I made it back to Sugarcube corner, the local sweet-shop, without getting dragged into the woods. The proprietor who had drugged me welcomed me back with open hooves and a smile, and I was given a meal on the house.
“I promise this one isn’t drugged,” the pink mare said, loud as you please.
“Uh, thanks.” I looked around, but despite so many ponies being in the shop, none of them seemed to care about what she had said.
“I just thought Rarity wouldn’t want you to be snooping as usual, so I thought I should get rid of you, but I didn’t want to push you away, so I thought if I drugged you I could keep you somewhere, but I didn’t want to have that kind of responsibility, so I decided I should ask somepony else what I should do with you, but it was late and I didn’t want to interrupt anypony, except Rarity, she’s always awake, so I brought you to her, and now here you are. Are you leaving?” the pink pony said in a single breath.
“I was thinking about it, yes.”
“Aw, most ponies are always curious, and they end up staying. Aren’t you curious anymore?”
“I am, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to think. It’s all too unbelievable. The mare on the apple farm told me that Rarity is responsible for the Everfree Forest being the way it is, but she’s too young for that!”
The pink mare, Pinkie Pie, I think Rarity had called her, covered her mouth with her hooves and giggled.
“Why is that funny?” I asked.
“Because everypony falls for that, she’s not young at all!”
“What? How old is she?”
“I’m not sure, but I know Ponyville doesn’t have enough candles for her cake!” She grabbed me and leaned in to whisper. “Believe me, I tried one year. I almost burned down the entire town.” She snorted a laugh and let me go.
“What? How can a non-alicorn live that long?”
“Pffft! She didn’t, silly!” Then she bounded away back to the counter, leaving me to my pancakes.
I didn’t know what to make of that comment. Twilight Sparkle had said Rarity was here at the founding of Ponyville, or heavily implied it. Applejack had said Rarity was the cause of the Everfree being the way it was, and Pinkie Pie had implied Rarity hadn’t lived that long, but instead had just existed. But she wasn’t an alicorn!
With this knowledge in mind, I set off to visit Rarity again. These were questions that needed answers, and Rarity’s friends were not going to be the best source of information. The only pony who knew for certain, was Rarity.
The day wasn’t over, but I burst into the boutique anyway, fairly kicking down the door. “Rarity, we need to talk!”
Rarity was helping a customer try on a new suit. The customer flinched at my entrance, but Rarity didn’t so much as budge. She was so unsurprised she didn’t even stick the pony with the needles she was so carefully stabbing into the shirt.
“Of course, darling, but you’ll have to wait until work is done, like I told you. I am a businessmare first and foremost, and I have paying customers.”
I persisted, my journalistic belligerence forced me to. “How old are you, really?”
“Bro, you can’t just ask that of a mare,” the pony on the dais said.
“It’s alright, he’s frustrated,” Rarity said. “He has questions only I have the answers to.” She turned to look at me. “How old do you think I am?”
“According to the stories from your collaborators, you’re older than the Everfree Forest.”
“A common misconception, but no, I am not.”
“They were lying.”
“No.”
“What?”
“You assumed too much. I’ll explain after work, like I said.”
I sputtered, but Rarity went back to her work and I was forced to wait.
The waiting throughout the day was difficult, but it gave me time to watch Rarity as she worked. She was elegant, as everypony knew, and she dressed well.
What had changed, however, was the way I perceived her.
Where previously I had seen a fashionable mare that was intent on maintaining her weight so that she would fit the fashion world was now intimidating. The shadows her cheekbones cast over her face, and her sunken eyes now hid secrets I was only guessing at.
Older than the Everfree? As old as the Everfree? Maybe a product of the Everfree? Her friends had been no help and had only served to fuel the fires of my imagination as I tried to pick out which answer was going to be correct. What reasons would she have for keeping her secrets? What causes did she work for, hidden under the shallow veneer of fashion? Was she out to destroy Equestria, which was why nopony would believe me? I’d have to agree, I’d never peg her as the overlord type, but I couldn’t fathom what other things she might be working at. The waiting was the worst part.
