"'Perfectly imperfect,'" Twilight grumbled, and Rarity could almost hear the quotes in which she wrapped the phrase. "Whose idea was that, anyway?"
Rarity looked over the top of her glasses at the new reigning monarch of all Equestria. Twilight stood quite straight and stately on the platform in the center of the spacious Canterlot Tower studio Rarity had laid claim to, but somehow she seemed to be huddling there among the silvery pieces of the gown for her final accession ball—in less than a week, Twilight had already grown a quarter hoofspan in every direction and had thus vitiated Rarity's original designs in every respect.
Fortunately, Rarity found that she didn't mind the repeated running of her tape measure across Twilight's expanded self. She did her utmost not to be so vulgar as to lick her lips at the thought, but no, she couldn't say that she minded this particular activity in the slightest.
Which was just her old royalty fetish jabbing her, she knew. She'd had regular flare-ups of that affliction since Twilight had first burst into glorious princessence outside the old library tree, her spreading wings setting Rarity's heart to soaring. But while Twilight was infinitely worthier of titles and accolades than that foul lout Blueblood, Rarity wouldn't dream of advancing things with her any further than the occasional languid bedtime fantasy. With Twilight stammering and blushing whenever a discussion turned to romance, Rarity had largely resigned herself. Especially considering—
"I mean, yes," Twilight went on, pulling Rarity from her thoughts, "I'm the one who said 'perfectly imperfect' at the press conference after that stumble-hoofed crowning ceremony. But I didn't mean for Minuette to latch onto it and make some sort of theme out of it!"
"And yet?" Slipping back into her well accustomed role as confidante, Rarity turned her attention once more to weaving together the blue and white filaments she needed to make the perfectly imperfect thread for the gown's hem. "No words could better summarize the era into which we're leading Equestria. In fact, considering how the pony in the street considers Celestia to have been a paragon of perfection, your blunt declaration that you're not has won you a great deal of popular acclaim." She couldn't stop a smirk. "I'd say Minuette has earned her first year's salary as your secretary already, and we're only five days into your administration."
The sigh Twilight blew out ruffled Rarity's mane even though she was halfway across the room. "Fine. But if Discord doesn't stop selling those t-shirts with that goofy picture of me on them..."
Silence settled in, but it felt too prickly against Rarity's hide, as itchy as unwashed wool and not at all conducive to the creative process. Staying focused on her thread, she asked, "And?"
Twilight didn't say anything, and that alone was enough to make Rarity look back up. Twilight had gotten a good deal better about sharing her anxieties over the years—and this Council of Friendship looked likely to require a great deal more sharing if it were to function. But if there was one thing Rarity had learned working with gems, it was how the little imperfections often brought out their true beauty. And to see Twilight maintaining her splendidly idiosyncratic sense of humor as well as certain of her more pleasant neuroses as she began blossoming into Rarity's ideal image of royalty—
Rarity put the brakes on that train of thought and carefully set down her partially twined thread. "If you're either ashamed to discuss whatever else is bothering you or think it's not important enough to mention, let me assure you that—"
"It's Fluttershy." Twilight's downcast face took on a rosy hue. "I...I think she's got a crush on me."
"Really?" Rarity kept her own face blank of all but the slightest expression of interest. This was, after all, the other reason she'd never so much as breathed a hint of her feelings: Fluttershy dancing about the Boutique the last several years while singing her rhapsodic and rapturous declarations concerning Twilight's beauty and strength, her gentleness and her dedication, her down-to-earth nature and her soaring magical prowess. "A crush? What makes you think that?" she asked, her every effort going toward steadying her voice.
Again, Twilight managed to slump without altering her posture at all. "I don't know. There's probably nothing there. I'm just...just—"
"Projecting?" Her insides a jumble, Rarity wanted to both drop the subject and delve deeper into it. "You think she feels something more than friendship for you because..." And for all that Twilight was the most brilliant pony Rarity had ever met, she knew that this was a thought she couldn't count on Twilight to complete on her own. "You feel something more than friendship for her?"
"What?" This time, Twilight did move, her wings flaring, her hooves stomping her legs out into a wider stance, her head snapping over, the pieces of the gown flying from her like water from a shaking dog. "No! That's the whole problem!"
