“Big McIntosh,” Twilight began. “Do you mind going to the Midsummer Moon Gala with me?” There was a long pause. The question now that it had been uttered seemed to weigh heavily in the air. Twilight violently sucked in her breath. Would a stallion actually say yes this time?
Waves of unease broke across Big Mac’s usually stolid face. He told a step back, bumping into the apple cart. “Eh-heh, about that… Ah’m sorry, Miss Twilight, but Ah can’t accept yer askin.’”
Twilight facehoofed as another small hope was dashed before it could be fully realized. Spike facepalmed as once again his friend failed to get a partner for the gala. At this rate, she’d be researching for a magical solution to her problem by the end of the day. He might as well have Princess Celestia on speed-flame already.
“I see…” Twilight sighed. “Well, I hope you have a nice day, Big Mac.” The lavender unicorn turned to leave. “Come on, Spike.”
“No, wait.” Big McIntosh started. “Why are y’all leavin’?”
“Huh?” Twilight blurted, before shaking her head and collecting herself. “You said that you couldn’t accept my asking you-”
“Eeyup.”
“-so I’m going leave now,” she finished.
“But why would y’all do that?”
Twilight was now close to steaming in irritation. Why did he keep bothering her? He’d already rejected her once; what was the deal? “Because you said no.”
The large red stallion took another step backward from the reddening mare. “But Ah didn’t say no.”
“Yes, you did!” Twilight countered.
“Ah think y’all have it all wrong, Miss Twilight,” Big Mac held up his hooves in an effort to defuse the situation. “When Ah said Ah couldn’t accept yer askin,’ Ah wasn’t rejectin’ ya. Now Ah don’t know how them city-slickers in Canterlot do things, but down here in Ponyville we got a code of honor. Plus Ah’m an Apple, and Ah reckon mah Pa—may Celestia rest his soul—wouldn’t take too kindly to mah accepting a mare’s offer like that. Ah reckon he’d rather me do the askin.’”
Both Twilight and Spike were left dumbfounded and opened mouthed at that revelation. Big McIntosh took that time to pick his next few words very carefully.
“Miss Twilight, I was wonderin’—”
“Yes!”
The workhorse was taken aback. “But Ah didn’t get to ask—”
“Doesn’t matter. Yes!” The purple mare bounced up and down excitedly. Yes, finally! A huge item on her checklist has been successfully completed. Still, it took a better portion of her day, but in the end Twilight Sparkle was victorious as usual.
“Great!” Twilight grinned, before levitating a rather long list and quill from her saddlebag. “Now, Big Mac, you are to meet me tomorrow in front of the library at three P.M. sharp. I would advise you to wear your best, but if you don’t have anything, I’m sure Rarity would allow us borrow some of her things. I have arranged the carriage in which to take us to Canterlot to arrive at five so in the meantime I’ll be informing you on how to behave around Canterlot nobility, and more importantly in the slight chance that the Princesses show up.” She peered up at the increasingly confused and wary Big Mac.
“So, Big McIntosh, do you have any questions?”
The sky was darkening. The first of Luna’s stars would soon be out, and Spike mentally shook himself at not taking the time to ask Rarity sooner. Of course he had been held up by Twilight earlier, but still… More than likely, she would be closing up shop now and having dinner with Sweetie Belle or preparing to work on one of her creations through the night.
‘Right now is so not a good time…’ Spike scolded himself as he hurried through the gradually emptying streets of Ponyville. Ponies everywhere were gathering themselves up to return home and settle in for the evening. A few waved to him as he rushed past, and he gave hurried nods in return. In hardly any time at all, the dragon arrived at the Carousel Boutique. Curiously, all of his impatience immediately drained out of him as soon as he found himself in front of the door.
“Well, Spike, it’s now or never,” he chanted to himself. He took on a determined air, squaring his shoulders and straightening his spine. This was it—the culmination of six years of “secretly” loving the beautiful mare of the Carousel Boutique. Today, this day, he was finally going to ask out Rarity. His face broke into a fanged grin. This was it! His fist reached out to knock on the door.