For her part, however, Rarity was the picture of a model seamstress. She was careful, detail-oriented, and above all: Fashionable. Her work was what I expected from my years of following her. It was impeccable, and each pony that came in received an outfit that complimented their color, fit them snugly without being too tight, and was impressively unique. No two suits or dresses were alike beyond their resemblance to each other based on them all being Rarity’s work. It was all utterly dissonant to my fears and expectations. I was dreaming of awful things while Rarity was doing nothing but creating beauty. I didn’t know if I should hate myself or her.
She provided me tea while I waited, which only made it worse.
When she finally finished, and the last customer walked out the door, she turned to me and picked my empty teacup off the table I was sitting at and returned it to the kitchen. She came back out and sat across from me at the table.
“Shall we go for a walk?” she asked.
“Yes, please.” I was eager to find out more, she was holding all the cards, and my curiosity was burning so hot I didn’t care if she had plans to murder me. I just needed to know! “Will you explain while we walk?”
She opened the door to the boutique for me and we stepped outside. She started walking down the road to Sweet Apple Acres. “Yes, of course. Some things. Other explanations are best shown.”
“But you’ll tell me everything? I don’t care if nopony will believe me, after talking to your friends I just have more questions, and I have to have them answered.”
“As everypony did. I understand. What is foremost on your mind?”
“How old are you, really? You’ve been hailed as having a model’s dream-body, but it… hides what your age is.”
Rarity laughed that broken-glass laugh again. “That’s quite a funny story, actually, but I won’t get into the specifics just yet. My age? I am just over a thousand years old.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. Her gaunt face, sunken eyes, and-were her eyes always yellow? “I feel like I’m the butt of a joke, here.”
She shook her head. “No jokes, just the honest truth, but you’ll remember my caveat?”
“Nopony will believe me.” I waved a hoof. “I know, and I accept that, but I’ll need more than just a claim.”
“That’s why we’re going into the Everfree forest.” She said as we turned off the road onto a small path leading to the forest in question.
“What’s in there?”
“Your proof.”
“Fine, fine. I’ll be patient. My next question: Why do your friends claim you made the Everfree the way it is?”
“That is because I was bored. It’s why I got into fashion, actually. When you don’t die and everypony else hates you, you have to do something with your time. So, I used my skills in magic to make the forest a little more exciting! More daring! It’s when I found my passion for fashion, you know. Boring sticks collected on the ground? Clean them up! Make them into something more fun! They’ll pick themselves up as they run about!” She grew more animated as she talked about herself. “That boring old lizard living in the swamp? He could use a coat. Cover him with rocks! Cragadile! Showing off earthen dress with flair! Nearly invisible insects fluttering about? That won’t do. Give them all bright colors! A rainbow buzzing through the woods! The vines were the only thing that didn’t turn out the way I wanted. The perfume they spewed wasn’t… pleasant. I never got that right. I think I grew bored.” She shrugged.
“You… did all of that because you were bored?”
“Well, what do you do when you’re bored?”
“I usually go spend time with friends, but I don’t have that much spare time to begin with.”
“You live long enough and you find yourself with nothing but time.”
“Okay, so say I believe this, why are you that old?”
“Magic, darling. Twilight is the element of magic solely because she uses it for more… utilitarian things. Mine focuses on beauty.”
“Like, angry timberwolves.”
“I think you’ll find the Everfree forest is far more beautiful without stray sticks on the ground.” She stuck her nose up and gave a *hmph*.
“Okay, that’s probably a fair point,” I said.
“Of course. I am the foremost name in fashion.”
“So, wait,” I said, suddenly realizing, “you have all this time and all you’ve done with it is focus on fashion?”
“The one thing ponies all agree on that shall remain permanently elusive and utterly capricious,” Rarity said, placing a hoof against her chest. “Desirable beyond all else, yet forever fleeting.”
“While I’m inclined to agree with you based on the work I do, fashion isn’t necessary for survival.”