Leaping forward, Rarity swept her hornglow across the scattering fabric. "Of course, darling! Of course! No need to panic!" Sweat burst over her forehead, the pieces whisking in and out of her grip, the entire ensemble seconds away from becoming a complete shambles.
Twilight's eyes went wide. "Sorry!" Magenta light wavered from her horn, and Rarity almost gasped at the firm but caressing embrace that surrounded and steadied her spellcraft. "It's okay: I've got them. You can let go."
Her throat the teeniest bit dry, Rarity withdrew and tried not to shudder at the exquisite sensation of sliding her magic delicately over the massive, pulsing power of—
"Because Fluttershy's a friend!" Twilight was saying, the fabric pieces swirling back into exactly the same spots they'd been before. "Just like you and AJ and Dash and Pinkie and Spike and Starlight and...and everypony! But Fluttershy, she...before Celestia and Luna set the date for my accession, she was dropping by the castle a lot with really interesting research questions, then staying around and helping me find the answers. Which was great, actually: she's got a first-class mind and isn't the least bit afraid of getting her hooves dusty when it comes to digging out obscure sources. But..."
The magic in the room was tamping down to a more normal level, and Rarity found she could breathe easily again. Or rather, she would've been able to breathe again if she'd been able to ignore the three or four solid kicks to the gut she'd taken upon hearing Twilight lump her in with all her other friends...
"Fluttershy's been so—" Twilight let out a much milder sigh. "When Rockhoof has his storytelling sessions, she always sits beside me and cringes against me during the scary parts. At school, she was always stopping by my office around lunchtime so we'd end up going to the cafeteria together. Or at the ball last night! She was talking about maybe hiring somepony to fill in at her animal sanctuary so she could start overseeing the menagerie here three days a week! I mean, Sweet Feather's been her life's dream! Why would she give that up?"
"Safety," Rarity said without thinking.
Though of course she had been thinking about it for quite some time, trying to understand why Fluttershy swooned in secret over Twilight while she openly spent so much time with Discord of all creatures. None of the three parties in question had ever shown an interest in romance, however, so Rarity had pursued another angle during the long nights when she'd tossed and turned, contemplating the problem. "Consider," she continued, Twilight staring at her like she'd grown her own pair of wings. "You're currently the most powerful being in the entire world, are you not?"
Twilight's ears fell. "I—"
"Now, now." Rarity held up a hoof. "No false modesty, no equivocating, and no mentioning Discord." She flicked little strips of fabric into the air above her, one for each of her points as she listed them. "You're the sole and absolute ruler of Equestria. Only you can control the device that controls the sun and the moon. You have links of friendship with every civilized race of creatures from one end of creation to the other. You could, with a few words and a few gestures, cause any effect you wished to occur. And most importantly?" She slashed the fifth strip across the previous four. "You would never do anything or allow anything to harm those over whom you exercise your power."
Wishing she could quell the distress seeping over Twilight's face but knowing she couldn't, Rarity softened and lowered her voice. "Or have I misstated the situation?"
"I—" Twilight's ears had folded almost completely into her mane, and her next words came out as the barest sort of a whisper. "I never asked for any of this..."
"Exactly." Stepping up, Rarity rested a hoof on Twilight's shoulder. "What's the cynical old adage? Nopony who wants power should ever be allowed to attain it? Fluttershy yearns for a protector and a guardian, one to whom she can entrust herself entirely and without reservation. She's drawn to you like...like—" Rarity scowled slightly, her mind searching for a colorful simile but finding only clichés. "Like ducks to water. Or moths to a flame. Or something along those lines."
The silence that stretched out this time felt just as itchy, but it seemed to have more shape to it, Twilight's mental processes churning almost visibly. Yet all she said was "Wow."
"Indeed." And for all that Rarity usually ended her thoughts on this subject by imagining herself designing Twilight and Fluttershy's wedding outfits and watching them live happily ever after, she found her royalty fetish flaring up quite intensely at Twilight's admission that she felt nothing more than friendship for Fluttershy. Of course, she'd made the same admission about Rarity, but if a relationship with Fluttershy was off the table, then Rarity could set to work winning her princess with a clear conscience.
