Blue aura cradles the steaming kettle as I levitate it to the tray, completing the arrangement of two cups, six petit tarts (two caramel, two lemon meringue, two raspberry), and creamer — a porcelain likeness of the heifer, Bessie. When I saw them for sale at her market stall, I thought it a delightfully entrepreneurial idea: if anypony asked who I bought my dairy from, I would have visual aid close at hoof. The fact that nopony has asked yet has done little to dampen my enthusiasm for the piece.
"So, darling," I call from the kitchen, trotting to the parlor with the tea service bobbing in my wake, "whatever is the matter?"
"It's... hard to say." My guest comes into view as I round the corner. Her eyes still wander the room, not quite taking in any of my work, and her mane is still a frizzled mess. I hold my concern from showing too plainly on my face. She's a tad wild, in these moods: too little interest, and she fades away; too much, and she gallops instead, assuring you that it wasn't that important, honestly. Still, my concern is there, brought on by a break in routine.
Tea is practically a soporific for Twilight Sparkle, as much for the ritual as the substance itself. Typically, when she's stressed about something, the sound of the kettle whistling puts her mane back in order better than any conditioner. I learned quickly to ask her what was wrong before I set the service on the table — any later, and she'd forget most troubles entirely, laughing off my concerned inquiry like she hadn't been champing her teeth down to nubs not five minutes ago.
I set the service on the table. Twilight takes her cup and a small smile makes an appearance, but it's far from the dopey, unguarded grin good tea can draw from her. And this is good tea, of course. I keep it in the cupboard just for her, Fluttershy, and my very favorite clients, and they all deserve the best.
"Hard to say, or hard to phrase?" I ask. Applejack has compared Twilight to a loaded wagon — I admonished her immediately for the unflattering comparison, of course! But it's popped up in my head several times since; she's stuck fast now, but just a little push and we'll be rolling. I shoo Applejack's twang from my mental voice.
Twilight puts down her teacup. "To say. It's about..." Feathery suggestions of purple wander across the tarts, then coalesce on caramel. I hold my tongue, instead taking a dainty bite of my raspberry tart. A sweet start, then cleanse the palate with the lemon, and end with the rich caramel. My attention veers back to my guest as she tries again. "It's about romance."
My teacup clatters against its saucer, a last-second burst of aura saving it from shattering. "Really?!" I ask, not squealing, despite what Twilight's little jump might indicate. Honestly, for a mare who helped rout a changeling assault on Equestria to flinch at a perfectly polite inquiry from her friend... I lean forward with an inviting smile that is not giddy in the slightest.
She looks down, her bangs hiding her eyes. "... Yes." My, my, my! She doesn't continue, instead focused on her tart. I let the admission hang for a moment, savoring it. Usually, when Twilight comes to me, it's over something trivial, like a book recatalog that didn't work out, or feeling unfit for her role as Bearer. Not that any of those things are not worth my time — of course, any opportunity to provide my friend with comfort, to dispel her delusions of disparity with her peers is a privilege — they are simply not challenging. This, however...
I realize I've been lost in thought too long, but apparently Twilight enjoyed the tart too much to care. So much so that she snatches the second caramel tart — yes, snatches! For goodness's sake, Twilight, there are two of every flavor! Put it together! Deep breath. She is a dear friend, and a guest, and clearly distraught, and if she desires to tread all over the husk of etiquette then she is free to. There's much to teach, after all, and proper form is certainly on the list. "Well, of course you would come to me!" I say instead, lifting the lemon meringue. Perhaps just two tarts for myself, then.
"... I would?" She asks, looking up and meeting my eyes with glimmers of hope in her own. "You know?.."
"Darling, I don't mean to sound conceited, but I've known you crest to croup practically since you first set down in Ponyville." I allow myself to be drawn into memory, seeing the terse mare that hopped off the chariot and landed roughly on my dreams of befriending a Canterlot socialite. In the moons since, of course, I'd found something much better in her than a gossip buddy: a passionate, intelligent pony, still with many of the hallmarks of Canterlot that Ponyville mares lack. "Where many of the ponies here, glory cradle them, are as quick to gallop headlong into a situation as they are to stampede away, you are a mare of observation."
