“You’ve changed, Rarity.”
I looked up from my desk, irritation fading only slightly at the sight of my sister standing in the doorway of my workshop. It wasn’t as though I’d told her before not to interrupt me when I was in the middle of my design process! Oh, no, my darling sister would never disregard such simple instructions!
I pasted a smile onto my face, hastily jotting down whatever I could mentally salvage of my current idea on a scrap of drafting paper before swiveling around to face her.
“Whatever do you mean, Sweetie?” I waved a hoof, my magic still humming as objects flit about the room, needles diving beneath fabrics, tugging threads along their trails, creating portions of my latest masterpiece simultaneously. Seamlessly, one could say! “I apologize if I’ve missed a commitment, I’ve been rather busy as of late. The deadline for Mare’s Mirror Magazine’s cover is next week, and Applejack and I have been-”
“No, it’s not that you missed anything. Ugh, it’s just… something. I don’t know how to put it!” My little sister gestured wildly in frustration, narrowly missing swatting a few bobbins out of alignment.
For a second, a nasty part of me wished she’d accidentally smack something sharp and learn to keep out of my workspace, but I willed the thought from my brain as soon as it appeared. I must be graceful and polite.
“If you aren’t quite certain how to put it, I’m afraid I can’t be of assistance!” I tittered and pointedly turned back towards my work. “I do apologize, but I am in the middle of something important, and it really does take quite a lot of focus to do so much at once.” A lie, for that last part at least as I wasn’t straining myself at all, but a believable enough one.
Sweetie Belle huffed behind me, and I could hear her stomping hooffalls approach me. “See, this is what I’m talking about! You didn’t used to be like this!”
“Busy?” I offered halfheartedly, trying to make sense of my previous note, most of the details faded from my memory.
She groaned and prodded my chair with her hoof, spinning me slightly towards her. “No! You were always busy, and it’s always been hard to get you to spend time with me and pay actual attention to me, but you weren’t always so, so fake about it!”
“You want me to be less kind, then? Or less passionate about my work? Running a business here takes quite a lot of energy, I’m afraid!”
That made her pause, and I relished the silence, trying to regain my previous momentum for the brief moments while it lasted. “N-no, I just want you to be my sister. You haven’t been the same since the, uh, the accident a while back. And since you left, it’s only gotten worse. You’ve closed yourself off to everypony but Applejack, like she’s the only one that matters, and-”
“Darling,” I tried, looking over my shoulder at her as the room slowed to a standstill. “If you wanted more time with me, all you had to do was ask! I’m afraid I’m dreadfully busy at the moment, but after next week I should have plenty of time to spend with you! And only you, I promise,” I added with a wink. “I shan't even mention Applejack during our time together unless you’d like me to!”
“That’s not what I-” Sweetie bit her tongue and looked away, expression unreadable to all but me. She was unhappy, sure, but it was with something she couldn’t name, something she had no idea how to bring up, and I wasn’t going to do it for her. “I mean, sure. I’ll talk to you then. Sorry to bother you, sis.” She backed out of my workshop with a muted shuffle, and I gently closed the door behind her before letting out the sigh I’d been holding in.
Slowly, as though puppeted by invisible strings, the workshop stirred back to its previous efficiency. I watched as the pattern came together, smaller sections of fabric weaving into larger ones, fitting like a puzzle enchanted to solve itself. The creation process was as much of a dress’s elegance as the final piece, and it was one that I’d debated showing to the public if I weren’t fairly certain the novelty would eventually wear off in time. I knew my audience, and the final product was all they truly cared about, in the end.
I spun back to my half-forgotten idea and tried to mentally reconstruct where I had been going with it. Shimmering like scales in a sea of what, exactly? Oh, I might as well reuse that part in something else at a later date, it was that far gone. Thank you oh so very much for your untimely interruption, Sweetie Belle, I mentally cursed as I pressed my hooftips together. You’ve completely ruined my creative flow for the day.
The finished dress floated onto a mannequin behind me and I rose to my hooves to study it. It looked as though it’d been made of the pages of a journal, with the fluttering edges stopping just short of the floor for an average pony. The tips of each “page” looked as though they’d been burnt, though that had been accomplished by careful application of dye on the soft fabric of the pages themselves, with the script itself embroidered in a fashion that would take the average pony countless hours of continuous effort, even with the use of magic.
I’d done it in less than one.
It was pretty enough, and intriguing enough to catch a pony’s eye, so it wasn’t a total failure. There were better ideas to be had, and I knew I must’ve been on to something greater, something worthy of a cover page, but I just couldn’t remember what it was I’d been thinking.
Setting the dress carefully to one side, I trotted out the door of my workshop, humming idly to myself as I made my way to the Manehattan Boutique proper. The steady thrum of the lobby music took over, unconsciously bidding my customers and I alike to step in time to its upbeat rhythm, giving all but the truly musically uninclined a natural sense of carefully-paced urgency. I closed my eyes to clear my head during the last few moments of peace I’d likely feel for the rest of the workday, and my sister’s words returned unbidden to my mind.
You’ve changed, Rarity.
Forcing my cheeks into a smile with just the right amount of sincerity, I stepped into the waiting storefront. My sister was simply naive, blinded from youth and inexperience to the truth of the world. She just couldn’t see that I’d changed for the better.