Rarity bought the mirror at some specialty shop in Canterlot.
It caught her eye partly due to its ornate frame. She was drawn to it, intrigued by the unique design. She'd never seen anything like it, despite years of buying fancy furniture for the boutique. But somehow she'd never stumbled across a piece so grand and beautiful, yet tragically unattractive. The mirror itself was pristine, the glass sparkling even in the dim light of the shop. But the frame was monstrous in design, the carvings extremely ugly. Honestly, Rarity was a bit disturbed by them. She couldn't imagine what had driven a supposedly sane pony to make such an ugly frame for such a beautiful mirror.
She bought it anyway, allured by the price. Despite the ugly frame, she thought it would look right at home in her boutique. Maybe she could do something about the frame at a later date. Surely there were ponies who could fix it. Or maybe she'd surprise everypony by keeping it that way. It was unique, much like most of the other furniture in her boutique.
Rarity placed the mirror in her bedroom. She planned to display it at some point, but she couldn't resist setting it up somewhere private first. She wanted to try it out. Maybe there was something wrong with it, some reason the shopkeeper wanted only ten bits for such a beautiful mirror. Even considering the ugly frame, that seemed like a strangely generous price.
She studied her reflection. The glass really was perfect. Not a single flaw as far as she could see. So why had the shopkeeper been willing to part with it for less than half of what it was actually worth? Was it stolen?
Rarity shook her head. Well, she couldn't do much about it now. She was a busy mare. Orders to fill, errands to run. She couldn't worry about the possibly illegal activities of a shopkeeper all the way in the city.
She ran her hoof across the ornate frame. She smiled to herself. Perhaps it was the imperfections that made this mirror so beautiful. As ugly as it was, it was giving Rarity ideas for some new dress patterns. Something bold and creative, something the likes of which Equestria wasn't even prepared for.
Her imagination ignited, Rarity trotted off to find her sketchpad. She did not think about the mirror again for the rest of the day.
The next morning was rather dreary. It was raining heavily when Rarity woke up, the world outside tinged gray.
She glanced out the window and frowned. How was she supposed to work in this miserable weather? She couldn't see herself finishing that massive order while it was pouring outside. But she didn't have much of a choice. Rarity had to complete this order by the end of the week.
She headed into the bathroom. She raised a hoof to her mouth, stifling a yawn. Rain or not, there was a busy day ahead of her.
Rarity paused in front of the mirror. She turned to look at her reflection, squinting in confusion. She could have sworn she'd seen something in the mirror. A flicker or a flash. Some discreet little movement out of the corner of her eye. Rarity leaned forward, skeptical but a bit worried.
She frowned and pressed her hooves against her cheeks. Good heavens. Had her cheeks always been this plump? She certainly didn't remember them being that chubby the last time she looked in the mirror. How strange.
Rarity was glad she wasn't planning to go out. She could just imagine the snarky comments Rainbow Dash or Applejack would make. They'd probably tell her to cut down on the ice cream.
She backed away from the mirror, the supposed movement partially forgotten. She turned away from her reflection, blushing. Rarity decided to focus on the long day ahead. She needn't worry about her cheeks, at least for the time being. Yes, no need to worry. She just needed to stop eating so much ice cream.
She didn't look at her reflection for the rest of the day. However, the image of herself—hooves squashed against her own plump cheeks—stayed with her. Her hooves shook a little as she worked, remembering how unsightly her cheeks had felt.
Rarity crawled into bed at an ungodly hour, having worked until she almost passed out. The order was halfway finished, but she still had a lot of work to do. The next day was going to be nightmarish. But if she kept at it, she should be finished by the end of the week.
Rarity glanced at the mirror. She hadn't actually finished that new dress pattern, the one based on the mirror frame. For some reason she simply couldn't reproduce the image in her head. She couldn't recreate the flawless imperfection the mirror frame showed her.
She ducked her head under the covers. Well, it wasn't important. Rarity could try again when she wasn't so busy.
It wasn't raining the next morning, but Rarity decided to stay indoors. She had an order to finish.
She examined herself in the mirror before heading into the bathroom. She frowned at her reflection, even more aware of her chubby cheeks. Of course she couldn't have expected them to vanish in a single day, but Rarity had at least expected to be less effected by them. She instead found herself even more critical of them as her hooves sunk into them. Her entire face looked plumper, almost disproportionately so.
She ran a hoof across her right ear. She'd never noticed it before, but wasn't her right ear just a little bigger than her left? She gently tapped it, her eyes darting from one to the other for comparison. Rarity's heart sank when she realized the lack of symmetry. It was only slight, but of course a creative pony like her was bound to notice something like that. Or perhaps others had noticed before, but they'd kept it to themselves. The same might be said for her plump cheeks.
Rarity brushed a hoof through her mane. It was too early for her to have styled it yet, but she was able to reassure herself. She just needed to style her mane. Rarity's mane alone would draw attention away from everything else. She was sure of it.
She retrieved her brush and several other grooming objects from the bathroom. Rarity set to work on her mane, attacking it with all the usual implements.
However, the longer she worked the worst the result seemed to be. Rarity just couldn't get her mane to look how she wanted it to, despite her tireless efforts. First it was too aristocratic, then too plain, and finally too stiff and uninspired. She tried different styles, but it was no use. Had her mane always been this uncooperative? Or was that how it always looked, at least to everypony except her?
