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// Dec. 19-May. 20 - When The End Came To Town - 6 
// Story: RoMS' Extravaganza 
// by RoMS 
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“There is a fine line between laughing and crying, Darling.” 

Rarity took a short whiff of her cigarette, snuffed it in the ashtray on her divan’s legrest, and flicked the butt away. Her magic trailed the discarded piece for the first rebound. The Carousel Boutique’s darkness swallowed the vice and its evidence then.

Rarity growled and laid her head in her hoof, her pinprick eyes aimed at the poor party pony who was hanging her head low. 

“Who am I kidding?” Rarity lamented. “You have to understand that you can’t keep a pendulum swinging forever, Pinkie. Keeping a hoof on its thread and pushing it? To keep that bead dancing?” She rubbed her face. “Just a joke. You’ll grow tired, you know, and then... What?”

“Everypony needs to be cheered up these days, Rarity, and it also means you,” Pinkie said, stepping towards the sofa. Rarity scoffed and turned away. “Everypony’s got to laugh, Rarity, to be happy… Dontcha think?” 

Pinkie tugged at Rarity’s leg buried deep in a cover of emptied ice cream tubs. Rarity wiggled away and rolled over to face her friend. 

Though curtains obscured most of Carousel Boutique’s windows, a single sunray managed to slit the scene, hitting Rarity straight in the snout. She held her hoof high to protect herself. If she could hide from the light, she sure couldn't from any peering eyes. She wore somber shades of grey, purple and blue, matted and stained.

Rarity would never let melted ice cream stain her silk gown — not in her right state of mind. And yet, her overall was covered in blotches, cream and brown alike. It didn’t feel right at all. 

“Ponies need laughter and fun, now a lot more than before,” Pinkie protested again, kneeling by the sofa to dig at her friend out of the caloric graveyard. “And you’re a pony, unless — unless you’re Discord or some changeling… Are you Chryssy? I mean, if you are–”

“Stop. Stop. Please,” Rarity whined. “I’m in no mood.”

Pinkie tried again and Rarity yelped. The seamstress snatched her foreleg away and rolled over, tucking herself in her garbage.

“Rarity...? Please,” Pinkie begged. “My laugh, my jokes. I’m losing it. Ponyville. With all that’s going around here, it’s too much. With Twilight and Starlight and all the others gone, I need my friends to laugh… with me. Because if– if I can’t even help my friends, who’s going to help me?”

Defeat painted Pinkie’s face pale when Rarity rolled back to her — In the faint light, the mare’s eyes gleamed with annoyance. Pinkie crooked away the moment Rarity let out a long-winded sigh. It carried more thorns and sharpened edges than a jagged knife.

“You’ll get hurt, Pinkie,” Rarity muttered. “You can’t bear the world on your shoulders. And I am not asking you to. What kind of friend would I be?”

“I may get hurt,” Pinkie replied, “but I gotta t–”

“Leave me alone, please.”

“–try because otherwise ponies might get hurt even worse. That’s why I’m here. Everypony needs some buffer against the bad and the meany, right? That means you too.”

“How long has this one been here?” Rarity noted, pointed past Pinkie, at me.

My ears hanging low, I cowered away in a darker shade of the room.

“What?” Pinkie said turning back in surprise. “Oh, hello, Cheerilee.”

“Hum, hello,” I said with a difficult smile, and waved at the party pony and her quite depressed friend. Rarity waved back and threw herself over, as if to wrap her body back in some ice-creamy bedsheets. “I was just… I was here to say your parents have arrived, Rarity. They’re waiting for you.”

“All of this, the Wall, the lost, the found, the… broken,” Rarity growled, ignoring my words. “How long has it been going on?”

I threw a look at Pinkie who shook her head back at  me. I contemplated the situation, focused on the divan, and stepped forwards. I wasn't going to let that mare hurt, and hurt many ponies by proxy. “How long have you been mulling here?” I asked.

“How long since the —” Rarity motioned her hoof and contorted over to stare at me “— the commotion happened?”

“Three weeks,” I replied hesitantly, stepping once more and smiling hard at Pinkie. Tears rained down her cheeks.

“So… six months sincd this whole mess started, I see,” Rarity mumbled to herself, before exclaiming, “Ah, wintertime, how fortunate, the shortest days for the coldest nights, and the most dreadful times.” She brushed her mane over her face, hiding from Pinkie who was sobbing by my side. Meanwhile, her hoof fished for a potential surviving ice cream sludge. "How fitting for a mood."

“Come on, Rarity, today is an important day,” Pinkie pleaded between two hiccups. “You gotta come.”