“You think so? There are tribes of ancient ponies who wore clothing to battle that struck fear into their enemies’ hearts. You think that isn’t fashion?”
“It wouldn’t have worked if they hadn’t been fighting other ponies.”
“Obviously. But for their survival at the time, it worked beautifully, wouldn’t you say?”
“Well, they’re not still around, so that’s debatable.”
“Don’t be obtuse. They met ponies who didn’t share their culture. Fashion doesn’t work if there isn’t shared taste.”
We came to a small clearing. I realized I had followed Rarity into the forest without paying attention to where we were going. Thankfully, I could fly, but if I injured a wing I would be lost.
“Sure…” I said, “but what are we doing here?”
“I’m showing you proof.” She smiled at me. It bared far too much of her teeth.
Off to one side of the clearing I saw a large boulder. At its base there sat a small growth of gemstones jutting up from the ground. Rarity led me to the gemstones and pointed at them.
“There is your proof.”
“What, gemstones? Were these the ones you found as a filly? Or… not a filly, just the ones you found in your story of your foalhood?”
“No, these are different, but you’ll have to dig.”
“Dig? Rarity, I didn’t bring a shovel.”
She sighed. “I suppose you’ll never find out, then.”
“You didn’t tell me I’d be digging! You didn’t warn me about anything!”
Rarity laughed yet again. “Calm down, darling. It was a joke. You’re so very uptight about all of this.” She moved closer and dug up the dirt in front of the gemstones with her magic. Clods of it flew off to one side in a fountain of soil until a pile of it had been made and a large, stone casket unearthed. “This one I’ll leave to you. It’s your last chance to turn away and leave this all behind you. Inside that sarcophagus is your answer, and I guarantee you will not like it.”
Resolute, I climbed down into the hole. “I didn’t come all this way for answers only to turn back at the threshold. Whatever’s inside can’t be too bad. Magic secrets are strange, but they’re not horrifying.”
“This one may be.”
“What, did you kill somepony for your magic?”
“Technically, yes.”
I stopped pulling at the lid and looked up at Rarity. Her face was flat and expressionless. She stared down into the hole at me, unblinking. I waited for the sound of shattering glass, but her laugh never came.
“You’re… you’re serious.”
“As I said, ‘technically’.”
“You don’t ‘technically’ kill somepony. You either did, or you didn’t.”
“You’re not very familiar with magic, then.”
“Are you talking about necromancy? The princess outlawed that centuries ago.”
“I was alive before it was outlawed.”
“And a corpse is going to help me believe that?”
“Yes.”
“Rarity, is this some sort of elaborate joke? Do you hicks in Ponyville get off on making fun of journalists who come by, is that it?”
“Mr. Deadline, are you interested in answers or not?”
I slapped a dirty hoof against my face. I knew I looked awful, having not gotten the right amount of restful sleep, having run back and forth across Ponyville. Still, I couldn’t back down from answers, even if they were a joke. Ponies liked jokes.
“Fine.” I jumped back into the hole, yanked on the lid, and with a little help from Rarity’s magic, it scraped open.
Rarity held her horn light above it and cast it down. I gasped when I looked inside and found myself at a loss for words. I hadn’t been expecting anything specific, but this was certainly not one of the things that were on my list. Magic stones, old tomes, jewelry, glass orbs, the typical magic stuff had all been on the list, but not this.
Inside the sarcophagus, was Rarity.
I cackled. “Seriously? You planted a fake corpse in the middle of the Everfree to drag everypony to when they come asking about your life? That’s real tacky, Rarity. I mean, no wonder nopony will believe me, because this is an elaborate prank! And the fact that you got all of Ponyville to get in on it with you, that takes a lot of influence and talent! No wonder! Woo!”
“I’m not fake,” Rarity’s voice came from the sarcophagus underneath me.
“…what,” I said, my expression frozen as I turned to look.
I turned to look, and the corpse in the sarcophagus, all dry skin and frayed mane, missing teeth and cracked hooves, sat up and looked at me.