A more-or-less clear conscience, at any rate...
Her heart trembling a bit, Rarity heaved a sigh. "Poor Fluttershy. I'm not certain what we can do other than gently confront her with the truth and try to ease her heartbreak as well as we're able."
"Or?" Something firm and resolute had clicked into place behind Twilight's eyes. She turned her head, flared her horn, and spoke into the bubble of yellow light that flashed into being. "Minuette?"
"Right here, Twilight," that perky voice replied.
"Rarity and I have a little bit of a friendship mission we need to take care of." The pieces of the gown drifted up in Twilight's magic and settled themselves on the nearest unoccupied dress form; Rarity snatched her pincushion and quickly began jabbing them through the fabric to hold the assemblage in place. "If a situation comes up that's a Level 5 or higher, contact me through this spell. Okay?
"You got it, Boss." The giggle that followed got an eye roll from Twilight, and the yellow light flickered to green.
Twilight shook her head and swung her horn over to pop the bubble. "I've asked her not to call me 'Boss.'"
Rarity nodded. "Which means she'll call you that for as long as she's able to speak."
"Yep." Twilight stepped down from the raised platform, but Rarity shivered with delight to see that she still had to look up to meet that deep purple gaze. "You free for a little trip?"
"I'm always at Your Highness's service." She gave her best courtly bow.
A grumble met her ears, then white light flooded her vision.
The swaying motion that gently rocked Rarity made her think of a vessel at sea. Unsurprising, she supposed, since she was sitting on a sofa in Discord's slightly undulating front room.
"—Which is when you'll come popping in!" Twilight was saying, bouncing next to Rarity. Their host sprawled in a hammock hanging from empty air on the other side of what apparently served as the coffee table here: a large slab of chocolate sheet cake supported on the backs of four tiny snoozing elephants. "And don't worry," Twilight went on. "I've been studying winged battle techniques, so I'll enchant the harpies to give you a good fight. But in the end, you'll defeat them, save me and Fluttershy both, and show her that you're a more powerful protector than I am! That's sure to take care of her crush on me!"
Discord took another bite from the rim of his tea cup—it was a mint tea, Rarity had been surprised to discover; she'd half expected it to be paprika or garlic or the like. He chewed the ceramic crunchily for a moment, then leaned sideways in his hammock, set his cup down on the cake table with a squish, and said, "I don't know how I managed to stay Lord of Chaos this long with you around for competition, Twilight."
Twilight's head pulled back. "But...I only put the chaotic parts in so you'd feel more comfortable! I wanted to make it more—"
"Ha!" He began spinning in the hammock, faster and faster till the whole thing became a blur. "You're a rank amateur!" he shouted, shooting out to splatter against the ceiling.
Rarity wanted to wince, but the brown goo was already dripping down to become him once again...though he now had a straw hat at least a century out of style mashed into place between his horns. "I don't expect," he announced, touching his lion claws to his narrow chest, "that you could ever understand the layered relationship Fluttershy and I have enjoyed for these past several years. But now that you're trying to squirm in between us—"
"What?" Twilight's wings flared. "No! I'm not! I'm trying to get out of the way so that the two of you can—!"
"Excuse me!" A second Discord appeared beside the first, this one wearing a beret and jodhpurs like an old-time movie director. "This is a very dramatic moment, I'll have you know, so quiet on the set!" Turning back to the first Discord, seemingly frozen in place, the second Discord snapped his talons and vanished with a cry of "Action!"
"But," the only remaining Discord continued as if none of that had happened, "now that you're trying to squirm in between us, trying to steal my Fluttershy away after I've gotten her all properly formed and seasoned, you force me into action! So let me show you how this sort of chaos is done!"
Another snap set everything swirling across Rarity's vision, and when she blinked it clear, she blinked some more to find herself in Fluttershy's front room. Twilight was standing beside her, and Fluttershy was turning from the bookcase she'd been dusting, her eyes going wide and her jaw loosening to let the feather duster fall to the floor. "Oh! Umm, hello, Twilight, Rarity, Discord," she said after a shaky set of heartbeats had rattled through Rarity's chest.