I take another sip of tea and finish the tart, expecting Twilight to agree. Instead, she only looks confused, so I continue. "What I mean, dear, is that of course you would never do something as brash as trot up to the object of your affections and confess! Especially with this field being one so unexplored for you. Unless you had some dalliance at Celestia's school you've kept from me?" I lean closer, suddenly intent on the idea that there could be a piece of gossip I hadn't yet dredged from my sheltered friend's depths.
"What? Ah, no... Nothing like that." Twilight fidgets, levitating a raspberry tart to her and taking a bite. "You know I never..." She pauses, then swallows, politely electing to not spray further crumbs on my tablecloth. "Had friends." The idea still plucks my heartstrings, a familiar melody in minor key. And, as familiar, I muffle the sound with the knowledge that she counts all of us as friends now, and we've grown almost close enough to make up for lost time.
"Yes, and to venture into romance without a solid grounding in the platonic would be foolhardy..." I murmur. "But now! You're more than prepared! Oh, how exciting!" I clap my forehooves together, bursting with glee at the prospect.
She perks up as well, that Twilight Sparkle sparkle shining in her eyes, a sure sign of her surety. "Yes! I think I am, anyway..." She takes a deep breath, placing her cup down, and finally looks me in the eyes, untold determination there. "Rarity... Would you..."
"Of course!" I squeal, jumping out of my seat and bouncing in place. I take a moment to compose myself, then trot around the table to stand at Twilight's side. "Oh, Twilight, of course I'll teach you about romance!" I tap my hooves in an indulgent little jig. "I may not be a Princess, but there's no pony in Ponvyille so versed in the subject as I am!"
Twilight continues to stare forward at where I'd been. She looks... Ah, I recognize that look. She's held a stack of cue cards in her mind's eye for hours, and now, realizing she doesn't need them, she's tossing it. Well, as I said, I'm no Princess, so while I'm sure she had some elaborate speech ready to convince me to aid her, there's no need! Let it never be said that Rarity would not help a friend.
"Yes, of course," she says, clearing her throat. She turns to look at me, then, and there's a sad look in her eyes. "I'd never be so stupid as to just... trot up to the mare I like and confess." I suppress the urge to squeak at this new hint, instead tending to my pity. Poor thing, of course she's ashamed. As she's seen her past peers make friends, she must have also seen them confess to each other, baring their feelings... And felt herself inadequate for being unable to do the same.
"Oh, Twilight, you know I can't stand to see you looking so downtrodden." I float the half-eaten raspberry tart to her muzzle and gently prod at her lips with it. She jerks back, then hesitantly opens her mouth to take a bite, chews, relaxes a little. Her aura replaces mine, and I flash a smile. "Actually, speaking of Princesses... Why didn't you ask Princess Cadence for help? I may be an expert, but she's love's very embodiment, and your sister-in-law."
Twilight pokes at the cushion she's sitting on, no doubt embarrassed at how many Princesses she knows personally. "I did send her a letter, in fact. She told me to..." She closes her eyes, as if reading the words of the letter that are doubtlessly burned into the back of her eyelids. "Trust my heart, and all else will follow." The last bite of tart wavers in her aura.
I roll my eyes. "Goodness, she has had such a storybook romance, hasn't she? Right down to blasting away the villain with the power of love."
"Rarity," Twilight says, flatly. "You and I blast villains away with the power of friendship practically once a moon."
I tut at her. "You and I, Twilight, use the power of friendship as a catalyst to wield ancient artifacts of power which do the blasting for us. Completely different." Little Miss Magic blows her bangs out of her eyes with an irritated huff, and I take it as my cue to continue. "Regardless, Princess Cadence's advice is a little... idyllic. It's no wonder you had trouble following through! We can't all be as blessed as her, after all."
