The heated private cabins of the steam train were a welcome relief from the biting cold winter outside, and Rarity was relieved to finally be on the track to Ponyville. The train wouldn’t arrive in Ponyville’s station for about two hours, so Rarity could relax, at least a smidge.
However, Pinkie Pie seemed much less interested in relaxing, pressing her face against the window and cooing at the sight of the orange-lit snow glistening in the sunset.
“Honestly, Pinkie Pie,” Rarity chuckled, a bright smile on her face as she sat and adored her friend’s ridiculous antics, “it’s not as though you’ve never travelled by train before.”
“Sure,” Pinkie said, her face still smushed up against the window, “I’ve travelled a whole bunch of times! But it never stops being incredible to me! I mean, just look at it! Have you ever seen anything more beautiful?”
Rarity took a lethargic look out the window, and while she could appreciate the splendor of the snow-dripped plains rolling by outside, she would be lying if she said that they provoked any kind of emotional reaction from her.
“It is something,” Rarity said wistfully, her cheek pressed up against her hand as her elbow rested on the side of her seat. “Though I find it curious, Pinkie Pie; you travel quite often to visit your family in all the far corners of Equestria, so why are you so keen on monster hunting? It sounds like your life is already full of adventure.”
“You’re not wrong,” Pinkie’s tone was cold as ice as she sat properly in her seat, hands placed delicately in her lap, and her uncharacteristic behavior left Rarity rather unsettled, “I guess…”
“You guess?”
“It’s not just about the adventure stuff.”
Pinkie wore a deep, bitter scowl and dug her fingernails into her legs, and Rarity knew she had to give Pinkie some emergency affection posthaste, so she moved across the cabin and sat next to Pinkie, gently taking each of her little fingers out of her leg, with Rarity placing one hand on Pinkie’s thigh instead while holding her hand with the other.
“Then what is it about?” Rarity asked, rubbing her thumb across the crease between Pinkie’s thumb and index finger.
Pinkie took a deep breath, slowly in through the nose, then even slower out through the mouth. Every instant that passed by felt like an hour to a tense and inquisitive Rarity, but she wasn’t about to pry where she wasn’t wanted, so if Pinkie was going to share her story, it would have to be at her own pace.
“Winter’s coming, right?” Pinkie said, and Rarity nodded. “Guy came into the smithery the other day, he’d busted an old heirloom and was picking it up after AJ fixed it. While he was in the shop, he was eyeing a rack of weapons that was on display.
“He walked over to the rack and put his hand on a sword, then he said ‘I oughta get one of these too, you never know when a roc could just come by and swoop the roof right off your house!’”
Rarity listened to Pinkie’s tale in silence, even as a knot gripped her stomach, and she refused to let go of Pinkie’s tensing hand.
“I know he was just joking,” Pinkie continued, “Applejack even laughed at his comment, but—”
“But he wasn’t just joking,” Rarity interjected, “was he? Not really?”
“Right,” Pinkie sighed and grit her teeth. “I hear ‘jokes’ and stories like that every winter. People live in fear of monsters every day and just accept it as normal, but it isn’t! It’s horrible! Nopony should have to live like that, and that’s why I want to be a Slayer. Cuz I wanna give ponies hope, I don’t want anyone to have to live in fear anymore.”
An admirable goal, though Rarity couldn’t help but wonder, as her fingers traced the edges of her dragon fang necklace, if Pinkie’s enthusiasm would survive an encounter with the actual atrocities some of these monsters were capable of.
If she knew why ponies lived in fear, would she question it then?
“I think that’s a wonderful goal, Pinkie.”
Rarity questioned only for a second if that was the proper thing to say, but any hesitation in her mind vanished at the sight of Pinkie’s bright smile and watering eyes, the look of someone who was finally told what she needed to hear.
“Thank you!” Pinkie said gleefully. “That’s what I keep telling everypony, but they all say I’m just being silly and that it’s ‘dangerous’! Like, I know it’s dangerous, but that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t—”
Pinkie’s words were caught up by her own sniffling, and Rarity held Pinkie close to her and wiped tears out of Pinkie’s eyes.
“Thank you, Rarity. I’m glad that you get it.”
“I do, darling. I do. And when we get back to Canterlot, you should share a drink with me and Rainbow Dash.”
Pinkie had nothing to say that couldn’t be expressed by jumping onto Rarity and wrapping her arms around her in a tight hug, which Rarity happily reciprocated, patting Pinkie on the back for good measure.
Applejack wouldn’t like it, of course, Rarity encouraging Pinkie’s desire to be a Slayer. But Rarity knew that the call of the Hunt couldn’t be dissuaded with mere words. She knew it from herself, and from seeing it in Sweetie Belle.
Pinkie’s goal was an admirable one after all, and if Rarity saw fit to dash Pinkie’s hope then she wouldn’t be able to consider herself any better than the monsters that she protects people from. What would be the purpose of protecting a life without hope?
Besides, Rarity genuinely wished that Pinkie could succeed in her dream of bringing hope to Equestria, where Rarity herself had failed.