Late afternoon brought no respite from the cold. Silent through their journey, the three ponies tugged their scarves tighter around their necks and trotted single-file, each of them swiveling their ears and attention intermittently between their goal and the distant caroling from the center of town.
The Carousel Boutique was no less chic a locale than ever, but the wreath upon its door was without adornment, and not a single light intended for purposes other than utility burned from within. The round building sat as silent as a forgotten lighthouse on a barren cliff.
Apple Bloom came out from her place in line and rapped her hoof on the door, “Sweetie Belle? Rarity? Y’all home?”
When no response was forthcoming, Applejack stepped up behind her sister, reached over her, and gave the door a more proper throttling.
“Rarity!” She called out, purposefully deepening her pitch to make her voice carry further, “You here?”
“—moment!” A muffled, yet unmistakable adult voice called, “One moment, please!”
A smattering of clacking hooves was accompanied by the click of the knob and eventual departure of the front door from its frame. Rarity, much of her body hidden under a surprisingly scraggly cyan bathrobe, stood in the doorway with her red cheaters resting pensively on her muzzle. Her hoof still on the door, she regarded the group with a disinfected glare.
“I’m sorry but we’re closed right now—oh,” She blinked, batting her curled eyelashes twice, “Applejack? What, is something the matter?”
Applejack cleared her throat and indicated the fillies merely by moving her eyeballs up and down several times. Rarity followed the gesture and did her best to keep her smile alive.
“I…I thought you were…”
Applejack sighed. “I thought so too. But here we are now.”
“Please don’t be upset Rarity,” Scootaloo emerged from the line to make her presence known, batting her wings without thought, “We were having a really nice day. We made Applejack bring us here.”
“Yeah,” Apple Bloom chimed in, suddenly feeling the need to avert her eyes to the frozen grass, “It wasn’t her fault. We kinda insisted.”
Rarity’s elegant brows turned up. “Oh, darlings,” she offered melodiously, “Of course I’m not upset.” She stood aside and waved her foreleg into the room proper, “Come in, come in, I insist! You must be freezing out there, and it simply will not do for you to spend one moment longer bereft of a nice cup of cocoa.”
As the troupe marched by, Applejack dipped her head in a gesture of silent apology to their host. Rarity shook her own head dismissively and pranced after them into the expansive showroom area of the boutique.
“Well then!” She announced, stamping one hoof pointedly, “I have dark chocolate cocoa, some lovely pumpkin spice mix, and oh—a virgin Prench vanilla eggnog that’s simply divine! Why you must try it with a dash of cinnamon and nutmeg!”
“Well gee Rarity,” Applejack sought to keep the mood light, “All those sound like they’d really hit the spot right about now.” She turned to the fillies, who were inspecting with interest a number of mannequins that had been gathered in one corner of the room. “How ‘bout y’all, girls? Which one sounds the best?”
The Crusader’s attention was not on the conversation. Both of them were staring up at the heads of the taller mannequins. Apple Bloom spoke first, and as usual her inquiry lacked any sense of tact.
“Rarity, what’s all this here?”
Rarity shifted her weight uncomfortably several times, but kept her lips turned up in a forced smile. “Why…whatever do you mean, dear? Any good designer relies on the tireless assistance of her runway of canvas models.”
“Uh, I think she means these,” Scootaloo clarified. She beat her wings furiously, gaining about two inches from the floor, and utilized the few seconds she could maintain it to point derisively at the head of the closest mannequin. Each of the dozen or so models that were arranged in the corner was wearing a thick earflap beanie winter cap, complete with tassels for securing it under the chin. Each cap was constructed from wool dyed in hues from every color of the spectrum, most garishly bright and cheery. They were colorful, but also bulky and haphazard, lacking any refined sense of style.
“A-ah, yes well…” Rarity raised her hoof to smooth out a collection of frizzy locks that had seceded from her mane, and began to trip over her words as if she had four left hooves. “Those are…I-I suppose you could call them…winter…boho-chic?”
