“Rarity! You will never guess who’s just come in town!?” Pinkie Pie spilled out, circling around her friend in hurried and overjoyed bounces.
“Cannot you just wait for an hour or two?” Rarity hissed as gently as she could as her attempt to bore a hole through the pink wall barring her way failed again. “Please, Pinkie, please. I am in a hurry.”
“Sompeony came in town!” the earth pony beamed, oblivious to her friend’s plea.
Pinkie leaped and grabbed her friend’s shoulder with a hoof.
“And he’s spoo-oo-ooky…” she whispered in her ear.
“Please, Pinkie,” Rarity squeaked. “Plea-ea-ease, I’ve got a very important appointment with a Canterlot fashion herald. It. Is. Extremely. Important.”
Pinkie Pie’s brows perked up and she let her friend slip away. The silence settled between the two for a second before Pinkie Pie’s face furrowed. Curious, she hung her head on the side and finally saw the huge cart Rarity had been pulling forward on the newly built paved road that crossed Ponyville. The cart was full of neatly packed and shiny dresses. Pinkie Pie broadly smiled and rushed on top of the cart.
“That is soooooooo sweet!” she burst just before she jumped off to hug her friend. “Go, go, go! Now!”
With a smack on Rarity’s flank, Pinkie Pie threw momentum in the conversation and both ponies began walking. An old mule passing by smiled at the sight of one beautiful unicorn blaming an earth pony for being so uncouth.
“You’re going to show a new collection?” Pinkie asked. “Winter!? No! No. It’s too early. Fall? No it’s not yet fall… I know! Summer-Fall! Summall! Am I right?”
Pinkie Pie turned her head and saw Rarity had stopped in her track, eyeing her hyperactive friend with a mix of wonder and… Well, Rarity did not know either.
“Or a special order, I guess…?” Pinkie Pie said, backing up slightly with an awkward smile as Rarity’s deadpan chilled the party pony.
Rarity sighed and nodded.
“Yes, Pinkie. It is a very special order. Canterlot’s fashion scene has been shaking up lately. Though I am not living in the castle, I am still willing to retake my status of avant-gardist.”
“Why?” Pinkie Pie giggled. “You lost it?”
For once, Rarity shrugged; she frowned and her mouth scrunched up as she looked down. She was not sure about it all.
“Well… One couturier takes the lead on the scene, then it is challenged by another and so on. It’s competition. A fair game.”
Pinkie Pie mimicked her friend’s scrunched up face as she struggled to see the fuss about it all. Rarity rubbed her forehead and took a short breath in.
“Imagine that suddenly, another family of bakers came into town,” Rarity continued. “What would you do?”
“Greet them!”
Rarity hung her head low.
“No. No, Pinkie,” Rarity replied shortly after. “What if they were stealing… no, not stealing… attracting Mr and Mrs Cake’s clients because the newcomers’ products were kind of… better? What would you do?”
Pinkie Pie sat up and held a hoof on her chin. She contemplated the sky as if the answer was dangling right there. Her face lit up.
“I’d do a mega-super-sugar-ultra-savoury treat! So the clients would come back!”
“Exactly,” Rarity said with a rueful smile. “And so forth, it is the same for me. But it is about clothing and luxury wears, not… cakes.”
While Rarity scrambled to find her watch, deeply hidden between the folds of fabric hanging on her back, Pinkie Pie stroke her beardless cheek.
“Edible clothes!” Pinkie boomed as she locked her eyes on her startled friend.
“What?!” Rarity blurted, jutting her head out of her mountain of clothing.
“You have to do edible costumes!” Pinkie repeated, holding her friend’s reddening cheeks.
Rarity softly pushed away Pinkie’s hooves and, massaging her jaw, she rumbled. Pinkie giggled defensively, ducking her head slightly between her hunkering shoulders.
“No, really,” Pinkie explained with an amused smile. “Imagine! Edible. Clothes!”
“How would they even be washed?” Rarity pointed out.
“I dunno! But… Just… Imagine!”
With Pinkie’s incessant demands harassing her, Rarity forced her hoof on Pinkie’s lips and tasted the silence with a broad and tired smile.
Then, the unicorn smirked, “If you can invent a way to dry a fabric made out of sugar, I will reconsider… creating an edible cloth just for you.”
“Really!?” Pinkie cried out with widened eyes. “Oh, yes, yes, yes!”
All of a sudden, the pink earth pony frowned as she looked around, peering at invisible spies trying to steal the plan she had come up with.
“If I can’t get a sugar fabric to dry, I’m not called Pinkie Pie!” she said. “Now, I go!”