Then it stopped in midair. His sudden confidence gave way to ominous doubts. What if Rarity doesn’t go for it? His heart quivered inside him. What was the worst that could happen? Would she chase him out of the boutique, horribly disgusted and screaming at him never to come near her again? Or maybe she would pat him on the head as she did when he was younger and call him silly? Would she stare at him in disgust until the awkwardness finally drove him from the room? What sane dragon harbored feelings for a pony anyway? It’s not like any such coupling had been recorded in all of Equestrian history, and Spike had researched…
The dragon’s gloomy thoughts were abruptly interrupted by a white pony opening the door. Spike jumped back, as he was standing so close to the entrance that he was almost upon her. The two stared at each other.
“Spike?” Sweetie Belle questioned, cocking her head to the side. “Why are you standing outside the boutique?”
“Eh-heh…” Spike looked away, rubbing his back spines nervously. “I was just… Is Rarity in?”
He tried to look inconspicuous while Sweetie Belle studied him intently. “Yeah… She’s in there…” she said slowly. “Spike, you’re acting kinda weird. Are you okay?”
“Never better,” Spike gulped. He deftly moved past the suspicious teenaged filly and into the doorway of the boutique. “Thanks for letting me know that Rarity is here. See ya, Sweetie Belle.” With that, he disappeared inside.
“Hmm…” Sweetie Belle mumbled to herself. She started to say something, but thought the better of it. She had to get to Scootaloo’s anyway for their sleepover before it got too dark, or Rarity would be on her flank again. The filly took off down the street.
Meanwhile, Spike wandered inside the boutique. The foyer was neat and orderly as usual—a testament to its owner’s borderline OCD. Carefully, he shut the door behind him and called out his intended’s name. “Rarity?” Hearing no answer, he drifted past the foyer and into the main showroom which was filled with ponyquins wearing dazzling dresses and racks of various accessories. “Rarity?”
“Spike?” uttered a demure voice with a hint of confusion. A pair of royal blue eyes and a purple mane peered at him through a doorway. “Spike, dear, this is quite a surprise. Whatever are you doing here?”
This was it! This was it! Spike fought his suddenly leaden tongue to speak. “Rarity, I-I’m here to—”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter why he’s here,” Rarity stated, although she was talking more to herself than to Spike. She turned towards him with a large smile on her face. “Oh, Spikey, your sudden presence here is a lifesaver, I tell you. Sweetie Belle’s little sleepover just happened to be scheduled three days before an order from a major client is due. I would have been hard pressed to finish without her help, but lo and behold you’re here. Do you mind assisting me for an hour or two? Oh, I promise I’ll have you back at Twilight’s before it gets too late.”
Spike was taken aback. This wasn’t how their conversation was supposed to go, but how could he ignore that pleading face? A small section in the back of his mind wondered if she knew what this did to him. Whether she did or didn’t, it was hard to figure out. She was hard to figure out.
“Um, sure,” Spike replied. He could always ask her while they worked.
“How lovely! I truly appreciate your generosity, Spike. I’ll be sure to reward you later for your hard work.”
Spike grinned in response. “You really don’t have to, Rarity.”
“Oh I insist,” the fashionista stated, dramatically placing a delicate hoof to her chest. “I can’t let you leave here without showing how much I appreciate your help. You’re always giving so much of yourself to everyone…” She stopped before beginning again on a much stronger note. “Ah well, we might as well get going, shall we?” Briskly, she led the dragon into her famous Inspiration Room—the only room in the entire building allowed to remain in a constant state of “organized” chaos.
“To start, can you hold this roll of fabric?” A sparkling roll of blue and pink fabric floated into Spike’s outstretched arms. Satisfied, she turned to review her client’s measurements. As she began humming, Spike steeled himself. It was now or never.
“Rarity?” he began.
“Yes, darling?” the unicorn replied absentmindedly.
“I was wondering…” he took a shaky breath. “…if you’d want to go to the Midsummer Moon Gala with me-”
“Wait…” Rarity’s eyes shot open. “Spike, did you just say the Midsummer Moon Gala?”
“Yeah…”
“THE Midsummer Moon Gala—the only gala where the guest list holds only the names of the most elite and respected ponies of all Equestria?” she gasped.
“Um, yeah?” Spike repeated weakly.
Rarity joyously laughed out loud before she suddenly started jumping up and down. “Oh… Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! The Midsummer Moon Gala! I can barely believe it; oh, I could simply die!”