“Have you ever considered some ponies like to cry, Pinkie?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so,” Pinkie answered. “Why would anypony like to cry? It’s sad and, and, and… grouchy ponies end up alone. Nopony wants to be alone, right? It hurts, and if you hurt you get sadder, and you push ponies away, and you get aloner, and…” Pinkie’s muzzle scrunched up. “So, uhm, n– no?”

“I want to be alone right now.” Rarity’s click of her tongue rang loud, and it cut deep, like taking a cleaver on a chocolate cake. If Pinkie was the cake. The poor mare faltered and her knee hit the tiled floor.

“Are you angry, Rarity?” Pinkie asked. “Angry at me?”

A sigh is often more painful than silence. Rarity offered the former.

“Ahem!” I coughed in my hoof, calling for their attention.

“What!?” Rarity called.

“I’m sorry,” Pinkie whispered, eyes locked on her hooves.

I shook my head, steeled my jaw, and exhaled. “Many ponies are expecting you, Rarity. And to be honest, you're being a terrible friend.”

“I don’t want to go.”

“Come on, Rarity,” Pinkie pleaded next to me. “Please.”

“Pinkie,” I said, and her ears perked up. She swallowed and hunched over, hiding the tears matting her pale, pinkish face. “Could you… give me a moment with Rarity? Alone.”

Her mouth opened, but no words came forward. Her tears fell off her chin and, catching the faint light, twinkled as their way down. Each ended drumming against the tiles. I smiled as hard as I could and patted her shoulder. After a time, she sat on her withers and held onto her slick mane.

She inhaled and nodded. “I hope you’re better at cheering her than I am."

With that, she stood up and turned around. Her first hoofstep hit the parquet like an anvil, and I caught her in a surprise hug. She sniffed and reached out to my neck. 

“It’s okay, Pinkie,” I said. “Sometimes, things don’t work out. Rarity is mean because she's sad.”

"No, I'm not."

Pinkie didn’t reply, nodding against my fur instead. I laid my head against her mane and let her drink in the embrace. Like foals, touch-starved ponies needed their time.

Soon enough, Pinkie slipped out from me and paced herself to the exit. Rarity groaned as the evening's sunlight rushed in for the moment Pinkie held the door open. Her hoof accompanied it on its way to a close. The hinges never squinted. 

Rarity and I simmered in silence. The room was thick with smoke and the smell of poor hygiene, mixed with that of chocolate chips and vanilla ice cream. I winced as I caught a better view of the poor mare from my close vantage point. I put a hoof on the sofa, feeling its mushiness, and sought the occupant’s shoulder to give a hearty.

“I’m not going,” Rarity mumbled before I could reach her.

“You should.”

“Let me have one last evening alone in my boutique, my home, before it gets destroyed like half the town already,” Rarity asked, her voice a low whisper. Her hooves scraped against her caked up mane. “Please, leave me alone.”

“Rarity–” I said, my hoof an inch from her. "You need to come."

“I am. Not. Going!”

Her ashtray fell off the legrest and shattered into a hundred bits against the cold, hard floor. Each shard a diamond that caught the light through the Boutique’s single half-drawn curtain.

I exhaled the breath I hadn't realized I was holding, caught by surprise by her outburst. Though hesitant, I sat by the legrest. Rarity was crying as I reached out and rested my hoof against the musty fabric of the sofa by her shoulder. Her hoof soon crept up to meet mine.

"I am sorry."

“It’s not about you, you know,” I replied. “It’s about her.”

“I smell.” Rarity sobbed, “don’t I?”

I nodded slowly. “Like a skunk.”

She chuckled and turned her head at me. Her lips creased with a sadness she could hardly contain. She gulped, loud and clear. “Like a diamond dog?”

“Like a yak in a tropical forest.”

“Now you’re selling it too much, Dear,” she mumbled.

“You should dress,” I said, retracting my hoof from hers. "Shower first, though."

“For what occasion?”

I recoiled... " F– For the funeral of course,” I sputtered. “Don’t you remember?"

"There is no pony to bury, Cheerilee."

"Your parents are waiting. Rarity, I–" 

"She is not there!" she screamed. Stumbling out of the sofa, she hit the floor face first and lunged at me. Her hooves scraped against my legs and her vanilla-gooped muzzle pressed  against my chest. 

I stood still, waiting for a blow that never came. Her face was melting through emotions fast. Anger, pain, fear, anger again, her traits twisted every time she fought back the tears that rolled down her cheeks.