Twilight's ears droop and she turns away from me just as I realize my mistake, my gut lurching as if a trapdoor had opened below me. "Oh, Twilight!" I take her chin in my hoof and draw her back to look at me, heart cracking at the sight of glistening moisture barely constrained in her eyes. "Twilight, I was not talking about beauty. You are a stunning, gorgeous pony, and any mare would be lucky to have you. I simply mean that romance is rarely as straight a path as Princess Cadence and your brother may make it seem."
She pauses, then gives me a wobbly smile. I return it, brushing a tear out of her eye. "Most ponies also don't have their wedding crashed by a changeling Queen," she says. Ever the debater, this one.
But I've already reached my limit on eye rolls this conversation. "Yes, well, I believe that simply comes with the territory of royalty. Luckily, you and I have no such problems, but please, subject me to your ladybug dance should you ever doubt it." I think on it for a moment. "I won't return the gesture, of course, but you'll know from the mortified look that I haven't been replaced."
Twilight giggles at me, and smiles, and my heart... does something. But right now, I am dwelling on matters of my student's heart, not my own, so I ignore it. Instead, I return her smile with interest. The Bank of Rarity has very competitive rates, so she winces a little at the intensity of it. "Thanks, Rarity. I never thought I'd hear you criticizing the royal life, though."
"Well! Anything to dull the shine, I say. We ordinary little ponies have our safety, at least. Oh hush," I admonish, Twilight's raised eyebrow practically audible. "Speaking of our ordinary lives... Where shall we start with your tutelage?" I wonder aloud, pacing the room. Perhaps it's gauche to prepare a syllabus in front of one's student, but Twilight's not a filly trailing after a Princess anymore... most of the time.
"Um..." She shuffles a little in her chair, eyes sliding away from mine. "... I don't suppose there are textbooks?"
I grin.
The whirr of the sewing machine fills the room as I work, but it does nothing to deter Twilight's diatribe. She's lying on the couch, and in her hooves is my fifth-favorite romance novel, pages riffled by her aura. It is not my fourth-, third-, or second-favorite romance novel, and it is certainly not Sing Me Awake, by Rosy Serif. This is because I know Twilight Sparkle, and I know myself, and I know that she will not hesitate to dismantle any text I give her. As she is attempting now.
"—and then, after all that, Dusky takes the job in Manehattan! Why would she do that, when she's so clearly pining after Salt Spray?!" I hear her shift, apparently unable to get comfortable on the chaise lounge.
I finish the stitch and lift my hindhoof off the pedal. "Twilight, dear, have you actually finished the textbook you are so ruthlessly criticizing?" I ask, not looking up from my work.
A grumble, then the soft thud of the book closing. "Well, no, but, how could they possibly—"
"Daaaaarliiiing," I say, drawing it out as long as it takes for her protests to die, "finish your assignment, would you? We shall talk about it as long as you like then."
"That's not how textbooks," she says, speaking my term of choice for the novel with a loathing drawl, "are supposed to work. They should establish a thesis and build on it, explaining the evidence at each turn clearly! This," she exclaims, hooves thumping against the cushions, "strives only to obscure the point! It's needlessly labyrinthine!"
I turn and give her a stern look. "Well, Twilight, you are free to trot off and ask one of your professors about the proper course load for romance. Perhaps the Princess will have recommendations! But until then, you are in my lecture hall."
She slumps back on the couch, carelessly letting the book drop to the floor. "It can't possibly be this complicated, Rarity. Why can't I just go up to the mare I like and kiss her?"
I give her the particularly generous smile she'll learn to see as a threat, heaping it with an extra helping of Princessly patience. "Yes, darling, why exactly can't you?" Sometimes, I'm finding, a student is her own best teacher.
She blushes immediately and looks away, squirming. "It's not that simple, alright?" she whines, unable to meet my eyes for her own embarrassment. Ah, how the emotions of Twilight Sparkle rear against the ill-fitting harness of logic.