“So… you do want to go with me?” Spike couldn’t believe his luck. Rarity, his Rarity, wants to go with him on a date! Today was the best day of his life! She liked him back; she liked him back! Oh my Luna, she--
“Go w-with you?” Rarity’s joy seemed to fall a few notches as she finally realized what the dragon was truly saying. Spike could practically feel the excitement leave the room like air escaping from a deflating balloon—his high spirits leaving with it.
“Yeah,” he mumbled. “I’m going with Twilight. She’s been invited, and I have through her. We both needed partners…” This was totally contrary to how things were only a minute ago. A feeling of cold dread emptied into his stomach. His grip tightened on the material he was holding.
“Oh,” the white unicorn simply stated. “Oh. I see.”
A cold silence filled the room. Spike shivered. “So, you don’t want to go with me?” He looked down into her eyes as in search of confirmation, and his heart cracked a little inside him when he saw her turn away.
“I’m-I’m terribly sorry, darling…” Rarity sighed. “All I heard before was something about going to the Midsummer Moon Gala, and I…overreacted… I’m sorry.”
Spike said nothing. He couldn’t say anything—the culmination of six years of hopeful dreaming—gone; his wishful thoughts about his possible future with the love of his life—dashed. His claws were beginning to tear holes into the expensive fabric he was carrying, but he couldn’t care less. Finally, all he could manage to say was, “Why?”
Rarity looked away, her eyes moist. “My agreeing to go with you to the gala would be like my leading you on into a nonexistent relationship. I know that you have had this…thing…concerning me for a long time, but you and I, we could never be, Spikey.”
His heart shattered as he heard the love of his life utter those words. His mind seemed to enjoy the pain as it dutifully replayed them over and over again. ‘My agreeing to go with you to the gala would be like my leading you on...’ Then all of a sudden, her words mixed with another’s. ‘Can’t you see that my selling to you is like my encouraging you to be here…’ Against his will, they combined themselves in order to torture him. ‘Can’t you see that my agreeing to go with you is like my encouraging you to be here? Can’t you see why I can’t be with you? You’re the bramble, Spike. A lady such as myself cannot be seen with a bramble…’ Over and over again, Spike was reminded that he was different—a dragon in the land of ponies. How could he have ever thought that he could be happy here?
“It’s because I’m a dragon, isn’t it?” Spike replied calmly. If she could admit it, then maybe he could live out the rest of his miserable life in peace.
“What? No!” Rarity seemed shocked. “Darling, how could you ever think that?”
“Because it’s true,” Spike barked in an uncharacteristically cold manner. It was bad enough that she’d just trampled over his heart, but did she have to continue to lie to him as well? Why couldn’t he get a straight answer? His claws clenched the roll of material in his arms until they sank through it like butter.
“My tulle!” Rarity cried, staring at the irreparable holes marring her expensive fabric. “It-it’s ruined…”
“All you care about is the stupid tulle?” Spike yelled as he loosened his grip to let the torn fabric fall to the ground. A foreign plume of anger rose within him. A lifeless bunch of fabric meant more to her than the feelings of a living, sentient being standing right in front of her. He felt sick, but even though his queasiness, he couldn’t help but to still find her hauntingly beautiful with her large dewy eyes and delicate muzzle. She was indeed very pretty… He wanted to…
Rarity suddenly screamed which knocked Spike out of his reverie.
“W-what?” he started, confused, before he realized that his left claw was grasping something that was trembling. His emerald eyes looked down; starting from the white shaking forearm he held right up to the terrified face of its owner. Shocked, he immediately let go, and Rarity shrank away from him, cowering against a wall.
Spike’s mouth was suddenly dry. All traces of anger fled, only to leave overwhelming amounts of shock, sadness, and dawning horror. H-had he just? Spike gulped. No, he had to get away NOW; he had lost control. He’d almost hurt Rarity. No matter what she said or did, he could never hurt Rarity. A few tears squeezed out of his eyes while he stumbled over a quick apology before he turned to run towards the door.
“Wait!” Rarity shouted, but Spike refused to listen. He would let his brain process requests again when he was back in his room at the library—safe from harming anypony. His claw tugged at the door, but the knob refused to turn. He heard her hoofsteps behind him and knew she was close.
“Spike…” she began softly.
“No, Rarity! Let me out!” Spike begged. “I-I could’ve hurt you back there; let me out.”
