I. You Became I
Rainbow
I’m not going to cry. I just refuse. It’s not what I do, ever.
They’re asking for me to say something, pushing me up into the sky, and I hover over them. It’s like being Twilight or the Mayor on her stupid little podium at Winter Wrap Up. Ha. It’s fitting—wrap up. Like my time here. Like my wings used to be.
I told them I didn’t want anything when I left. When I retired. It’s such an ugly word, and I never wanted to say it. Retired retired retired. It’s like I’m old, and I’m not even old yet. I’m twenty-nine. I’m not old. I made the announcement about my retirement last week, and I coulda sworn I looked Storm Bolt right in the eyes and told her I didn’t want anything like parties or surprises or any of that stuff. Just... to say goodbye.
But then I walk out of my office, and here they all are. Partying. I’m sure I must have looked like an idiot, standing there while they crowded around me, talking and... moving. It was hard to keep up.
One of them—I think it was Raindrops, I’m pretty sure, but I didn’t get a chance to ask—made a cake, and it was great. Really great, I mean. It had like a little Rainbow on it and everything, and some clouds on a blue sky. Damn, the thing was huge. Delicious too, though I didn’t get much of a chance to eat some. They all wanted to talk. Two dozen of them, the whole weather office for Ponyville and the farmlands around it. I talked to all of them, tried to smile for all of them equally. Not that I didn’t want to. I mean, I didn’t exactly want a going-away or retirement party thing or whatever, but I didn’t mind it now that it had come. Sometimes you just shrug and go with the wind.
But the longer I talked, the less I wanted to.
I clear my throat, and the little crowd hushes. My little crowd.
“Well.”
I stop. I’m not sure what to say, not sure how to say that I’m thankful and I’ll miss it. I want to say something, and yet the words simply don’t... come. My brain is just blank, like someone took a wash rag to a chalkboard. The markings just get blurred and unreadable, and I strain my eyes and just get nothing.
There’s a little titter of laughter. I sort of grin, my cheek tightening, just sort of without thinking about it. Of course. I’m a funny girl, it’s legendary. I’m a jokester and a prankster, so of course they hear a joke in my piss-poor start.
I roll my shoulders.
“Well,” I begin again, and there’s another wave of light chuckles. “Somehow I’m not surprised.”
“We had to do something for you, Dash!” Raindrops says, grinning. I smile back, kind of just in answer. She’s a good mare. She brought Rares and I this whole platter of cupcakes a bit after we got married, I remember. Thinking about her smiling on my doorstep makes my own smile a bit warmer.
“I’m glad you did, Rain. All of you! I’m really glad.” I take a deep breath, thoughts swirling around like a good hurricane. “I’m glad you guys did this, but I’m really glad I got to know all of you. I got to fly with all of you, work weather with all of you... and I’m just...”
Damn.
“I’m just really grateful, you guys,” I finish, my forelegs limp. I’m smiling, I think. I can’t help but scan their eyes, look at each little pair of them, and think. Think things like, You’re all so new. Or You’re all so young. Weather teams usually have a pretty high rate of turnaround, and though we’re not so bad, Ponyville’s team still has some. Thunderlane got himself married to some pretty little earth pony, and last time I heard from him he had a whole clutch of foals and was doing great up in Seaddle. Spring Showers finally got off her lazy butt and went back to school. Ponies left and ponies came. They’re all so young. I’m not old myself, really, not yet. Not exactly. I am not old. I was just a kid, yesterday. But to them, in comparison? I feel old. I haven’t moved like they do in a long, long time. Before the injury, maybe. For a while after it, once I’d recovered. But not recently.
“Flying with you all has been one of the best things in my life. Riding the lightning, taming storms, making the sunshine in the right places and making the rain come down in others... I’ve loved every minute of it.”
The pegasi gathered ‘round me are silent, looking up at me. The air is different.
“When I got hurt, you guys helped me recover. When I came back, you guys were there to look out for me and help me get back on my hooves. That’s awesome. It really, really is, and I’m... I’m so thankful. I just want you all to know that. I love all of you—”
My voice speeds up, and I can feel my throat closing up. Damn. Damn it all.