Applejack stepped far enough to the side of the conversation to get a good look at her friend without making it obvious she was staring. The satin robe Rarity wore looked as though it had once been worthy of her caviar tastes, but even Applejack’s untrained eye for fashion could detect signs of pilling and even a small tear at the neckline. The damage was so insignificant that anypony else might have continued to employ it, but considering the garment’s owner, the flaws were downright shocking. There was a hint of puffy grayness lingering upon Rarity’s porcelain cheeks, just under her eyes. Her mane was tied up in a frazzled bun that even Applejack herself would have no use for beyond keeping hair out of her face while she slept.
“Winter…boho-chic…?” Apple Bloom tasted the odd phrase, “Is that a thing?”
Scootaloo shrugged, “Don’t look at me. I never heard of it before, but fashion stuff isn’t my thing.”
Both fillies looked at Rarity expectantly. The elder unicorn’s grin broadened to the point that Applejack couldn’t tell where Rarity’s gleaming white teeth ended and her snowy cheeks began.
“O-of course it’s a ‘thing’, darlings!” Rarity announced with a great sweep of her foreleg. “Why, It’s all the rage in Whinneapolis this season! They’ll be flying off the shelves so fast that I might just have to set up a new branch of Rarity For You in the great white north!” Balancing on her hind legs, she held her hooves aloft and peered through them as if adjusting the lens of a camera, “Form, function, and fashion! It’ll be on the cover of Snowponies Weekly for six weeks running, and it will be simply fabulous!”
Applejack couldn’t take it anymore. She stepped directly in front of her frazzled friend and eyed the fillies as patiently as she could. “Girls, didn’t y’all have a reason for coming here today?”
The fillies glanced at one another - both had to make a conscious effort to quell their feelings of excitement over finally being reunited with their friend. It had only been a month since they had been left with no convenient reason to stop by, but every day had felt like a small eternity in its own right. Nevertheless, they beat down the twittering in their hearts and approached Rarity solemnly, as though they were street urchins asking for a handout. Applejack stepped politely out of the way.
“Rarity,” Scootaloo began, ears pinned down, “…can we please see Sweetie Belle?”
A flash of dismay marred Rarity’s countenance, but she recovered so quickly it was difficult to notice. Her new smile came on the heels of a calming breath which made it easier to maintain this time.
“B-but of course, my dears!” She exclaimed, her mirth brighter than the candles that blazed in every Ponyville window but her own, “Whyever would you assume otherwise? You’re all such good friends, after all.” She waved at the stairs more times than was necessary, “I believe you know where her room is. Applejack and I will be right here if you need anything!”
Again the fillies shared a glance. They said nothing, but the silent looks they traded suggested neither of them were prepared for such a response. Apple Bloom looked away, set upon suddenly by a wash of shame for her earlier assumption that Rarity was the one behind keeping the Cutie Mark Crusaders apart.
Scootaloo cleared her throat, reminding her partner of their goal. With a nod and words of appreciation to the mistress of the boutique, both fillies took the stairs at a gallop and were quickly out of sight.
Rarity touched her shoulder with the opposite foreleg. She bowed her head, took another deep breath, and was back to her company, addressing Applejack with only a slightly less patronizing smile.
“So! You’re fond of eggnog, are you not? While we wait, we can adjourn to the kitchen and talk of our plans for the holiday over a nice warm drink. It’ll be nice to catch up.”
Applejack couldn’t look her friend in the eye. Instead, she cast her gaze over the showroom - it was orderly for a workspace that was in active use, but Applejack’s eye was drawn immediately to the empty round rug in the center of the room. Adorned with holiday imagery and expertly woven in all the right colors, it was still as naked as a plucked phoenix. Without turning to look at Rarity, Applejack spoke-
“No tree this year?”
Rarity’s eyes darted back and forth as though they were levers with which she could crank the wheels of her brain to life. “I…haven’t really had time this year, dear,” She finally offered. “Holiday crunch time and all that. I have three locations in three different cities now, you know.”
“It’s only a couple days ‘till Hearth’s Warming,” Applejack replied, now appraising the room solely for its lack of holiday décor. “You usually close for the holidays around now, as I recall.”