"Mm," I agree, turning back to my work. "One may even say it's quite complex. Enough to drive a fair half of Equestria's artists to pen verse and the like of its nuances. Tell me, have you read any poems lately on the ins and outs of thaumic leverage?" I ask, randomly stringing two magicky sounding words together.
To the discredit of academia and my own pleasure, Twilight is silent. Apparently my union of jargon hit the mark, as did my broader point. I turn back to her and float the novel back to her acquiescent hooves. She gives a pathetic grumble before returning to it with far too much speed for reluctance. Fortunately, I know her well enough to see that the pace with which her eyes gallop across the pages shows not an impatience with the subject matter but rather a burning curiosity.
I allow myself a sly little smirk and return to my work. As I suspected, her frustration with the novel is emotional, not academic. She is, as ever, completely entangled in the opportunity to learn. Perhaps I am not a model teacher, but Twilight is a model student, and she more than makes up for the gap in skill.
Outside, beyond the window pane, the town is winding down for the evening with ponies returning from work or dinner dates. Living at your workplace is not too uncommon a thing in Ponyville, where practically every shop has a bedroom stacked atop it, but even some of those ponies seize the opportunity to go for a stroll before returning home. Anything to separate their day of work from their evening of relaxation.
Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't be better for me to live somewhere other than the Carousel Boutique. Mostly I wonder this when an overenthusiastic client knocks on a weekend, and I have to pretend I'm not there, rather than put my face on just to explain to them that the shop is closed. I typically manage to resist the urge to gesture at the bold-text CLOSED sign on the door, so it can't be too bad.
And where would I be in my career, had my materials and my tools not been close at hoof every one of the far more numerous times I'd leapt out of bed in the dead of night, struck by an idea that would vanish if I did not capture it in moments? Indeed, the only improvement that making my work-life separation physical would bring would be a little more exercise, and what would that do for my reputation? Designers are allowed to be a little eccentric, but perhaps not 'cantering across town at midnight with a crazed expression' eccentric.
As the sunset stretches like a cat across the horizon, I take inspiration from nature and stand from my workbench, flicking the previously unfelt tension out of my tail. I reach with my forehooves, sliding my chest down to the carpet and arching my back with a satisfying pop. Then, I match the motion with its inverse, forelegs propping me up as my hinds stretch out, tail twitching with satisfaction as I work the last kinks out of my back. Satisfied, I turn to trot to the kitchen and all that tension returns at once.
"Twilight!" I yelp, perched perfectly on my workstool. She's staring at me owlishly, book forgotten in her hooves, not blinking. A blush colors her muzzle, mortification at my uncouth display plain on her face.
"Twilight," I say, stepping down from the stool. "I, ah, apologize. That was... unladylike of me." I cast my gaze down, demure, before realizing the greater transgression. "Oh, but not nearly so much as completely forgetting you were here! I'm sorry, dear, you know how one can get lost in her work," I say, gesturing back at my machine.
Her head whips around the room as if she too has only just remembered she is here. "I mean, I thought—" She casts her gaze downward, then riffles through the pages she's read. "Sorry, yes, I got lost." She grins, sheepish. "You know me and books."
"All too well! Goodness, I should have let you go an hour ago. Do forgive me."
"Anything," she responds reflexively, then snaps her mouth shut.
"Darling," I say, laughing, "just because I'm your teacher for now doesn't mean you must treat me like Princess Celestia."
Immediately, a scarlet blush covers her face, which she makes a poor attempt to hide behind her book. What an interesting reaction to a mention of the Princess! It wouldn't do to point that reaction out this soon, so I push on instead. "Speaking of, however, why don't you take your homework home? I'm sure you'll finish it by tomorrow evening, and we can discuss it over your first proper lesson."
Her ears twitch at that, swiveling to focus on me. "First lesson?"
"Surely you didn't hope to learn all there was to know about romance from books!" She did, I'm sure. "That's hardly the point of me being your teacher, as bountiful a resource as I may be for those particular texts," I say, shaking my head. "No, what you need is practice! A dry run, if you will. A chance to perform the actual substance of romance, with none of the awkwardness or consequences... Hence why you came to me, a dear friend!" I strike a little pose as punctuation. Twilight Sparkle is not the only mare who can deduce, after all.