She whizzed away, leaving behind just a puff of dirt as she trotted down a narrow alleyway standing between two old houses.
“Oh, Pinkie Pie,” Rarity sighed with a troubled smile. “What would we do without you?”
Summer time was definitely over but Fall’s cold mornings had not yet taken hold of the land. Wind blew through Rarity’s curled mane and a few slightly yellow leaves fell before her hooves. She held a hoof on her chest, prodding the tingling pinch that dwelled in her heart. Her guts wrenched as her coming appointment was throwing her in a starkly stressful apprehension. Everything had to be absolutely perfect. Deeply in thoughts, Rarity stared at the hazy and greyish sky until the ringing of a distant bell called her back.
“Oh, dear. I’m so late!”
Rarity quickened her pace as a first raindrop hit her muzzle. She reached the city hall as a thunderbolt echoed in the distance. At least, she thought, she had had herself and her couture samples out of harm’s way, dry under the building’s porch.
“Hello, Rarity,” Derpy Hooves said as she opened the hall’s massive door, not without getting her mailbag’s strap stuck in the door handle. “Eh, sorry… bye…!”
The grey pegasus flew out in the wind and went on her hectic delivery shift. Meanwhile, Rarity had started moving all her merchandise inside the hall.
The inside was lit up with lights and fires and, with an eruditely dispatched set of mirrors, the hall was decently bathed in a whitish light. The centre of the place displayed a large wooden table and two doors in the background gave onto the mayor’s office and a storage area. Raising her head, Rarity saw the promontory from where the whole adventure her life had been for the past five years had started. She remembered Nightmare Moon shimmering to existence out of a dark and bluish cloud up there. It still gave her shivers. However, Rarity had at that specific moment another reason to fear. The hall was strangely empty.
“Uh…? Hello?” Rarity called out.
Only a faint echo answered. The mare frowned and stacked her clothes on top of the table. She had rented the grand hall for the afternoon and she was not expecting it to be barren of any life. It was far too big to be empty.
“Oh, she must be late,” Rarity spoke to herself. “With that outrageous weather outside, I can understand. Let’s prepare some tea.”
Mindfully, a small chest had been left next to the hall’s chimney. It contained all the things Rarity required: a kettle, a bottle of water, a set of mugs, and a small wooden box filled with teabags.
As another thunderbolt cracked outside, Rarity activated herself around the fire. She waited in silence, reshuffling with febrile hooves between her neatly set of dresses twice. The herald was very late.
“Something wrong must have happened,” Rarity grumbled as she stood off her chair and went taking the whistling kettle off the fire. “How inconvenient.”
The entrance door creaked on its hinges and, with the flash of thunder, two shadows crawled on the marbled floor of the hall. Rarity swivelled on her hooves and faced them tensely. The first face Rarity saw was Applejack’s, earning her a breath of relief.
“Here ya go,” the orange mare said while she folded a wet and ragged umbrella. “Ah’m gonna try to check on your carriage. Ah must have some spare wheels in mah barn.”
“Thank you kindly, Miss Apple,” a second voice answered. “I am sure you will be able to find a way to help. But do not put yourself in danger. This is not a time for fillies and gentlecolts.”
Applejack smirked, pinching her lips together, and slipped outside, unaware of Rarity’s presence. The unicorn’s features drawled as where she had expected a refined mare to come in, a large and bulky stallion stepped in instead. Taller than Big Mac, the brown stallion pulled a small towel out of his austere, black and white suit and began sponging his face and his gold-like mane.
Stretching on his massive legs, the stallion cracked his cranky shoulders.
“Damn, I hate travelling. Train operators shouldn’t be able to go on strike,” he laughed.
“Hello, Sir,” Rarity exclaimed as she stood next to the newcomer, startling him. “I am so delighted to finally meet you.”
His suit was completely ruined, wet and probably chilling him to the bones. Rarity scanned him from tail to head – which she had to raise quite a lot to get a full view of the towering stallion.
“My… My name is Rarity. Would you like a cup of tea next to a warm fire?”
She raised her hoof.
“Hello, Miss,” the stallion answered, shaking Rarity’s hoof. “My name is Malt Ale. And indeed, a warm fire is all that I yearn for at the moment.”
The next twenty minutes were spent in silence, only cut by Rarity and Malt Ale’s sips of their own cup.
“So…” Rarity trailed on. “You are from Canterlot? I thought that Hawkeye Jury would come herself. She is… the one pony Sir Fancy Pants introduced me to a few years ago.”
Hawkeye Jury was one of Fancy Pants’s friends. A mare that had made fortune in the fashion industry and was currently the sole supplier of traditional clothing for Canterlot’s aristocracy. Having Hawkeye as a client was the insurance of fame for any craftpony like Rarity.