“You may feel my legs, if you like,” she said, as she held out a dessicated hoof to me.
I leaped out of the hole, wings flapping hard to gain altitude. “Woah, there! Holy shit! Good joke, but cut it out, this is no longer funny!”
“I’m not joking,” both Rarities said at once. “I just told you nopony would believe what you saw. This is what they won’t believe.”
“What is that thing?” I shouted, louder than necessary.
“That’s me. The original body. It hasn’t held up to time very well, has it?” The Rarity outside of the hole scratched her cheek with a hoof.
I just hovered there in disbelief, unsure what I saw or what to say.
The Rarity in the sarcophagus spoke up first. “Darling, what you’re seeing is the result of decades of research. It’s not pretty, I know, but that was why I worked to create the simulacra that are all over Equestria.”
“Simula-what?” I said, still keeping far above the two of them.
“A simulacrum is an image or representation of somepony. Unsatisfied as I was with my wasting beauty,” —the sarcophagus Rarity flipped her ratty old hair— “I went and created newer versions of myself I could control.”
“Control? Versions? Wait, there’s more than just the two of you?”
“It’s all just one ‘me’, darling. I’m just controlling multiple ‘me’s’ at the same time.”
The sheer amount of information I was having to process was overwhelming. Multiple Rarities? Corpse Rarities? Rarity in the Everfree? I didn’t notice that my hooves had touched down again until the fresher Rarity had grabbed me by my withers.
“Relax, Mr. Deadline, you’re hyperventilating,” she said.
She was right. I heaved in air and let it out again, under the gentle pressure of her hoof the black spots encroaching on my vision slowly went away as I breathed.
“Okay… okay… so there’s Rarity,” I pointed at the Rarity that had her hoof around me. I looked at the one in the sarcophagus with her wormy head sticking out and recoiled, “and Rarity, but you’re all the same.”
“Yes, exactly!” they both beamed.
“But why?”
“Because I couldn’t stand to be ugly, for one, though I missed that chance. The other reason is that I adore the changing landscape of fashion that ponies have! Absolutely adore it!”
“…fashion,” I said flatly.
“Of course, darling! We went over this, didn’t we?”
I threw my hooves up. “I guess! But living on and on for nothing but fashion?”
“Well, there was the odd evil monster intent on taking over Equestria that I had to stop, and the wild Everfree I had to control, not to mention all of the politics I had to take part in to ensure ponies wouldn’t kill themselves.” Both Rarities rolled their eyes. “Don’t get me started on that.”
“But we have the elements of harmony to take care of the monsters, and the princesses are managing politics just fine.”
“Darling,” Rarity laughed that awful, glassy laugh, “I’m part of the elements. I always have been, you know.”
I put a hoof to my mouth as I pondered that. She’d always been an element of harmony, and had always lived in the forest, but then, what about Ponyville? I said as much.
“Why do they all seem to be in on this?”
“Because they know, darling. They’ve always known. I am Ponyville’s best-kept secret.”
“If you want it to be a secret, why branch out to Manehatten and Canterlot?”
Both Rarities put a hoof to their chests and looked up at the sky. “To share my vision for fashion with the world!”
I pursed my lips in thought. “Just fashion…”
“And the other things I mentioned.”
“And Ponyville knows.”
“Of course.”
“Wait, what are you, then?”
“I’m a pony, darling.”
I pointed at the derelict Rarity with a wing. A beetle crawled out from behind her left eyelid and wandered across her rheumy eyeball. It stopped and looked around for a moment, then skittered to the end of her muzzle and up her nostril. “That’s not a pony.”
The Rarity next to me looked over at her other self. She frowned. “Yes, I know. I don’t much look like a pony, do I? If I had to pick a name for myself, I suppose ‘corpse’ would be the best, wouldn’t you say?”
“You look like one.”
“How rude!”
“You said it first!”