“…high fashion waits for nopony, Dear.”
“Maybe,” Applejack responded simply. She walked slowly over to the mannequins, as if picking her way through a mire of thorny brambles, and touched the closest cap. It was a bright, neon green, and the wool was rough under her hoof.
“You gonna tell me what all these caps are really for?”
Rarity’s tone was slightly annoyed. “I believe I explained that already. You just wait. In a month, every mare in town will want one just like them.”
Applejack examined the cap further, removed her hoof, and turned just enough to catch a glimpse at her haggard friend out of the corner of her eye. “They’re all sized for fillies, Rarity.”
“That’s…that’s what I meant!” Rarity haughtily insisted, “In a month, every filly in town will want one just like them!”
Applejack felt a spike of indignity. She knew exactly what the matron of the house was doing, but even so, she didn’t care for the song and dance.
“Yer a bad liar, Rarity.”
“I-I’m not lying!” Rarity practically spat, “H-how could you accuse me of something like that?”
Applejack sighed, but finally met Rarity’s gaze. “Rarity, I’m gonna say somethin’ that I feel bad fer saying at all, and so I’m gonna apologize to you before I even say it.”
She paused. Gathered her strength. Spoke-
“My fashion sense ain’t worth a plugged bit, especially not compared to yours. But I don’t believe for one minute that there’s a such thing as ‘winter boho-chic’, though I barely know what those sorts of words are even s’posed to mean.” She yanked the nearest cap off it’s perch and draped it over her hoof, holding it up. “This here’s a passable cap. It’ll keep the snow off a pony’s head and you ain’t gonna freeze wearin’ it. That’s what somepony like me would be lookin’ for when buying a cap like this. But I’m gonna say it plain – these caps are ugly.”
Applejack paused. Let the words sink in. Continued.
“You can’t stand there and tell me for one solitary second that you, of all ponies, would choose function over form so much that you would make scraggly hats that are so bright they’ll burn the red right off an apple. You’d sooner close up shop and move to the diamond dog mines forever before tryin’ to pass this off as a fashion line.”
“Well, I never!” Rarity let out an audible, snooty huff. “Perhaps you don’t really know me as well as you think you do, Applejack! Don’t you think I would know what’s trending in the fashion world somewhat better than you? Maybe you’d do better to simply stick to apple farming!”
Applejack let the jabs chink harmlessly off her metal armor. She remembered what Dash had said about stress. If her own nerves were running this hot, Rarity’s condition must have been incalcuable. She took a breath and waited until Rarity had her back turned and her attention on obsessively adjusting the caps on the mannequin’s heads before speaking again.
“These here caps are crocheted, Rarity.”
Rarity didn’t turn around, “No they’re no—”
“Yes they are,” Applejack cut her off. “I can’t sew any better than I can turn rocks into apples with my tail, but I seen granny do knittin’ and crochetin’ enough times to know which is which.” She swallowed, “And I know fer a fact that you ain’t got no respect for crochet.”
Rarity froze. For a long moment, the only sound in the room came from the distant carolers, who had apparently moved down a closer side street. Her back still to her friend, Rarity finally offered a small, soft reply.
“…I…I once told her that crochet is knitting’s poorer cousin.”
Applejack didn’t have to ask who Rarity was speaking of. “But you still showed her how to do it.”
“Of course I did,” Rarity responded somberly. “I was happy that she was trying something related to fashion. Something I felt I could relate to.” She paused, her her voice softened all the more. “Do you…think that makes me a bad sister?”
Applejack looked exasperated, “How in tarnation do you figure that showing Sweetie Belle how to do something new makes you a bad big sister?”
Rarity finally stepped away from the mannequins. With a heavy gait she walked over to the empty tree skirt-rug and nudged it with the tip of her hoof, looking down at it. “Because I did it as much for me as I did for her. I thought she might…follow in her big sister’s hoofsteps.”
“That ain’t no crime, Rarity.”