"Fluttershy?" Discord's baritone asked from behind Rarity, but before she could turn, he stepped around Twilight's other side, the straw hat still in place, a green and red striped vest wrapped tightly around his middle. "The events of the past several moons have taught me a great deal and given me more than a great deal to think about. And the answer I keep coming back to again and again, the only possible course of action that will truly lead me to become the person I want to be—and the person you want me to be—is the following."
Going down onto one knee, Discord pulled a small hinged box from the air, and Rarity's entire mane threatened to leap away from her neck. He couldn't possibly mean to—!
Everything everywhere stopped as far as Rarity could tell when Discord opened the box, and three pink-and-blue butterflies fluttered out holding what appeared to be a surprisingly tasteful crown-like fascinator, three pearls arching delicately up from the double row of its overlapping coral-blue curls. "Fluttershy, will you marry me?"
Twilight and Fluttershy gasped, but Rarity had already passed beyond that, her mind frantically trying to imagine a tuxedo that would be both stylish and undeniably discordian.
"Marry you?" Fluttershy was shifting her wide-eyed gaze back and forth between the fascinator and Discord's smiling face. "You...you mean it?"
"My dearest, sweetest, loveliest marvel." The box vanished, and Discord reached out to take Fluttershy's forehooves in his lion paw and eagle claw, the butterflies hovering above them. "I've never meant anything more in the thousands and thousands of years that I've existed. I say 'existed' because I didn't fully live till you showed me what the word means. And you showed me what 'friendship' means, and you showed me what 'love' means. And while I'm sure I'll continue to flail and fail, I'm hoping you'll never doubt one thing: that I love you and want to spend the rest of eternity with you."
"Yes!" Practically glowing, her wings vibrating behind her like a hummingbird's, Fluttershy sprang forward to wrap an embrace around Discord's midsection. "Oh, Discord! You've made me the happiest pony in Equestria!"
Discord swiveled his head, blew a bright orange bubble with the words "And that's chaos" flashing purple and green along the side, and puffed it to drift toward a gaping Twilight. He then bent down, touched a kiss between Fluttershy's ears, and when he straightened, the fascinator had tied her mane back away from her face and into a curving ponytail.
Then Fluttershy was leaping across the room and grabbing Rarity so tightly, she thought she felt ribs shift. "Oh, Rarity! It's a dream come true! I'm so glad you were here to see it!"
The pressure vanished as quickly as it had appeared, Rarity gasping at Fluttershy hugging Twilight. "Oh, and Twilight, you, too! Especially you!"
"Me?" Twilight sounded like she was having trouble catching her breath as well. "But why? I...I thought...I was sure—"
"Because," Fluttershy said, stepping back, her cheeks almost the same color as her mane, "I've always had kind of a mare crush on you. You're just so smart and funny and always in control even when you're panicking. And if you hadn't come to Ponyville and tipped my whole life over sideways, I never would've become the pony I always dreamed of being, a pony who could want things, a pony who could go out and get the things she wanted." She looked back at Discord. "A pony who could dare love a mischievous spirit of disharmony."
Discord held up two lion claws. "I promise: we can start harmonizing as soon as I figure out whether I'm a mezzo-verismo or a barelytone."
With a giggle, Fluttershy flapped back into Discord's arms. "If you grew another head or two, you could harmonize with yourself."
Little fireworks popped from Discord's ears. "You see?" His arms stretched till they'd encircled the both of them several times. "She gets me! She really, truly gets me!"
Fluttershy squiggled up along Discord's frame till she was within range to poke her snout into his. "And now, you get me," she said.
And for all that Rarity wanted to stay and watch the unfolding cuteness, propriety dictated that she grab a still-gaping Twilight in a bubble of magic and start dragging her toward the cottage door.
From the head table, Rarity watched Fluttershy and Discord swaying together to some romantic tune that had doubtless been popular when her parents were young. To her ears, it would've sounded better with more violins and fewer kazoos, but, well, it wasn't her wedding. And the two of them just looked so blissful out there, Discord bent over and stretched out along the floor so their foreheads could touch, their gazes locked.
