The funeral was held a few days later, paid for by Rarity. While both Night Stitch and her mother had lived in Manehatten for their entire lives the service was held in Ponyville followed by the burial. Rarity had felt this best since Manehatten probably contained too many painful memories for the poor dear, both good and bad. The less time she spent there, the better off she would be.
The service was lovely with ponies from all across town coming to pay their respects. Pinkie Pie showed a shocking level of understanding as she did not once send confetti flying across the room in an attempt to liven the atmosphere. She simply brought with her plates of food without any of the usual fanfare that accompanied her. Along with her were the Cakes, who wanted to help cheer the poor filly up. Twilight came, as did the rest of Rarity’s friends. Like Pinkie, they were completely sober during the event. They were so used to coming together to celebrate some great victory or special occasion that none of them knew how to act in a situation like this. So they mingled around quietly, talking to whoever wanted to talk.
The CMC also attended, coming in a vain attempt to cheer Night Stitch up. The bat filly, sadly, was mostly not responsive during the entire ordeal. Ever since her mother’s body was moved, Night Stitch just seemed to be in a complete daze as the world moved around her. It was like she was broken inside. Something that Rarity could understand. She had gone so far, doing things that she knew weren’t right, all in an attempt to save the life of somepony she held dear only to fail. She had stolen, hurt somepony who was trying to stop her…and for what?
Rarity frowned as she thought about the mare who had done this. The mare who had given this filly false hope just to use her. Naturally she had told her friends about this leading to a variety of reactions. Unsurprisingly, Rainbow Dash wanted to give Suri a Sonic Rainboom at point blank range to the gut while Fluttershy (very surprisingly) offered to hold her in place. Twilight said that she would check with the other Princesses to see if there was anything they could do without any hard evidence. Pinkie Pie said Suri would make an awful cupcake before walking away, surprising everypony there with how random that was. Yet, despite not knowing what she was talking about, all of them suddenly had a case of the shivers. As for AJ, her contribution was to tell them all to leave Suri be.
“What she done ain’t right,” she had said. “Nopony here will deny that fact. But right now we got a bigger issue on our hooves than making that snake pay. Little Night Stitch is all by her lonesome right now and needs us.”
As much as Rarity didn’t want it to be so, she knew that Applejack was right. Suri wasn’t the real issue here. As enjoyable as it would be to make sure she learned her lesson in a very…creative way, Night Stitch had to be their focus for the time being.
So now, with the service over and the body buried, Rarity stood besides the grave with two other ponies when all other ponies had left. Sweetie Belle had a hoof placed on the shoulder of Night Stitch who was now staring at the freshly dug grave with her lifeless eyes.
“Well,” said Rarity after a while of standing there. “I suppose we’d better get going.”
“Are you taking me to jail now?” asked Night Stitch, speaking for the first time since Rarity had found her in Manehatten. Her voice was hoarse and hollow, strained from all the crying she had done while lacking any emotion. Rarity saw Sweetie tense at those words before looking over at her older sister as if to see her reaction.
“No darling,” responded Rarity gently as she moved a bit closer to the filly. “You’re not going to jail.” She noticed Night Stitch’s wings twitch at this while her front hooves dug a little deeper into the ground.
“Are you going to yell at me before you take me to jail?” asked Night Stitch in the same tone.
“Of course not,” answered Rarity.
“Why not?” asked Night Stitch with a bit more emotion in her voice. It was louder now while her head was sinking lower to the ground.
“Because you did nothing wrong,” replied Rarity as she reached out her hoof. But at that moment, Night Stitch had spun around surprising everypony there with her sudden action. Tears looked like they were starting to form again as the dam she had set up inside herself threatened to burst at any moment.
“Yes I did!” shouted Night Stitch. “I lied and stole from you.” She turned her head to look at Sweetie Belle. “I hurt you when you were trying to help me.” Slowly the mare turned to look at the grave now. “M-Mommy told me never to steal. That no matter what the reason was it was never the right thing to do. She told me never to hurt others on purpose because only bad ponies did that.” Night Stitch fell to the ground with a thud, her eyes closed tightly. “But I did all that anyways! Mommy would hate me now because I’m a bad pony!”
“No she wouldn’t,” said Sweetie Belle firmly. “She could never hate you.”
Night Stitch shook her head. “But I hate myself! After everything I did it hurts to even look at myself in the mirror. If…If mommy had ever found out what I did, if she had looked at me the same way I did then…” Night Stitch’s words trailed off as she choked back a sob.
“Night, Sweetie Belle is right,” said Rarity gently causing the bat filly to look up. “I don’t think that she would hate you.”
“But-”
“She might have been disappointed if she found out,” interrupted Rarity quickly. “Yes, you did things that weren’t right. But I am sure she would have understood given the circumstances you were both in. She might have talked to you about what you did and how to make it right.”
“Besides, you’re not a bad pony,” said Sweetie Belle. “A bad pony wouldn’t be acting this way or even caring what others thought of her. They would have just shrugged it off and not let it bother them. We know you’re sorry for what you did so I’m sure your mom would have known as well.”