“Indeed,” Malt Ale confirmed after a short smile. “I’m Miss Jury’s envoy. It is sad that she couldn’t come herself as I know she has valued your work for the past years and held you among her best couturier of the precedent season.”
Rarity’s heart beat faster as the small compliment soothed her stress.
“Miss Jury,” Ale continued, “is indisposed for personal reasons and has taken a step back last month until next month. I’m her VP.”
“Well…” Rarity muttered, looking at the stallion’s massive stature. “A pony like you must attract attention. And Hawkeye Jury…”
“… likes attention,” Ale finished with a short laugh. “I know. I’m also her cousin.”
“Oh?” Rarity said, surprised.
“But, enough of talks,” Ale said. “We’re here for business, aren’t we?”
Rarity’s face lit up and she trotted diligently to the centre of the city hall and activated her telekinetic magic. Shuffling through her dresses, shirts, pants, suits, costumes, and robes, Rarity nearly giggled in excitement. Everything was an artist’s masterpiece. Each crochet, point, fold, and details had been wonderfully been cared for and all in all, it was magnified by the charm and powerful reflects of hundreds of crystals and gems. A work of a demoiselle for a refined audience who wished for more than extravagance and sparkled glitters.
Rarity had used crocheted wool from Prance, ice spider silk of the Crystal Empire, or ahuizotl lace. She even managed to obtain changeling threads, a refined component that magically changed to a colour matching the dress’s main colour.
In Rarity’s eyes, this was true art. His unique audience was watching her presenting, swerving, and showing off her vast knowledge of the mundane and fashion in a respectful silence. Ah hour passed
“This is by far my most magnificent item!” Rarity exclaimed as she dragged her last package off the table. “I know Canterlot does only know me for my clothing but I also do jewellery on my spare time!”
Malt Ale arched his brows in surprise and smiled gently as Rarity unfolded a sheath of paper. Even Rarity stopped a second to admire her own work. Stars danced in her eyes as the firelights reflected on a parure made out thinly chiselled gold, incrusted with rose diamonds and blue topazes. Finally, a set of translucent crystals dangled from silver threads and shone with the colours of the rainbow. Malt Ale’s eyes widened but soon enough he returned to a phlegmatic expression.
Rarity put the parure on and wandered around, showing that the piece did not clatter or emit a sound as she moved. She had had everything planned and attended for.
This luxury show ended soon after as Rarity put back the parure in its paper fold. She turned around and gave a broad smile at her unique audience. She hid well the drop of sweat rolling off her neck.
Malt Ale nodded silently as he stood on his massive legs and joined Rarity next to the table.
“May I have another cup of tea, please?” he asked.
Rarity did not peep a word and rushed to the kettle. The water was still warm and in a few minutes she had brought a new cup to the brown stallion. He seemed in a deep thinking.
“So?” Rarity pressed on.
Malt Ale drew his head back at the remark.
“So what?” he answered.
“What do you think?” Rarity hesitated.
“You are not the market, Miss Rarity. The market does make you and not the other way around. Did you really think your work, as beautiful as it is, would be enough to make you the centre of the industry?” Brown Ale said neutrally. “If you wanted Hawkeye to say those word to you, I’ll say it: ‘You are a wonderful craftpony’. However, your work is not important enough to drive Canterlot fashion. You are a has-been, Miss Rarity. And your inflated self of importance has been ruining your reputation and work for far too long.”
Rarity was horrified by the stallion’s word. She couldn’t even muster to cry. She was petrified, a wall in which Malt Ale’s words came crashing on. Silent she was and silent she remained as the herald continued.
“How long have you been in Ponyville without at least stepping once in Canterlot? Wandered in its hyped streets and watched the moving, shaking, changing?” He paused and sighed. “Hawkeye warned me about it. You’ve grown out of touch with the fashion scene. You’ve driven yourself afar from the reality and grown overconfident of yourself…”
“But it’s my talent!” Rarity countered. “I… I… I’m made to create, sew, and produce goods that are imbedded with gems and crystals. That’s my talent.”
“It’s falling out of fashion, Miss Rarity. You’ve grown out old of the system. It’s time to change. To do better and change. To adapt. Hawkeye asked me to come because I have one talent. Look at my cutie mark.”
Rarity’s lips quivered as her eyes dropped down on Malt Ale’s cutie mark. It was a rock under a magnifying glass. The glass was focusing on one single golden nugget sprouting out of the muddy, tasteless rock.
“I can see talent in ponies. You, Miss Rarity, have an enormous talent, something inside you that you don’t even recognize or know about. Hawkeye is just annoyed you’ve come to wasting it.”
