“I truly don’t understand why you do that.”
Those words, while containing a hint of sympathy, were far more cutting than Rarity would’ve liked, lying across a café’s booth and covered in make-up smears due to her heavy and dramatic sobbing. The mare looked up as best she could through her blurry eyes at the acquaintance she had invited for tea before she got the results about her dress losing in a fashion show.
Octavia Melody sat on the other side of the table, ignoring the concerned/irritated stares she and Rarity were getting from the other ponies in the café, and looked down at the frankly pathetic image of a mare across from her. “This whole routine of eating gallons of ice-cream,” She gestured with her head to the half-dozen empty glasses of ice-cream floats on the table, “Whilst crying yourself to sleep over something as mundane as getting fifth place.”
“B-but.!” Rarity cried, pushing herself up a bit higher and trying to lean on the table, “I-it’s fifth! N-not even fourth, and j-just missing the podium; fifth!” She gulped down some of her tears and leaned over the table more, inadvertently knocking over a couple of the glasses, and continued, “I-I put in days of s-sleepless work and nearly h-half a decade of experience to get f-fifth!”
“All of the other competitors have also put it a lot of work and multiple years of experience into their dresses, and most of them got a place lower than fifth,” Octavia stated plainly, “And yet here you are, crying about it like a little filly.” She picked up the half-empty glass of wine on her side of the table and took a sip of it, calmly placing it back down before adding, “I’ve seen your younger sister be far more mature in these matters, and for getting treated truly unfairly.”
A loud and disgusting sniff escaped Rarity as she laid her head against the table, her body still somewhat laying on the seat while her makeup began to drip down from her face onto the table. “I-I thought you were s-supposed to be my f-friend! W-why are you being so r-rude?!”
Octavia rolled her eyes and sighed beleagueredly, and responded deadpan, “I am your acquaintance, Miss Belle, and I feel like treating you like an adult would be far better idea than letting you fall even deeper into this pathetic façade.”
“W-what are you--”
“Do not speak as if you don’t know what I mean, Miss Belle,” She cut the sobbing mare off, and looking her square in the face, elaborated, “You spend every waking moment putting on a front of being a ‘prim and proper’ mare with the dramatic side of pathetic sobbing and binge-eating that one may find in a soap opera, with nothing beyond your generosity to add to it.
“You are not a pony, Miss Belle; you are merely a two-dimensional imitation of one with no substance or personality other than what others make of you.”
Rarity went dead silent and slack-jawed at sledgehammer of a statement, and with her mind in such a tizzy for several seconds, she couldn’t help but break out in refusal, “N-no I’m not! I’m a lot more than that..!” Pushing her body into a more proper sitting position, though still leaning heavily over the table, she forcefully explained, “I-I’ll have you know I’ve helped Fluttershy with cleaning her animals and--and am publicly friends with Rainbow Dash of all ponies!”
“Those are mere edge-cases, Miss Belle, and they still very well fit the interpretation others have of you,” Octavia refuted casually, and turned up her head in thought for a moment as she lifted her drink to take another sip. “Let me ask you something; is there something you truly like--a secret passion or hobby of sorts--that you’ve never truly indulged in due to how you fear others would see you?”
While Rarity didn’t respond with any form of agreement, the immediate and lasting shock in her eyes made it clear the other mare was right on the money, making her adopt a small smirk.
“You know...” She mused, looking around the relatively busy room around her, all the ponies averting their gaze as her own approached them, “I’ve noticed how this high-class life has stripped the identity of many ponies, with any true individuality going by the wayside as their images become more and more important to them. They all now fit into a specific portrait that has been painted for them by others, but I can tell they have lives and passions beyond that. You, however...”
Her gaze moving back to the mess of a mare across from her, Octavia continued, “You have stripped your true identity from yourself, and have utterly ripped away anything that may possibly detract from it, even in the privacy and comfort of your own home. The weight on your hips speak to those habits,” She added at the end with a trace of humour.
“H-hey!” Rarity sputtered and blushed at the accusation, but couldn’t say anything further before the other pony resumed.
“I can imagine you have a voice in your head, and whenever something comes up that pertains to your secret passions, that voice immediately squashes them, and,” She paused, letting her knowing gaze linger for a second, “You let it.” Picking up her glass once more, and taking more time to polish it off, then set it back down and sigh as her eyes fell again on her acquaintance, and she said with some intensity, “I’ll give you some advice here, Miss Belle; the next time you hear that voice, buck it in the face and do what you actually want to.”
Rarity practically reeled back at the words, with their crassness and passion, letting Octavia again beat her to the punch and continue, “Perhaps you’d like to try your hoof at wrestling or spellcraft; maybe there’s a mare or non-pony that’s caught your eye and you’d like to court them; perchance you’d even like to visit a concert, a strip club, or, Tartatus, even a brothel--I don’t care, just actually bloody do it.
“Now,” She spoke as she shimmied out of her seat at the booth and stood up, still looking at other pony, “I have to get going to an orchestra rehearsal. Have a nice day, Miss Belle,” She said behind her as she turned and walked to the building’s exit, and pause before it for a moment, finishing with, “And I mean it.” Opening the door and heading outside, she left the once-sobbing mare in gaping awe, and hopefully with a new desire to find something to free herself from her self-imposed torment.