“No. I cannot do that. You were right, Spikey. I need to tell you the truth—the real reason you and I can never be together…” She looked away. Her face morphed into a painful expression. “You see, Spike, I cannot seriously pursue a relationship with you or anypony else, and probably won’t be able to for a very long time. I realized that quite some time ago. Ever since I was a filly, I wanted to become a fashionista—to have my creations adored and appreciated by the masses… However, it wasn’t until I was almost a full grown mare that I realized the amount of work and time and dedication achieving that dream would require.
“Following my dream, I grew distant from my parents, my little sister, and my friends. It was only after you and Twilight arrived that I put some distance between myself and my work.” Rarity smiled a thin, wan smile. “Between my friends and Sweetie Belle, you drew me out of my shell—but not by much. Even now I can barely make time to spend with you and the girls and Sweetie Belle and still have enough to finish my orders. In the past, every so often a stallion would catch my eye, and we would try to make it work, but… I don’t have time for stallions. I don’t have time to meet the demands of a relationship. You’re so kind and noble, Spikey; I could never lead you into something that would surely damage you. I’m sorry.”
For the second time that night, Spike’s throat tightened—but this time for an entirely different reason. “So if you weren't too busy for a relationship, you would have accepted earlier…even though I am a dragon?” He tried to keep the hope from creeping into his voice and failed.
Rarity blinked back glistening tears. She sighed. “Well… I don’t see why not, darling, and concerning the whole ‘dragon thing,’ even Sapphire Shores herself was rumored to have had a fling with a griffin about a year ago. It adds something of a naughty intrigue about a pony, you know.”
Spike’s face broke out into a grin. YES! He was one iota away from roaring it into the heavens.
“However, that doesn’t change my stance about you and me, Spike,” the unicorn reminded him. “I couldn’t bear to hurt you like that, especially since we’ve been friends for so long.”
“B-but I’m around you almost every day. How would things be different if we were…” The dragon could hardly say the word. “..together?”
“Sure, you'd start out fine, but you would want to do more eventually, Spike.” She smiled sadly. “You would want to go out and do the things that couples do, and I won’t be able to do these things at times or spend time with you the way you’d want. During Hearth’s Warming Eve, Winter Wrap Up, and Nightmare Night, I’m practically a shut-in inside the boutique. How would you feel if you were to experience these holidays all alone, watching others spend time with their significant others?”
Spike turned away and gathered his thoughts before looking back. He was determined to get out what he was about to say. “Yeah, I would be sad, watching all the stallions with their marefriends knowing that I couldn’t be with mine. But still, you’d be my marefriend, and I could be with you some other time when you aren’t busy filling orders. It would be better for me to know that than to be without a marefriend or to be with one I truly didn’t love-” Spike gasped, covering his mouth with his claws. Did he really just say the “L” word out loud? In front of Rarity?
Rarity turned so the dragon couldn’t see her face. A faint red graced her cheeks. “A-and you truly feel this way?”
“Yeah… Yes,” he blurted out awkwardly.
“I see,” Rarity stated. “Well, I suppose this changes my plans for the night.”
Alarm bells sounded off in Spike’s brain. “Are you? What are you--?”
The unicorn giggled—actually giggled—as she placed her muzzle upon his shoulder. Her sweet smelling purple locks bathed his scales; he trembled as he felt the lesser heat of her body. She whispered into his ear. “Why, haven’t you heard, Spike? I’ve just gotten invited to the Midsummer Moon Gala by a most kind and generous gentledragon, and I have less than twenty-four hours to prepare.”
Spike laughed. “Um, I guess I didn’t hear that before. Sorry.”
Rarity chuckled in response before suddenly narrowing her eyes. “Indeed. However, before we go on, I must say Spike that I never want to experience a repeat of your behavior back there. If you lay a hoof—er claw, upon my person ever again, I must warn you that I’ll be forced to buck you into next week, and you’ll never be allowed to set foot inside my boutique again. Do you understand?”
Spike jumped back at the ferocity of her gaze. “I-I understand, Rarity, and I’m totally sorry for that. It will never happen again!”
“Good,” Rarity huffed. “Now, this occasion calls for a gown so spectacular that all of Equestria shall stop and gaze upon its beauty! I, Rarity, shall become the absolute belle of the ball—and you the charming prince, my dear Spikey.” She winked at him in an almost naughty way. “Come along now. I shall have to take your measurements.”