She looks utterly stricken, and I'm seized by sympathy. Trotting over, I float the book away from her and lay it on the bedside table. I reach out with a hoof, but she shrinks back, wide eyes fixed on the wall behind me. "Twilight..." Her chest is rising and falling in a panicked cadence. "Twilight." Her eyes focus on me, finally, and her pupils dilate a little, no longer quite the animal pinpricks they'd been reduced to. "You trust me, don't you?"
She attempts to swallow, throat dry, then nods. Closing her eyes, she takes deep breaths, and when she opens them again she is once again in the room with me.
"We don't have to do this if you don't want to, but know I'd be delighted to help. I truly mean it when I say that it will not be awkward. But if it gets to be too much for you, we can stop at any time. However, I genuinely believe a little practice will do wonders for your confidence."
"You wouldn't..." she mumbles, "... be embarrassed to be seen with me?"
I snort, so caught off guard am I. "Glory, Twilight, even when I scarcely knew the mare you were, I still couldn't resist dragging you hinds-first to a personal fitting. Would I be embarrassed to be seen with the savior of Equestria, the Princess's personal student, and an accomplished, intelligent, attractive mare in her own right? I'd slap you for questioning the fact if we weren't friends."
She's looking at me with a frozen sort of awe, like she can't even believe I'd feel any one of those things, let alone the whole assemblage together. What exactly will it take to convince this mare that she's dear to me, I wonder? And how could, again, the personal student of the Princess of Equestria have such biting self-worth issues? A question for another day.
I clear my throat, and when that doesn't stir her from her reverie I prod her with a hoof, which raises her from the couch with such alacrity I'm nearly bowled over. "Well! Rarity!" she chirps, voice high and breaking. "Well Rarity," she tries again, swinging the other way into a near-husky tone. She coughs. "Well. Rarity," she manages in an even voice. "Thank you very much for hosting me and lending me this textbook and for your offer of romance lessons which I accept and your patience and generosity and being my friend," she finishes, a staccato vomit of syllables utterly devoid of diction.
Apparently done, she trots to the door. Secretly, I'm relieved she isn't staying for dinner, not for lack of appreciation of her company, but because my plans aren't exactly lavish. Peanut butter toast is not proper fare for a lady. "Well," I say, following her into the foyer, "I'll look forward to discussing the finer points of Dusk and Salt's relationship over dinner tomorrow!"
She freezes in the doorway, apparently having not thought of what exactly 'practical application' might mean. Instead of saying 'sure Rarity that sounds good', she bolts. In her haste, she forgets to unlatch the bottom gate and pitches over it, the top half of the door swinging free, the mistake punctuated with a crash from outside. I gasp and rush over, sticking my muzzle out the door, but before I can call out she's pushed herself up. We stand there a moment, muzzles near-touching, her mortification as plain on her face as my amusement likely is on mine. Goodness, she is a silly pony, isn't she?
"I'mokay," she reassures me with a squeak, then promptly whirls around, pauses, whirls back, and looks over my shoulder to levitate her homework from the table.
She catches my gaze again. I know these lessons are on a sensitive matter, but is she really so embarrassed? To check, I flutter my eyelashes at her, and say, "you'll be ready for our date at six, won't you?"
Hm. Judging by that look on her face, she's very embarrassed indeed. Well, we'll fix that right up.
She nods like her head's on a spring, then turns to leave, apparently unable to muster a response. Similarly unable to resist taking advantage of her adorable naivete while she still has it, I tack an addendum on without thinking, just barely fast enough to catch her at a discreet volume. "You'll be graded, of course! I only give kissing lessons to gentlemares, after all."
She locks up, like a windup toy unwound, knees straight, legs wobbling. Then, as if someone had wound the key, she's off again, marching mechanically, and I follow her path fondly until she's out of sight. These must be the joys of teaching I was told of!