"She is not THERE! Got it?” she hissed, a hoof pressed against my chest. She swallowed a knot, hiccuped, and shook her head. “No, you won’t. You didn't act when you could have, why would you now?" 

She slumped and I faltered under her weight. I gasped as she brought me to my knees and forced her way into my legs.

"I won't," she sobbed in the crook of my neck, "I won't go to her funeral."

"Rarity–" I whispered, patting her dirty mane.

"You could have stopped it, you know," she spat through two gurgles. We exchanged stares and she retreated, leaving me on the ground while she stood high and towering with a blue fire raging in her eyes. "That spawn of Filthy Rich. That little, sniveling devil you've put up with at your school — in your own class! You could have stopped her. And you didn’t."

I lay on the boutique’s cold, tiled floor, crooked over and cowering from her piercing eyes. They glimmered in the icy aura of her horn. Rarity rarely looked down at ponies, but when she did… She had a certain talent to make you feel worthless. 

I raised my head and she closed her eyes. Her chest rose and she held her breath. Only after a few seconds did air leave her lungs in a staccato. As many bursts of arrow that pinned me at her hoof.  I could only wait for the unleashing of the rightful fury pulling her at the seams.

A twinkle and a spark. Her horn flashed and a whipping crack ripped my ears. Her sofa flew past me and crashed against the wall and down, crushing a desk and the rolls of fine, black fabrics stacked over it. Cushions and ice cream tubs rained and took down a mannequin. It snapped in half, and so did the mourning gown it wore.

As silence regained its place in the boutique, a spool of thread unspooled and rolled to my hoof. Cold sweat cascaded down my spine.

"You could have stopped that brat and her little bet," Rarity seethed. “Where were you during recess?”

Her tears clawed her cheeks with black mascara. Like trenches through pristine lands. Loud and heavy heaves wracked her, like war drums, a rhythmic flow of curses. First at me I was sure, then at a world I knew she felt had wronged her. 

"You didn't do anything then, you're doing nothing now.” Her withers hit the floor in a pathetic thump and she rolled into a ball. "That bully killed my sister and you..."

She threw her head back to glance at me over her leg. Her curled lips revealed grinding teeth and her eyes, hesitation. I was crying too. 

"Stupid, stupid, stupid," she muttered. Her hoof struck the nearest tile, leaving a crack in the polished white ceramic. Her pastern now bleeding, she stared at the gash for a time before her eyes drifted back to me, boring into mine with burning fire. "You know the worst, Cheerilee. The most enraging, blood boiling part? It wasn't that– that kid... It was her father.” The rancid air of the boutique rumbled through her nostrils. “He never came to me, he never apologized. He never considered me — I, an arriviste in more than the nobles’ eyes."

She kicked an abandoned tube of ice cream away, its left-over content spurting in an arc against the flooring. The plastic package hit a sewing machine and splat to the floor where it rested, rocking from side to side.

"He never communicated. The coward. His lawyers did." Her lips trembled, but not from sadness. Only rage, boiling, an earthquake of emotion that stood her coat on end. "They never came to my door either, their letters came instead."

"I am sorry," I said, finally breaking my mutism. "I–"

"He was 'ready to discuss compensation'." On her back, she air-quoted the words, and a few specks of blood trickled from her hoof  to her cheek. She repeated, "ready to discuss compensation. As if I was here to negotiate my sister's weight in golden bits." 

She stood up and walked to her snapped mannequin, and pulled the gown from it. She wiped her face with it, both mascara and ice-cream. She threw the fabric on the overturned sofa and lingered over the mannequins parts. 

They hurled against the ceiling, the floor, the ceiling again, the brute force of Rarity’s bright blue magic rippling outwards in blueish waves. Nuts, bolts, stuffing clattering, clanking, ripping. A mare’s rained.

After some time, I found the courage to sit up. Rarity was still studying the fruit of her work and only the gentle rocking of her shoulder let me know she was there in the shadow of her boutique. The sun was nearly set outside.

A thomp echoed the weight of her pain, the burden of her grief.

"I am a terrible pony," she whispered.

"No, you're not,” I said, managing to stand up, if not step forwards to her. “It's okay to be angry–"

“Am I scary?” In the light of her horn, a forced smile spread her lips apart. I stepped back, unable to muster a word. Her eyes broke away from mine and rested on her hurt leg, and a sob escaped her. "I am absolutely, thoroughly mad, dear, and– and–"

"Rarity..."

As I prodded around, I found a discarded lantern and made it work. A warm orange light bathed the boutique. I could have opened the curtains, but for the little light that remained outside, I didn’t dare risk peering eyes. Rarity didn’t deserve that.