With a sigh, Twilight dropped into the empty space to Rarity's left. "Well, at least we've got cider to drink instead of applesauce." The flute in front of her rose in a cloud of magenta and waggled itself. "A toast to love and friendship?"
"Hear, hear." Rarity picked up her own glass and clinked it against Twilight's. "And this is quite the site for the reception." She nodded toward the dark blue draperies overhead. "We had ten balls the week of your accession, and I still don't believe I've ever set hoof in this room before tonight."
Twilight drained her glass. "According to Lemon Hearts, the palace has two dozen ballrooms, and even she wasn't sure the last time this one got used." She shook her head. "There's a lot of airing out that needs to be done around here."
"Indeed." A sip bolstering her, Rarity turned in her most nonchalant manner to ask, "And how are you doing?"
"Me?" Twilight shrugged, and Rarity couldn't help but notice once again how magnificent Twilight looked in the crown, golden shoes, and peytral she'd worn while presiding over the wedding ceremony. "I'm pretty sure Discord made up all those 'ancient draconequus marriage traditions' he insisted we observe, but the yodeling pumpkins really added something, all things considered."
Rarity waited, her eyes partway closed and not breaking contact with Twilight's.
For a moment, Twilight just blinked, but then she did that whole slumping-without-slumping thing she'd been doing lately. "I don't know," she said, her voice barely reaching Rarity's ears above the soft melody. "What was it Fluttershy said the afternoon that Discord proposed? That she'd always had a 'mare crush' on me? I had to look the phrase up in the Dictionary of Modern Philology, and I'm still not sure how it's different from a regular crush! Or maybe it's that I'm not entirely sure what it means to have a regular crush..."
The music continued swirling, and Rarity continued waiting, not daring to let her hopes rise.
"But..." Twilight shifted her head till she was looking out at the dance floor again, other couples moving now to join Fluttershy and Discord. "Whatever it was, I...I really enjoyed being on the receiving end of it there for a while..."
"Ah." Rarity took another sip of the cider to keep her voice from cracking. "But you're now the Monarch of Equestria. I'll wager you're already the idol of millions, ponies and non-ponies alike."
The whicker that Twilight puffed out tickled Rarity's mane and made her shiver just a bit. "I can feel them all, actually," Twilight murmured, "the friendly thoughts creatures are sending my way from every part of the world. It fills me with the most incredible magic, but I..." The tiniest sour scent of fear began creeping into her usual jasmine and rosewater aroma. "I wouldn't mind something a little more...personal, too, I guess..." She reached out and touched Rarity's hoof. "Because I'm starting to think I might just have a bit of a 'mare crush' on a pony I've...admired...for a number of years now..."
It took all Rarity's strength not to throw herself into Twilight's arms, and she was only partially successful in stifling the parts of her body and mind that were squealing their joy at having true royalty notice her at last. Carefully, she raised her other hoof, rested it atop Twilight's, and said in her most caressing tone, "I will be happy to provide any and all solace I can, darling."
She could feel Twilight's pulse racing through the hoof she was holding. "So if," Twilight said, her voice more than a little husky, "I were to, say, give orders that any time you were in town and wanted to see me, you were to be shown straight up to my chambers so we could...talk..." Twilight swallowed so hard, Rarity could hear it. "That'd be okay with you?"
Smiling then was easier than anything Rarity had done in weeks. "I've always enjoyed talking with you, Twilight, and I will absolutely ecstatic to..." She put in exactly as much of a pause as Twilight had. "Talk with you as well."
A fold of Twilight's magic wafted out and stroked the air an inch away from Rarity's cheek in a display of power and control that still quivered with the most exquisite sort of uncertainty. Her composure almost shattering, Rarity turned quickly to look for a topic of discussion—and found one swaying half-dreamily and half-drunkenly to the music beside Discord and Fluttershy. "For instance, we could talk about how Rainbow Dash and Applejack appear to be dancing together."
Twilight's perfectly imperfect magical caress froze, her eyes going wide and her body slewing around to stare at the dance floor.
"But then..." Rarity rested her eyes on the curve of Twilight Sparkle's neck. "Weddings do tend to bring out the romantic in one, do they not?"