“You’re supposed to tell a mare she looks lovely no matter what. But the word doesn’t quite do me justice, how about corpse in Old Ponish? ‘Lich’ sounds better, wouldn’t you say?”
“I… guess?”
“Ancient and mysterious, while still getting the message across.” Rarity nodded, pleased with herself. “Names are part of fashion, you know. You can make the most beautiful dress in all Equestria, but if you call it something awful, nopony will buy it.”
I shook my head ruefully. “Are you… dead, then?”
“Oh, goodness yes! I’ve been dead a very long time.”
“Which body is yours, then?”
“They all are.”
I pointed at the one in the sarcophagus. “But this one is the original.”
“Yes.”
“Can you be killed?”
“It’s possible, I suppose. I wouldn’t recommend trying it.”
“What would kill you?”
Rarity looked at me with a small smile and half-lidded eyes. “Mr. Deadline, do I scare you?”
I looked between the fashionable Rarity next to me, and then over at the milky-eyed creature leaning on the edge of the dirt entrance to what had been her grave not ten minutes ago. “It’s… not something I thought I would ever encounter?”
The sarcophagus Rarity made a guttural noise that rose in volume, then scrabbled at the dirt with her hooves. She dug deep furrows in it before she dragged herself out of the grave and jerked across the ground toward me. I yelped in fright and tried to fly, but the second Rarity held me down with unnatural strength. I could only watch in terror as her head twisted upside-down and glared at me upon her approach. I covered my face and screamed.
Nothing happened. No ragged hooves grabbed me, no rotten teeth tore into my skin, and no dry, parchment skin touched me. Instead, I heard that breaking-glass laughter coming from two bodies at the same time. I dropped my hooves to the ground and scowled.
“You should have seen your face! Oh, my goodness, Darling, I am so sorry, but I couldn’t resist.”
“What was that for?”
“Mr. Deadline, you were asking questions about how to kill me. Surely you realize I can’t share that information. Or rather, I won’t.”
“Okay, okay. I was just curious, it’s not like I was going to try to stab you or anything.” I still tried to pull away, this time I was allowed. The look of disgust and revulsion on my face must have been obvious, because Rarity didn’t say anything for some time, she just looked at me while I scuffed a hoof against the ground.
“Shall we go back, Mr. Deadline?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“You sound dissatisfied.”
“Wouldn’t you be? I mean, I came out here looking for a story, and what I get is something too perfect and completely unbelievable! It’s all true, but nopony will buy it!”
“I did warn you.”
“But I know all this now! What do I do with it?”
Rarity just shrugged. Her decayed body walked back over to the sarcophagus and dropped inside unceremoniously. I could hear the scraping of stone on stone as she covered herself back up, then dragged the dirt back on top of her grave. “You can do whatever you like. Try to publish it, if you want. I don’t imagine anypony will believe it, but if they do, you would be set for life, I imagine.
“You would let me publish it?”
“I never said I wouldn’t, I just do not believe anypony would read something so outlandish.”
“What if they believe it and hate you?”
“That would be quite a feat. Maybe it will be interesting if they do. I haven’t had to defend myself in centuries.” She looked up wistfully. “Ahhh, the unicorns weren’t happy when I started dabbling in necromancy. Their combined might brought to bear against me.”
“You don’t resent them for it?”
“Goodness no! I was a terrible monster back then.”
“Wait, you were?”
She took my hoof and we began the walk out of the Everfree. “Oh, yes. Necromancy isn’t easy, you know. You need bodies, and you need secrecy. That’s why I came to live in the Everfree when it was still a dangerous, wild place.”
“What did you do?”
“Exactly what you would imagine. I dug up bodies, pulled them apart, put them back together, tried to make them work again.”
“Ew.”
Rarity rolled her eyes and snorted in disgust. “Ew, indeed! Bodies are disgusting, all dripping fluids and oozing organs. Bones, now those are fashionable. I once made an entire line of fashion based off bones, you know.”
“I… don’t know if I want to ask.”
“It’s just as well. I used far too many ribs, there wasn’t enough variation.”
