The train ride back from Baltimare wasn’t as long as Rarity had been expecting, and she could almost see her city of Canterlot in the distance out the window.
Truthfully, the ride hadn’t been as long as Rarity had wanted, either. While the rest of her party had simply teleported back with Celestia to Canterlot, Rarity insisted on taking the train. And while Rainbow was an absolute darling and offered to travel with her the slower way— which was quite a gesture, coming from Rainbow Dash—Rarity also insisted that she go alone.
She needed the time to think, yet she found that more difficult than she expected. She had just slain the second dragon in her life, had just saved countless innocent ponies from torment and death, and yet she felt nothing short of utterly miserable.
Why?
It wasn’t the dragon’s words that stuck in Rarity’s mind, but Coloratura’s.
I don’t think it’s lying.
She said that about the dragon ‘not knowing’ what had happened to Baltimare, or how it got its injuries. Rarity didn’t ask if it was lying or not about having a family, because why would she care to know? A family of vicious, bloodthirsty dragons are still evil, so what did it matter?
But did Rarity not ask because she didn’t care, or because she didn’t want to know the answer?
And why had the dragon not fought back? The last time Rarity had a dragon cornered, it begged for its life; this one didn’t even try that. Why was it so… docile? It seemed frightened also, and if it truly didn’t know how it became injured, if it just suddenly awoke as if from a trance and was blind and half-dead, then who wouldn’t be fri—
No. No, that’s ridiculous—it’s insane, is what it is! How can some creature simply ‘not know’ how it became injured?
Yet if it was all so ridiculous and insane as Rarity insisted, why was she stuck on it? What about this situation didn’t add up to her?
Rarity would have to ask Celestia some questions about the dragon’s peculiar behavior later. She let Tempest report their team’s success to the Queen because Rarity was already too deep in her confused web of thoughts to be focused enough for a coherent report.
Even after Celestia sought Rarity out to talk to her, Rarity politely turned down the Queen’s request for more information, because Rarity simply didn’t know what to say; another reason why she wanted to take the train home.
Home.
She was almost there now; Canterlot station could be seen in the distance, and Rarity smiled fondly as she pressed her cheek up to the window. She had returned from many trips back to Canterlot, but she never considered it to be her ‘home’. She always considered the road, the Hunt, and Hunter’s Haven to be her ‘homes’.
Until she met Twilight. Now the library was her home, and she wouldn’t want it any other way.
She wondered briefly what Twilight was doing, thinking fondly about her adorable crush and about how the cute little dork was probably still organizing those old books, even though she was ill. Silly pony.
Rarity hoped Spike would at least look out for her and try his best to make sure she didn’t overwork too much, but she knew Twilight couldn’t be deterred once she’d set her mind to something. Rarity respected that about her, honestly.
Rarity also thought about the last thing she said to Twilight before she left, about how they would save their kiss for when she got back, and that thought put Rarity in a brighter mood than she’d been in all night.
She was almost home. Almost at the library. Almost with Twilight.
Almost kissing Twilight.
Rarity tried not to be giddy, because that would be rather unladylike, but she couldn’t help but let a few smitten giggles escape her lips. She rested her cheek against the window again, smiling fondly at the Canterlot station as it drew closer and closer, until she could practically smell the—
—smoke?
What is that?
Rarity saw something in the night sky, almost too far away to tell, but the storm suddenly raging in her gut gave her a clue.
No. No, it couldn’t… it couldn’t possibly be—
It was.
Rarity’s eyes widened and her mouth hung open as desperate, gasping breaths filled her lungs. That was no ‘thing’ flying against the night sky, it was a creature. A dragon.
Rarity could hardly see the beast in the darkness, but she saw it exhume some kind of colorful fluid from its mouth that poured into the sky, and thankfully evaporated in the air. But what truly made Rarity’s stomach turn was the color of the creature’s scales—lavender, just like her Twilight.
And now, worry and concern gave way to panic, as Rarity had no way of knowing why that creature was near her home, and she had no way to contact Twilight to know if she was okay.
Rarity ran to the front of the train, and thanked her luck that she was able to disembark safely as soon as she made it. She jumped onto the platform and raced as fast as she could through the sleepy, empty streets of the Moon District, until she reached…
A tree. A tree burning in violet flame, almost withered and burnt to its very roots until there was nothing left but ash, columns of pitch dark smoke rising into the air and filling Rarity nose with a nauseating scent.
Rarity’s breath became even more frantic and desperate as she ran into the ruins of the library, regardless of the danger.
Her barriers could protect her from mere fire, though she remembered upon getting close to the tree, and feeling an overwhelming heat coming from the flames, that dragonfire was nothing like normal fire, and with her weak magic—and no longer tapped into Celestia’s magic— it could still burn her easily.
She couldn’t bear the heat coming from the library, so instead she called out to Twilight and to Spike, then to Rainbow Dash, and Applejack and Pinkie Pie, then to goddamn anyone who could hear her.
But none of her cries were met with any response.
Rarity fell to her knees in the snow, no recourse left but to watch her home burn in front of her eyes.
There was nothing she could do but accept that the thing she loved most had been taken from her.
That her Twilight was most likely—
Rarity sat there for only a moment before forcing herself to her hooves. She still had her equipment from Celestia’s armory, she still had Celestia’s onyx blade.
She was a Slayer still, was she not? And there was a dragon that needed slaying.