Rarity ignored the comment. “One time, when she burned breakfast, I stuck my muzzle up at it. I suffered through the meal, yes, and I could have just smiled and nodded, but oh no,” She gritted her teeth, “I just had to put a subtle little jab in there. And then, at the Sisterhooves Social that one year, I made so much of a stink over getting my hooves dirty that I nearly lost her. Hooves wash. It would have been fine. But I still had to be that way.”
“You were eventually there for her,” Applejack ventured.
Rarity’s nudging of the tree-skirt became a kicking that crumpled up one edge of it, destroying its perfect symmetrical roundness on the floor. “And the Applewood Derby. That was supposed to be for the fillies to enjoy, from start to finish. But I ruined it for her.”
Applejack grinned sheepishly, “That wasn’t just your fault. I sure had a say in messin’ things up too. But we both worked it out them eventually.”
“Eventually,” Rarity spat out the word as if it were a wad of nutritionally valueless straw in her mouth. “Eventually. It’s always eventually! Eventually does nothing but cause unnecessary heartache, and yet all I can do is come back later to make it eventually okay!”
“But it did eventually work out,” Applejack replied. “It’s okay, Rarity. Ain’t nopony’s perfect. None of us are ever finished learnin’ how to be.”
“That’s not good enough!” Rarity was shouting now, and her gaze lanced a white hot hole directly through the farmpony mare. “I can do better! I can be perfect, and she will always be happy!”
“Rarity, calm d—“
“NO!” Sapphire flames crackled in Rarity’s eyes, licking so high that even Applejack winced. “You can’t possibly understand! I’m going to LOSE her, Applejack! Not just to a fight or an argument, or even as a sister – I’m going to lose her forever, and the only thing I can do about it is this!”
Rarity caught a cap of hot pink in the glow of her magic. She gritted her teeth, and with a mighty grunt, she put so much pressure into the spell that the very wool itself tore through cleanly, cleaving the hat into two useless scraps.
“All I can do is make clothes! It’s all I’m good at! I can’t help her, and I’m so Celestia-be-damned stuck up that apparently it would kill me to not display even the slightest hint of my snooty opinion on everything! It would be better me up there in that room than her!”
She repeated her tirade, obliterating two additional caps before Applejack finally found herself close enough to slam her hoof down over one before the raging unicorn could rip it from its roost.
“Rarity stop!” Applejack cried, adding a second hoof as she battled against adrenaline-fueled spellcasting. “Yer doin’ the best you can! You ain’t no doctor!!”
“I’m not doing anything!” Rarity shouted, gritting her teeth hard, determined to eviscerate the royal purple cap that Applejack was protecting. “All my skills, and the best I can do is give Sweetie Belle a couture funeral and a chic shroud to die in!!” She grunted, blasting steam from her nostrils, “Let go! I don’t deserve to make pretty things and when I’m done here, there won’t be any more!”
Applejack sprang into action. She lifted her hooves from the head of the mannequin, but just as quickly gave it a stern kick, knocking it over and throwing off the focus of Rarity’s magic. She then stepped up to her dear friend, and slapped her right across the cheek.
“KNOCK IT OFF!”
Rarity rolled with the blow, recovering quickly. She came up frozen, wide-eyed with shock. Only her lower lip continued to quiver.
“Is this what you want Sweetie Belle to hear!?” Applejack scolded, her accent thickening, “You screamin’ and hollerin’ about how nothin’ you ever went through with her was good enough to show her how much you love her, and then spoutin’ off about her dying?”
“B-but…” Rarity’s voice was just above a whisper. Applejack saw dykes in Rarity’s beautiful eyes that were swollen with pressure from a raging river. “…but she’s going to die…”
“No she ain’t!” Applejack insisted, “At least, you don’t know that! Talkin’ like that don’t do nopony any good. It’s like stoppin’ before you even start.”
Rarity cradled the reddening welt on her cheek. The pure misery in her wilted ears and the trickle of moisture from the fissures under her eyes was infectious, and Applejack found that the longer she stared at her, the more she felt a pool of Rarity’s tears inflating behind her eyes too. Rather than show them off, Applejack roughly grabbed the fashionable unicorn in a tight bear hug, pressing Rarity’s muzzle into her harvest-orange shoulder.
