Rain sloshed about Rarity's hooves, soaking into her the fur of her coat and chilling it. She held her breath, only gasping a little when it happened, before daintily chewing on her lip - really, just resting her teeth on the edge of her bottom lip, and carefully so.
While she had been through much worse in her years, feeling mud tickle the frogs of her hooves remained unpleasant. This day, however, she could bear it. Tutting slightly, she pulled the cloth napkin over the contents of her picnic basket a little more, shivering as the fat drops of rain splashed against her white coat.
Maintaining as brisk a trot as she could, Rarity kept the glow of her horn steady and tucked a wet lock of her mane behind her ear. It had not been raining when she set out today, but it was beginning to pour - nothing too heavy, but if she had bothered to mind the word of weather pegasai, she would have caught word of there being a good drizzle in Ponyville.
That drizzle would be effecting Ponyville's cemetery as well. It was an out of the way place, and quite peaceful. Well-maintained headstones dotted what must have been a woodsy clearing generations ago. Many trees had been planted and encouraged to grow along the edges, some of them were apple trees from the ancestors of the Apple family. Rarity could tell by the smell of the fruit wafting through the sticky summer rain.
While a fair amount of headstones were uniform, they all had information on them that made up the most important aspects of a pony's self, the stubborn, unchangeable, and un-discardable something everypony and even the gods themselves had something of. Race, cutie mark, birth and death dates, spouse's name, and the name that stuck with a pony from the moment they were born to the moment they died with little exception all were carved from good, solid stone and enchanted to prevent from damage or time erasing anything.
Variation was what caught Rarity's eye - the shapes, types, and style of carvings held some place in her mind. She may not have grown up on a rock farm, but gem-work was much like stone-work, even if there was no earth pony's magic in her blood and bone.
The most curious of things on these headstones were the small prayers and symbols. When a pony died, no matter what town they were from, and if it was custom to be buried like an earth pony or entombed like a unicorn or crystal pony, then they could have the symbol or a sort of prayer and incantation carved upon the headstone or vault that divided them from the world and detailing a little something about which of the gods they chose to follow most in their heart, or a little something of the entire Pantheon.
Rarity had been here only for a few different occasions, and she had noted things. A seamstress' eye knew detail. Suns were the most common emblem. Moons were only a recent addition, and it was different from the sun and moon banner of Equestria, the sign of being a member of the guard. There were some scattered hearts for Cadance - Rarity's grandmother, who had died when Cadance was still fairly new, had the heart of Cadance inscribed upon her headstone, though it was carved in the style of a sort-of half-god. Cadance was no god any more than Rarity's wife was, so they had carvings but they were different. Smaller, perhaps, and with a different style.
Rarity's eyes continued to pass over the stones, she was looking for somepony alive, not an emblem, but she continued to see more. One had the mark of Discord, his gaggle of strange arrows upon it, then there were other marks, like that of the others: Reapers, the undersea king, and one or two more Rarity's mind did not bother to remind her of at this moment. The knowledge god however, had no marks in Ponyville's cemetery.
The graves of pegasai were few and unusual, for their death rituals were still strange to Rarity, and made no effort to preserve the body of a loved one and offer them a final resting place.
Pockets of sunshine broke through the clouds and illuminated the pony Rarity was looking for in scattered patches, and she made her way past more rows. Humming, she batted at a few raindrops and wished that she might have been more quick to take a few extra magic lessons from Twilight for situations like this, when her umbrella was oh-so-far away.
Through the patches of clouds, sunbeams fell upon Applejack, who stood still in the pitter-patter of rain. Rarity slowed her trot and slowly walked up beside her.
Rain drizzled off strands of Applejack's golden mane, rolling down her back. Her hat was tipped forward and hid her face, and the pitter patter of water falling off the brim was all that sounded between them.
Rarity didn't need to see that the grave before her was for an earth pony stallion named Savory Shaddock. She had known that, she had met him enough times before he had ever ended up in his bed of soil, and the trident and Shell of Plenty of Neptune of Aquastria were carved upon his headstone. He had the palest orange coat, thin reading glasses, clean suits, and so much knowledge of finances and math that he simply had to teach it to Applejack too, when Applejack was a filly who complained about having to wear a Prancian bread for picture day, a sunhat in summer, play kickball far nicer than she was used to doing.
Rarity, then, had just started outgrowing hopscotch, taken to lip gloss, despised her braces, swooned at every nice colt, and never once ate any of Applejack's apple tarts at the schoolhouse bake sale. Not ever.
Today, they were the best of friends.
In fact, they were so close of friends that Applejack didn't let anypony else follow her here. When all the girls still lived in Ponyville, Rarity had to shoo the other four - dear Twilight included - away. They would all say something. Tears would show in their eyes, sympathy would fly from their tongues all at once like birdsong.
Even when Applejack stepped off the train, her scarf around her neck, her parka secure, and green eyes looking at her hometown while her mind wandered back to her family at Crystal Apple Acres and her three foals with shining eyes and coats that grew in leaps and bounds every time Rarity visited Applejack and her family at her thriving homestead. In the years since she moved to the Empire, Rarity had noticed a magical gleam in Applejack's eyes that made them twinkle like emeralds and a faint lustre to her coat - just a touch, really - that was certainly not from more attention paid to grooming.
Applejack liked Rarity to be there, standing by the resting places of Savory, Granny Smith, and other members of Ponyville's branch of the Apple family, not because she would weep and offer up a hundred 'sorries' for Applejack, but because she would sniffle. At most, she would dab at her watery eyes with a hoofkerchief of elegant Maris lace and tuck it back into her little basket as she did now.
She would rest her hoof comfortingly on Applejack's wither, and this time she noted that Applejack had tried to hem the modest gray frock Rarity had made for her three years ago with what was clearly black thread, and it showed.
Tucking her hoofkerchief back into the basket and neatly under the napkin so her hoofkerchief was kept nice and dry, she looked to Applejack, who quietly raised a forehoof and moved it past her freckled face to tuck a bit of her mane back under her hat. It had escaped her single braid, and would have to be arranged so it fit into her green mane tie later. Her green eyes were looking straight at Rarity, for a moment, and then she nodded curtly, swallowing and tipping her hat and letting rain slosh off the brim.