Rarity wrapped a scarf around her head. She realized she'd wasted four hours in front of the mirror, styling and un-styling her hair in an increasingly frantic fashion. That was four hours she could have been using to work on that massive order. Where had the day gone? Where had she gone?
Rarity hurried out of the bedroom. She was hungry—she still hadn't eaten breakfast—but that hardly mattered.
She worked quickly, optimizing her productivity as best she could. However, Rarity found herself making mistakes. Nothing was coming out the way it was supposed to. The patterns were all wrong, the colors were too grating. She tried to correct her mistakes as best she could, but her shaking hooves could only produce more sub-par work.
By the end of the day, Rarity was completely exhausted. By some miracle, she'd actually finished most of the order. She just needed one more really good workday, perhaps an all-nighter. Then she could relax for a while, maybe even plan a spa day with her friends.
Rarity clutched the scarf around her head. No. She couldn't let her friends see her. Not until she figured out what to do about her mane or her plump cheeks or her ears. She couldn't let them laugh at her, couldn't let them talk behind her back. “Rarity sure has let herself go, hasn't she?” they'd probably say, raising their hooves to their mouths and giggling.
They're your friends, darling, she reminded herself. They'd never laugh at you.
But how did she know? How did she know they didn't snicker about her when she wasn't around? At the very least, they probably talked about he mismatched ears. They probably didn't want to say anything, but they must have noticed. How long had they known? How much had they concealed from her?
Rarity buried herself in blankets. She could already hear their laughter, could imagine their snide comments. Rarity's eyes burned with tears.
Rarity could barely bring herself to get out of bed the next morning, but she managed to.
The order. She had to finish the order. If she finished the order, all of her problems would go away. This obviously wasn't true, but it was enough to get Rarity out of bed.
She stood in front of the mirror yet again, examining herself. She needed to know what else was wrong with her, which imperfections her friends had neglected to mention. Rarity recalled how the stallion at the bookstore had looked at her. She assumed he was appreciating her beauty and fashion sense, but she realized he must have noticed her ears and her cheeks. He must have been laughing to himself about how ugly she was.
Rarity leaned forward. Her eyes weren't the right size. They were about half an inch too big for her face, one slightly smaller than the other. She nearly burst into tears when she noticed. She'd always loved her eyes and the compliments she'd received because of their vibrancy. But those ponies were just being nice, weren't they? Trying to mislead her so she didn't notice how unattractive her eyes really were.
She pressed her hooves against her eyes. She didn't want to look at them. She didn't want to see a single detail of her hideous face. Yes, hideous. Rarity realized she was absolutely hideous, a ghoul cleverly disguised as a pony. They thought it was cruel to tell her. But it was crueler for them to hold their tongues and lie right to her face.
Rarity grabbed one of her sketch pads and flipped to a blank page. Her eyes were swimming with angry tears by this point, but she managed to brandish a pen. She started drawing herself, expertly tracing each line even as her vision blurred. But she didn't need to see. Rarity already knew what she looked like.
A few minutes later, she was finished. The horrible truth stood before her, finally transferred onto the sketch pad: her own smiling face with the word fake written across it. Rarity wasn't real. She was just a construct of her own mindset.
Sobbing, Rarity threw the sketch pad across the room.
They found her two days later. Well, Fluttershy and Spike found her. They were the ones who went to check on her, concerned about her lack of contact. They both knew she was working on a big order, but they'd expected her to be finished.
“Rarity?” Spike called.
Receiving no answer, he cupped his claws over his mouth and shouted again. Nothing. Had she gone somewhere? Given that the door was unlocked, Spike wondered if she'd left in a hurry.
Fluttershy was preoccupied by a pile of dresses in one corner of the room. She wrinkled her nose, her eyebrow arched skeptically. She was no fashion expert, but she wondered what exactly Rarity had been thinking. Those dresses were absolutely hideous in a way Fluttershy could hardly bear. There was something about the twisting, writhing pattern that made her very uncomfortable.
Spike headed to Rarity's bedroom. He sniffed as he approached. What in Celestia's name was that smell? It was familiar to him in a vague sort of way, but he just couldn't place it. It definitely didn't smell like Rarity's usual perfume. He wondered if she'd found some obscure new fragrance in Canterlot.
Fluttershy jumped when she heard Spike scream. A high-pitched wail of fear and surprise that cut through the otherwise silent boutique.
“Spike?” she said.
She rushed to see what was going on, fearing he'd found something terrible. However, even Fluttershy's vivid imagination couldn't prepare her for what had caused Spike to utter that high-pitched cry of terror.
Rarity was lying on the floor of her bedroom. She was crying, surrounded by broken glass and gasping out incomprehensible phrases through her heavy sobs. Her head and body were covered with bald patches. She seemed to have been ripping out her own fur, piece by piece. Her teeth had done some of the work, while she'd used her magic for the harder-to-reach portions of her body. Rarity had torn out clumps of her mane with her bare hooves and tossed them carelessly across the floor, creating a sort of jagged trail that led to her thin body. Judging by how skinny she was, it seemed she also hadn't been eating. Her chest rose and fell with each shaky breath, her ribs clearly visible as she struggled to suck in every breath. Her hooves were bleeding and there were bits of fur stuck between her teeth.
Directly in front of her stood the remains of the mirror. She'd smashed it to pieces with her own hooves. Now nopony would ever know how imperfect she was. Rarity would never have to look at herself again.