"I’m such a bad mare, because even though what it would mean, I still wish Sweetie Belle was still her.” She rubbed the snot away from her muzzle and turned to me. “She had to save Scootaloo, right? That poor pegasus had to take that bet, didn’t she?" 

I fought my hesitation and walked to her with the lantern and set it aside. We sat down together, with my hoof on her shoulder. “You can’t change the past, Rarity. What Sweetie Belle did was what friends would do.”

“I know, it’s just…” She hiccuped. "I am selfish. Oh, to hope that, for once, the universe would have been generous to me. I’m pathetic." And cried in her hooves, like I had never seen her do. And though Rarity cried a lot, this time wasn't dramatics that day, but tragedy.

And I had a first-row seat.

"I am awful, rebuking," she blubbered. “A social climber.”

"Rarity!" I called out, slapping both her ears in default of her face. She perked up, eyes wide and unfocused, and she gasped as I forced her into my open legs. "You are not okay, and that's okay — eh, It is... it's alright to cry. You are a great mare, and seeing you like that..." I gestured at the destruction she wrought in her boutique. "It shows you really loved her."

“Love doesn’t matter when it’s too late to give it," she spat once a heavy sigh passed. "She isn't dead… She isn’t dead."

I pinched my lips. Holding up my breath, I swallowed the chestnut shell deep down my throat, and forced myself to smile. "Can you do something for me?" I asked.

Her ears started up and she hummed back to me. "Yeah."

"Take a shower, you stink.” I said, and she laughed. As I held her tight, I wiped her tears and maquillage against my fur. Sneakily. “I didn't take Rarity, the greatest seamstress, for a filthy diamond dog."

“That’s prejudice, you know.”

“You started with the metaphors.”

“Touché,” she snorted and curled into my legs to smell her leg pit, and gagged. "I’m such a degenerate —" I slapped her ears again. "— Ow! What was that for?"

"Stop commiserating,” I ordered, “and go take a shower. I herd kids all day, I don't want to deal with a marebaby in the evening."

"Like you did such a good job at it in the first place." 

I faltered and dropped her out of my legs, her gasp nearly unheard as my chest tightened at the strength of the verbal blow. Eyes closed, I worked on steadying my breath. But I couldn’t hold the tears back.

"I’m sorry. I’m sorry," Rarity muttered, straightening herself on her shaky legs. "I am being so uncouth right now, and hurtful, and mean. Look at me, I’ve made you cry." She scoffed. “What an element of generosity, I am!”

“Just shut up.”

She froze and I swallowed back the stronger words tittering at the tip of my tongue. I sniffled, took a deep breath, and nodded. 

"I wish I could have been more vigilant that day, Rarity. I should have seen Diamond Tiara coming up with a bet about touching the Wall. I should have seen Scootaloo taking it up.” I crossed my legs and dodged her eyes. “There’s not a single day I wish I could go back. I failed her. And I am oh so... so sorry.” I burst into tears and fell apart like a house of cards. Crooked over, defeated, remorseful. “Nopony, especially Sweetie Belle, deserved that."

"She isn’t d–"

I snagged her into a strong hug and motioned at the chaotic state of her shop. "Hush now, just… let’s stop this exercise in self-destruction."

"Are you calling me melodramatic?"

“Kind of.”

“I know I’m a terrib–”

"No, stop,” I said. “Clasp that cute fuzz muzzle of yours shut, young lady.” I pressed her face against my chest as I inhaled deeply and loudly and let it all out in one single stream of air and regrets. “If you don’t get out there for her, at least do it for your parents. Your mom and dad really made the trip to here — you know the train doesn’t run anymore."

Rarity nodded, lips pinched to hold a sob much palpable against my coat.

"I just wish I could firebomb Filthy Rich's house some time," she said and I chortled. She huffed back, and pushed herself off of me, vexation clearly visible on her face. "Come on, laugh at me if you must.”

"No, I won’t," I said, embracing her once again. "I mean, I just doubt you know how to make a mareotov cocktail."

"Why, do you?" As I didn’t answer, she pushed herself away from me again. “No way. Why?”

“I was young okay,” I sputtered.

“Still are, to be frank.”

I rolled my eyes. “Compliments will bring you nowhere.” 

“How are the two girls?” She mumbled. “I’ve not talked to them since.”

“They’re taking it okay.”

“Okay?”

“I don’t think ‘well’ is the proper term for it.”

A long and tenuous silence rushed in between us, spent listening to the low whistle of her runny nose or maybe the few voices outside the boutique’s door. 

Ponies diligently waited for us.