“Ribs.”
“Yes.”
“And… where did you get these ribs?”
“Where do you think I got them?”
“Ah.”
“You ask so many questions you already know the answers to, Mr. Deadline. I get the feeling you don’t fully understand me. As though you, yourself, haven’t yet bought into what you’re seeing.”
“I’m having a hard time, yes.”
Rarity put a hoof to her chin in thought. I didn’t know what she was debating with herself, but I imagined it wasn’t going to be something very pleasant for me to see or experience. She eventually looked back up at me with yet another grin.
“I think I know what I can do. You saw my corpse, what do you think of that?”
“I’m not sure,” I answered honestly. For even though I had seen it, it could have been a trick. It could have been a simple illusion laid over another pony who had been waiting in hiding for just such an occasion, planned whenever somepony came to Ponyville asking about her. There were a lot of things it could have been, and none which I could be sure about.
“You don’t believe, yet,” she said.
“I don’t know what to believe. On the one hoof I have a fashionista with a loving family who grew up around Ponyville—are they even your family?—and on the other hoof I have a centuries old ‘lich’ that… what, controls all of Ponyville?”
“I don’t control them, they help out of the goodness of their hearts. They love me, and I them.”
“So who are your family? Hondo, Cookie, and Sweetie Belle, who are they, really?”
“They are my family. Adoptive, of course. Officially recorded. It’s a lot more believable than, “Single mare moved here from far away,” you see.”
I nodded. It helped her cover story, at any rate. “And your friends, are they really your friends?”
“I made them like you would with other friends, yes. Celestia warned me her student was coming ahead of time, so it was a simple matter to ingratiate myself to her and eventually become good friends.”
I stopped walking. “Wait, wait, wait. The princess? Celestia? She told you her student was coming?”
“Yes, that’s right, darling.”
“You’re on speaking terms with the princess?”
“Princesses. Luna was a good friend as well, before she was banished.”
“Wait, again. You’re older than Nightmare Moon’s banishment?”
“I told you I was. Really, it’s like you’re not even listening.”
I clutched my head in my hooves. “Wait… I can barely keep up, here. You’re on a first-name basis with three princesses—”
“Four, Cadance as well. I’m sure Flurry Heart will like me once she’s old enough to stop wetting herself.”
“That’s…” something twitched in my head, “You know what? I’m going to publish it.”
“Are you really?”
“This is just so crazy, ponies will read it just to hear what crazy ideas I managed to come up with. It will be a hit.”
Rarity didn’t look convinced. “I can’t say for certain that it will work the way you plan, but ponies do love things that are ridiculous but attention-grabbing. I did win a contest with clothes made out of hotel decorations once.”
“Yes, exactly! The more ridiculous, the more they’ll read it, even if they don’t believe it!”
“You sound excited.”
“I am! This will open up a lot of opportunities for me, and will put my name at the top once again!”
“If it all goes the way you imagine it will, then I am happy for you,” Rarity said without a smile.
“It’ll be great! I can embellish what you’ve actually said, put in some extra information that can’t possibly be verified, and then play up how strange and unusual you are. Again, this is all completely unverifiable information, but it’s sensational, and that’s what’ll get ‘em!” I pumped a hoof in excitement.
Rarity just remained silent on our walk back to the boutique. Several ponies gave me odd looks as we returned to town, but Rarity waved them off. I didn’t notice at the time, but her expression was flat and unhappy.
“I think you are selling your audience short, Mr. Deadline. Do be careful what you say and to whom you are saying it. It may have unexpected side effects.”
“Like what? Ponies love a good story, even if it is fictional. Or in your case, too big to be real.”
“But there are always the few, and you need to think what would happen if somepony were to believe it.”
“Nopony will believe it. It’s too ridiculous.”
I didn’t listen to her or her comments on what might happen. I was too excited about the attention I would get for writing such an amazingly crazy article. When we returned to Ponyville and I was once again in a safe place, I left her there with a sweet goodbye, and I got on a train back to Manehatten.