly. Its frantic fluttering revealed a small tear in its wing, but the pegasus’ gentle hushes slowed its urgent movement.
“Now hold still,” she said softly, and when it miraculously obeyed she patted it with a hoof that was even more gentle than usual. “This won’t hurt a bit.”
Rolling her eyes, Rainbow turned her attention back to the butterflies swarming down on the crumbs. Was that really all the sewing Fluttershy would be doing today? That sure wouldn’t be getting her anywhere near actual clothes. Then again, she hadn’t realized sewing needed to be done with a needle. You learn something new every day. Too bad it’s not enough for exorcism.
“There you go,” she heard Fluttershy coo, and the newly patched-up butterfly flew energetically over Rainbow’s head. Hoofsteps in the grass alerted her to the yellow pegasus’ return, and her ears pricked up as Fluttershy sat down right beside her. “Rainbow?”
“Hm?”
“Are you bored?”
Surprised by the bluntness of the question, she rolled onto her side to see her friend looking down at her with some concerned sadness. A pang of regret started to gnaw at her, realizing she hadn’t exactly been supportive in any of this. “What? Of course not!” she lied, getting up as she grew a little defensive. “Why else would I come out here with you?”
“Well, normally I wouldn’t ask, but since you wanted to know about sewing I thought maybe you’d be interested in the migration.” Fluttershy bit her lip, looking embarrassed. “I-I mean, we haven’t done anything together for such a long time … you know, I just thought …”
“Hey, it’s okay, Fluttershy,” she said, patting her hoof reassuringly. “I get what you mean. You’re my oldest friend; of course we should hang out more often! Pegasi of a feather stick together, y’know?”
Fluttershy smiled hesitantly. “Not to exclude everypony else, I hope.”
“Of course not! We’ve just gotta change the little fact that we haven’t done anything together lately.” She rubbed her chin, considering another upcoming animal migration. “Hey, I can think of something all six of us can do!”
“Oh, that’s wonderful, Rainbow! I’m sure I’ll be able to come … Maybe we can all sew together—”
“No!”
Fluttershy shrank back.
“I mean, it’s a secret,” Rainbow amended hastily. “I don’t exactly want all of Equestria in on this whole sewing thing. It’s like the reading thing.”
“But I thought you were fine with ponies knowing you could read.”
“Okay, it’s not like the reading thing. It’s the same, but different. With Daring Do I’m acting like Twilight, which is okay if I don’t start making checklists for everything. With fashion I’d act more like Rarity, which is a big threat to my cool credibility.”
“Fashion? … Well, I guess that makes sense.” Fluttershy paused to watch the butterflies for a moment before continuing. “But, well, if it’s fashion you want to learn about, then …”
Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “Then?”
“Then I-I’m probably not the best pony to ask. I’m sorry, Rainbow, but I don’t know nearly as much as Rarity about clothes or how to make them. I usually just repair things with my sewing … but I bet she could really help you!”
“What? No way!” she exclaimed automatically, even as something foul within her leapt in delight. “I can’t go to Rarity about this! She’s one of those gossipy ponies, the ones that go on about how so-and-so did whatever. If I even tell her the tiniest detail about fashion, she’ll spread it all over Ponyville!” She shuddered, trying not to imagine that horrible possible future.
“I’m sure if you asked her to, she’d keep it a secret,” Fluttershy said reasonably. “She’s your friend too, you know. Oh, and I bet she’d really love teaching you all about fashion!”
“Yeah, if I don’t get laughed right out of town.”
“Please?” Her blue eyes were suddenly big and bright. They were a perfectly lovely color and went with her yellow fur nicely and seriously—?
“Fine,” Rainbow said, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “I’ll do it. I’ll go talk to Rarity about it and hope I don’t get a reputation for being a frou-frou filly.”
“Good.” Fluttershy beamed again, bouncing gently in place in a way that nevertheless was strongly reminiscent of a certain party pony. “It’ll be fun!”
“But secret,” Rainbow reminded her, giving her a knowing look. “Pinkie promise?”
“Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye,” Fluttershy recited, going through the motions without a second thought.
They shared a laugh, and for a moment Rainbow’s worries about a fashionable future vanished. She had friends who loved her, she knew, and that was all that really mattered. Even with the prospect of a girly demon ruining her life … okay, it wasn’t all that mattered. But it came close.
Maybe Fluttershy was right. Nothing would go wrong when she talked to Rarity!
Carousel Boutique was the most imposing building in Ponyville.
Oh sure, there was the brooding form of the library, and the town hall … something else. Did Pinkie’s seasonal gypsy tent count? Okay, maybe there weren’t that many imposing buildings in town, but the Boutique definitely was one of them. It was pretty tall, and pretty wide, with what looked like purple mannequins dancing around its pink-and-blue outside. Things decorated like that tended to be ominous.
Rainbow approached it nervously, glancing around every now and then in case somepony were paying attention to where she was headed. They weren’t. She wasn’t sure whether to be glad that nopony would be wondering about what she was up to, or disappointed that nopony would come up and distract her from her daunting mission.
At the door she paused, realizing what she was about to do. She was willingly barging into the lair of the resident fashion pony. She had done so before, of course, but that was usually because she was in the protection of her other friends or because she was coming to a magnificent crash landing.
This was different. There would be no turning back …
Shaking her head, she rang the doorbell and stepped back expectantly. Soon Rarity would emerge, she knew, and she’d have to come up with some clever way to steer the conversation toward fashion. “So Rarity, how are your designs going?” No, too straightforward. “So did you hear about the dragon migration?” No, we’d probably get into an argument about gems or something stupid. “What do you think of lime green and purple—?” Oh, come on.
She frowned, quickly noticing that the door had failed to open. How odd.
Not one to back down from a challenge so easily, she rang the doorbell again. And again. And again.
“Not right now, if you don’t mind!” a voice called from within. “I’m a bit tied up at the moment!”
Rainbow still refused to back down, however, and put her ear to the door. Something was making a series of dull thuds, like huge footsteps. Was Rarity dragging something around in there? She probably needed help, so what the hay was she doing trying to shoo ponies away?
She took a deep breath, stretched the cricks out of her neck, and flared her wings briefly. “Okay,” she said to nobody in particular. “I’m goin’ in.”
And with that, she barged right into Carousel Boutique – only to find nothing but blackness within.
She stood just inside, staring uncomprehendingly at the apparent lack of a scene before her. Where was Rarity? Surely she was right in the middle of something.
The door creaked closed behind her, narrowing the broad stripe of daylight until she was plunged into total darkness. Feeling a bit of creeping apprehension, she began to walk carefully forward. “Hello?” she called out. “Anypony here?”
A massive thud resounded off to the side. Relieved, Rainbow headed in that direction instead.
But it was at that moment when something monstrous suddenly reached out of the darkness and, with utter indifference, swallowed her whole.