“But…I still let her die,” sobbed Night Stitch. “I couldn’t save her in time.”
“Oh darling,” said Rarity as she scooped the filly up with her hooves and brought her in close. “I don’t think there was anything you could have done to avoid this. Your mother was very sick for so long. I don’t think that things would have been any different even if you had gotten every princess on the planet to come see your mother. It was simply outside of your control.” Rarity could feel Night Stitch opening and closing her mouth, feeling the filly wordlessly say the name Suri against her coat. “As for that…mare, the things she put into your head were simply awful. I don’t know what she actually said to you and, frankly, I don’t want to know since they were all vile lies. You need to understand this.”
“It hurts so much,” breathed the filly in Rarity’s chest.
“Don’t worry,” said Sweetie. “The whole of the CMC will be here to help. So if you want to talk about it or anything, we’ll be there for you.” At that, Night Stitch turned to look at Sweetie. Both mares could see the confusion on her face.
“Even after everything I did?” she asked. Sweetie nodded. “Why?”
“Because that what friends do,” replied Sweetie in a matter of fact tone. “They help each other out when they really need it.” Night shook her head.
“That’s not what my friends did,” she replied. “When…When me and mommy lost everything we asked around for a place to stay, nopony would help. Not my friends. Not mommy’s friends. When we saw them on the streets they pretended like they didn’t know us.”
“Well that just means they weren’t really good friends,” said Sweetie. “But don’t worry; I’ll introduce you to plenty of nice ponies who will want to be your friend when school begins.”
“School?” echoed Night as she tilted her head.
“You didn’t think I’d just throw you back to the streets, did you?” asked Rarity with a hint of a smile. “I’ve worked it all out with the mayor and Princess Twilight. Assuming there are no further complications, you’ll be staying with me and sharing a room with Sweetie Belle when she comes over. As for your apprenticeship with me well that will simply have to wait until after school. Perhaps even a little bit later so you can go out and spend time with ponies your own age?” As Rarity spoke, she noticed something in the eyes of Night Stitch. They looked a tad brighter than before. They had more life and joy in them. Still, Night Stitch wept but her tears were of a different nature.
As she held onto the filly, waiting for her to calm down, Rarity thought back to Suri’s unfortunate truths. Yes, there were plenty of homeless ponies out there and she could not help them all. But she could help and guide this one. But not because she was cute or had a sad back-story. No, on that, Suri was so very wrong. It was because this filly had walked into her life, becoming a part of it. She could do more to help her and she was here now. Perhaps later she could contact Coco to see if they could start doing things to help more of the homeless ponies of Manehatten. Perhaps using extra fabrics and such to make blankets or clothing for them. But that would have to wait just a little bit longer.
-x-
Meanwhile, Suri walked out of her store with a smile on her face. Life was simply perfect right now. Despite costing nearly every bit she had, Suri had managed to make enough of the fabric in order to fill out all of her overdue orders. She had been working around the clock to get the ones to her more prominent clients done first since their influence would help word of her work spread. Right now several were ready to be picked up and letters to their owners had been sent. Within the next couple of days, some of the most important ponies in all of Manehatten would be showing up to her store before walking out while wearing her finest dresses.
While at the moment Suri had only a few bits left to her name, she knew in her heart that it would change soon. Once ponies saw her amazing dresses worn by the rich and famous, she could begin her climb to the top. As long as she had this amazing fabric she knew she could do it. There was no other like it and it was all hers! Sure she would need to figure out how to create more color variations (which could end up costing her both time and money from experimentation) but it would be worth it! Perhaps she could find some unicorn out there in the city and get her to work as an assistant. Somepony gullible enough to think working for her for free would help her get a hoof in the door.
But that could wait until after lunch. Today she felt like celebrating her great success.
After walking several feet, Suri stopped as her eyes twitched. “What’s that noise?” she said while she and everypony in the area looked around. It was a strange whistling noise that seemed to be getting louder by the second. She turned her head to look upwards and her eyes grew several times in size at what she beheld. Shooting down from the sky was a large flaming rock, heading towards the city. Specifically her shop!
Suri turned around, ready to run into her store to save her work but it was too late. Before her very eyes as well as many of the onlookers, the large rock slammed into her store. Bricks and shards of glass went flying in all directions as smoke and flames rose into the air. Suri sat there, her mouth wide open in amazement while sirens filled the air. Yet, the odd thing was that none of the other shops in the area had been damaged. Just hers.
As Suri began to process this information the being known as Discord appeared above the rubble with a massive tennis racket on his shoulder. “Geez Karma,” he shouted to the sky. “You hit that one way out of bounds. It’s like you’re trying to lose on purpose!” Ignoring everypony around him, Discord levitated the rock up into the air before swinging his racket at it to send it flying upwards. As the rock flew out of sight Discord vanished, not repairing any of the damages done to Suri’s store.
“Celestia, I wish I still had insurance,” said Suri in a feeble voice before she began to laugh hysterically.