Rarity’s dam cracked. She bawled like a baby, wetting Applejack’s shoulder with her tears while muffling her miserable cries by burying her face into the farmpony’s shoulder. Applejack tightened her grip, holding on for dear life as she stroked Rarity’s back, seeking to soothe her while sinking both of them to the floor.
“Shhh, shhh…” Applejack cooed, “…it’s alright…I’m right here and I ain’t goin’ nowhere…”
Rarity jerked several times, one such motion enough to knock Applejack’s hat off before she finally settled down and allowed her sobs to steal her strength. Her muscles relaxed. Her voice was tangled with sharp inhalations of breath.
“I-I…I’m sorry…” She sniffed, “…I didn’t mean…I just haven’t been sleeping well and…and there’s so much stress, and I just don’t know what to do…”
Applejack’s stroking hoof became a gentle pet at the back of Rarity’s neck. “Forget it,” She assured, “It’s rotten apples under the trough. But Rarity, yer shufflin’ around here like my old granny, and you got your hair up tighter’n hers.”
Rarity sat up and tried in vain to look at the top of her own head. “I…I do?”
“And those reading glasses,” Applejack went on. “You only use those for detail sewing work, but you got ‘em on all the time now, like your eyes just got two years older for each day gone by this month.”
Rarity went cross-eyed staring at the red cheaters on her muzzle. She ensorcelled them and slipped them off her face to get a better look. “I…I didn’t even realize…”
“And that,” Applejack pointed plainly at one of the tears in Rarity’s robe. When the unicorn saw it, she yelped, sprang to her hooves, and tossed the garment to the floor, stomping on it like a spider.
“Eek! Wh-what in the name of all that is fashionable am I doing!?”
Applejack smiled ruefully. “I been wonderin’ that myself.”
Despite her snorts and the flow of her tears, Rarity managed a dry, rattling laugh. Her magic caught the tie that was holding her hair in a bun and set it free, great curly waves of violet breaking over her neck. “…dear me, I must look like I’ve been shopping at a five and ten all my life…”
Applejack built upon the foundation of levity by tacking on a careful application of her own laughter. “I reckon I look like that every day. Feelin’ better?”
Rarity sat on her haunches. She reached up to her face and dried one tear with the back of her hoof, but another quickly fell to take it’s place.
“T-to be honest dear, I…don’t believe I am,” She bowed her head slightly, “I can’t seem to turn it off lately…every time I try to put my attention on something, all I can think about is…is what’s happening to my poor little…”
She trailed off. Rising to her hooves, she trotted over to the window and gazed out of it, her ears swiveling in reception of the merry sounds outside.
“There should be candles in these windows, shouldn’t there?” She said rhetorically as she ran her hoof over the sill.
Applejack took a few steps towards the window as well, her eye tracing the late-day path of the sun. “I can’t answer that. What do you think?”
“I always put candles in the windows,” Rarity glanced down, and saw a spattering of tears that broke up the light layer of untended dust on the sill. She wiped them away, shaking her head. “Look at me. I’m still crying. I…there should be a tree, and garland, and some lovely decorations…she would want that…”
Applejack fanned the fires of the calming dialogue, “When was the last time you saw her?”
“Oh, every day,” Rarity shrugged her shoulders uselessly, “I see her every day. Somepony has to take her meals to her. She…doesn’t come downstairs anymore. Not unless we’re going to the hospital for her treatments.”
Applejack retrieved her Stetson from the floor. “That can’t be good for her. Did you try to—” She let the question die, realizing she already knew the answer. Rarity replied anyway.
“Yes, many times. She never wants to go anywhere else while we’re out, and when we get home, she just goes right back to her room. She’s in too much pain to go traipsing around. That’s what she says, at any rate.”
Applejack paused. Instead of placing her hat on her head, she held it against her chest with her foreleg. Somehow, it didn’t feel right to wear it. “She really told you she didn’t want to see her best friends?”