Rarity slumped over and hung her head low. Malt Ale sighed and shook his head.
“Look, Miss Rarity. You are a talented couturier but I think it is time for you to rethink your position and ask yourself what you want to do with your knowledge, if not talent.”
“Can I have some time for myself?” Rarity asked.
“Of course. I’m doing this for you,” Malt Ale drawled on.
“They all say that,” Rarity hissed. “Detractors, competitors, manipulators… all of them.”
“Truth can hurt,” he said. “But sometimes, you have to be generous with hurtful advice.”
Malt Ale unfolded the paper that enshrouded the parure and caught himself contemplating it for too long.
“Take a bunch of holidays,” he said, dropping the haughty tone. “I think you’ve driven yourself to the burnout.”
Rarity sniffed when the door of the city hall clacked close.
[ α Ω α ]
“I’m really worried about Rarity?” Twilight said as she looked outside. “Haven’t seen her since the morning.”
The moon shone through Fluttershy’s ground floor door window and Twilight’s eyes wandered in its white glim.
“Hey! Don’t worry,” Applejack soothed. “Ah’ve seen her with that pony from Canterlot. She’s in good comp’.”
“I believe you, Applejack,” the alicorn replied. “I’m just… It’s taking an awful lot of time.”
“Oh, don’t worry, Twilight,” Fluttershy comforted. “Rarity likes to take her time.”
Fluttershy softly floated over the dinner table and poured another soft drink to the small assembly. There, alongside Zecora, Twilight, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash, who was fairly asleep on her chair, her mouth drooling like a hose, a last minute invitee was sitting.
“Best parties are welcome parties!” Pinkie cheered with a pint of cider in her hoof.
The newcomer chuckled at the over-abundance of friendliness the pink pony spread around.
“Thanks, Pinkie,” a zebra answered with a deep, masculine voice. “It’s a real pleasure to sit at a table. I haven’t for a while.”
Rainbow Dash chocked on her saliva and hacked her back legs under the table. Opening one eye, she struggled around and tried to reach out for Applejack’s pint. The apple bucker kicked her hoof off her plate.
“Don’t touch ma stuff,” Applejack warned. “Yah got ‘nough of it already.”
Pouting, Rainbow Dash growled and turned over towards the male zebra.
“Why dontcha tell me why you ain’t speaking with rhymes?” Rainbow Dash rambled. “Zecora’s much funnier like that.”
Applejack gave a slap from the back of her hoof on Rainbow Dash’s top of her head.
“Yah don’t ask those kind of thing, Dash!”
The two zebras shared an amused stare and laughed.
“Rainbow Dash, truth be told,” Zecora started, “Manaja and I come from two tribes, very different and old. We do not share the same traditions, and such not the same alliterations.”
Manaja was setting at the right of Zecora and both were fairly different. Manaja was fairly taller though he couldn’t rival with Applejack’s brother. His mane was not as straight as his brethren and the dark in his fur was far less pronounced. Instead of wearing gold piercing and jewellery, he had clothed himself with simple leather fabric that hid his whole hide. When he had come in town he had been wearing a simple traveler’s bag. Finally, the mud on his hooves talked about the length of his travel.
“So why are you a pilgrim?” Twilight asked with her striking curiosity. “And what is your pilgrimage all about?”
“Eh…” Manaja blurted. “I’m… I can make an exception for you. But, it’s a party-pooper.”
“Oh,” Twilight back up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to.”
“No,” Manaja said with a weak smile. “I’m making my travel ‘round the world. I’m in search of something.”
“You’re playing hide ‘n seek?” Pinkie Pie burst out, setting her two forehooves on the edge of the table.
Applejack punched her in the shoulder and threw her a dark stare. Rubbing her scratch, Pinkie Pie sat up with a scrunched up face.
“I’m searching for a burial place.” Fluttershy’s cottage drown in a stark silence. “I told you. It’s commonplace in my tribe to send the kin on a quest to find the perfect resting place for the deceased. So they may sleep soundly.”
“I shouldn’t have asked, sorry,” Twilight apologized. “Sorry for your loss.”
Zecora and Manaja shared a faint look and glanced at the alicorn.
“It’s been five years now,” Manaja explained. “I think this travel has now more to do with me finding a resting place that whom I carry.”
Manaja gave one short chuckle while everypony kept silent.
“Five years?” Twilight finally broke the ice. “You must have seen the world.”
“Not even a glimpse,” Manaja noted. “It’s so vast I’m really wondering if this piece of earth is round or flat.”
“Eh… Mister… May I come with you?”