Rarity nodded. “And before you ask dear, I’m not upset that you brought them here. If anything I’m…hoping maybe with them standing right outside her door, she might change her mind…”
Applejack watched faint pinpricks of light gather in the heavens. “Rarity…why don’t the two of you come on over to the farm for Hearth’ s Warming this year? We got presents, games, a big old beautiful tree, and the best seven-layer bean dip you ever tasted. You know Apple Bloom would be happy, and you’d be more than welcome.” She tried to find a more tactful way to continue, failed, and defaulted to blunt honesty. “It’s gotta beat just holing up here by yourself, with Sweetie Belle locked up in her room. You won’t even have to lift a hoof. You got my word on that.”
Rarity’s smile was distant. “Thank you darling, but Fluttershy already invited us to…whatever she does this time of year with all of her woodland friends. Twilight did too, and she went as far as to offer us rooms in the palace indefinitely. Spike comes over all the time, and though he’s being a dear, I have to turn him away occasionally just to have some time to myself.” She chuckled again, the sound like apple seeds rattling in a tin can, and glanced at Applejack’s reflection in the window. Somehow, the image was easier to talk to than the real thing. “A party…well, maybe, but…I’m not really feeling the spirit very much this year, and I don’t believe Sweetie Belle is either. And as much as I appreciate Twilight’s offer, it…feels too much like hospitalization. I don’t want Sweetie Belle to be away from the things that comfort her.” She paused, “I’m…not certain I feel that differently about your offer. Thank you very much darling, but…you understand.”
Applejack nodded her assent. She was about to change the subject, but a heavy pattering of hooves turned her attention to the stairwell. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo were plodding down the steps single file, their ears pinned down so flat to their scalps and their heads down so far that they looked to be in mourning. Neither of them paid any attention to the fallen mannequin, the ruined caps, or their own cold-weather accessories, which they had casually discarded before bounding up the stairs on their mission.
“So, uh…” Applejack ventured a small smile, “How’d it go?”
Scootaloo stopped and offered Applejack a stare so empty, it answered her question without words. Apple Bloom completely bypassed her sister, not stopping her march until she found herself in front of Rarity. Even the bow in the filly’s mane seemed to have seen fit to droop.
“I owe you an apology,” Apple Bloom said soberly. “Before we got here, my sister told me that Sweetie Belle said she didn’t wanna see us. She said that you told her that, and so I…didn’t believe her. Which means I didn’t believe you, neither. I thought you were keepin’ us away from Sweetie Belle on purpose. But you were right,” She looked up at Rarity, and finally over at Applejack, “Y’all were both right. Sweetie Bell, she…she don’t wanna see us.”
Scootaloo opened her mouth, but closed it again. There was simply nothing to say. All eyes watched Apple Bloom as she bent to pick up her scarf in her mouth, and took to securing it back around her neck. She was so bereft of her usual animation that she sucked all the life out of the room, bringing a chill to every spine despite the warm comfort of the boutique.
“This was my idea, and I’m real sorry I wasted everypony’s time,” Apple Bloom muttered, heading for the door. “I’ll knock it off now.”
“It was our idea,” Scootaloo amended. She watched her friend meander to the door, as though Apple Bloom were preparing to walk right off the edge of the earth. The young pegasus wracked her brain for just the right thing to say. She turned to Rarity.
“Rarity? Sweetie Belle told us she’s not a Cutie Mark Crusader anymore. What does she mean?”
Rarity closed her eyes, willing her emotions back down into the hidden abyss of her psyche, and replied without answering. “She didn’t open the door for you at all, did she girls.”
The statement was not a question. Once again, the fillies glanced at one another in confusion. Both turned their attention to their friend’s elder sister.
“Nope,” Apple Bloom replied, “But…how’d you know that?”
This time the adults exchanged glances. Applejack took in a breath, but Rarity held up a hoof to silence her, knowing what she was about to say.
“It’s alright Applejack,” Rarity announced. “It’s time they knew.”
“Knew what?” The girls asked in unison. Rarity ignored the question, summoned up her inner courage again, and began walking.
“May I suggest we adjourn to the kitchen,” She instructed, her hooves already pointed in that direction. “I’m certain you could all do with a nice hot cup of cocoa.”
Rarity didn’t wait for an answer.