“I really do, and you guys... I wish I wasn’t leaving. Rares and I are gonna have a wonderful life in Canterlot, I know we are. But I’m gonna miss all of ya. You guys... y-you guys are awesome.”
I sniff loudly, and I feel like an idiot. Here I am, about to start blubbering. I swore I wouldn’t cry. I swore if they did something like this I wasn’t going to cry. It’s not awesome, it’s not cool, it is completely not me. And yet here it is. I feel a tear on my cheek, I’m sure of it. I look like an idiot. It’s because I’m getting older, I guess. Soft with age. Old old old, old and worn out and useless, some big flightless bird to sigh at or chuckle at or... I’m a relic before I’m thirty. Can’t fly fast anymore. Can’t... can’t do Sonic Rainbooms, haven’t since my injury. Suddenly I am tired. My wings are like the wings of a middle-aged mare.
I land, my speech over.
There’s some movement, and two of the newer fliers bring up something and offer it to me. I look down at it, confused.
A plaque. I blink and look up.
“What’s this?” I ask, and my voice sounds strange in my ears.
“We got something for you,” Raindrops says, and I realize she’s come to my left side. “As a way of saying thank you for all the hard work you’ve done for Ponyville. Something to remember us by, you know?”
“Yeah,” I say softly, stroking the plaque’s metal surface. I hold it up with my left hoof, and with my right, I touch the tiny sunken wording. It’s metal on wood and cold to the touch. It makes me shiver a little bit.
I look up and smile, and for a moment... I don’t think I really care about the wetness on my cheeks. I don’t care about my old maid wings or how I’m twenty-nine going on thirty and already leaving.
“Thank you,” I say and hug Raindrops tight. “Thank you so much.”
“We’ll miss you,” she says, and hugs me back.
“Me too,” I respond and sniff again.
I really will.
Rarity
I am simply beside myself with joy as I carefully place some of my old pictures into the box. As my magic safely carries them into their padded, temporary home, I glance at each. Sweetie Belle, a few years ago, at a birthday. The Sisterhoof Social. Dash and I in Canterlot. A picture from our wedding.
I linger over this last one, smiling and looking into her rose-colored eyes. I take in that devilish grin and roll my eyes at how it’s preserved forever just the same, like some ludicrous challenge to the world. “Here I am, boys, come and get me!” Or some other such bravado. You can almost hear it. I chuckle, and I swear if I was alone I would have started cooing over it. I am truly beside myself, happy beyond belief. And is this not happiness finding happiness? Deep seeking deep? This is not so much different from that very day! Stepping into a new adventure, Rainbow at my side, learning a new kind of life.
I set the picture in the box with care.
“Think you’re goin’ slow enough there, sugarcube?” Applejack asks, and I glance up at her.
I huff, though I feel no malice. “Well, excuse me, I am simply admiring a picture. I have done quite a lot of work, Applejack.”
“Aw, you know I’m just messin’ with ya.”
“Well, of course. I must keep you on your tippy-hooves, though.” I chuckle. “It’s a wedding picture.”
“Well that explains it, cryin’ yer pardon. Which one?” She wanders over. Her hat is gone, which is still odd to me, but she explained that she figured it was polite, being in my home for a while and all. I appreciate Applejack’s rustic charm, despite what ponies think.
I grab it with my magic again and lift it back out of the carboard box. “This one,” I say, and hold it up where she can see it. A grin spreads across her face like the sun coming out.
“Ahhh, I remember that one. Heh. Lookit her, grinnin’.”
“It was a good day,” I say softly, mirroring her expression myself.
She nods and takes the picture in her hooves. I release it into her care. “Carryin’ ya off like yer some sorta captured bride. Just screams Rainbow. I swear, when she took ya off at the reception, I thought y’all were gonna fall right out of the sky.”
“Ah, but we didn’t, did we? She held me up. It’s who she is. She continues.”
Applejack hoofs the picture back to me, and I place it back in the box once more.
“So how’s she takin’ it? The movin’ an’ all,” Applejack asks me slowly. Slower than usual, almost like Sweetie Belle looking up from a shattered vase to ask that vital question.
“Whatever do you mean, dear?” I ask, not looking at her. I wonder where Twilight is.
“I mean, she’s pretty attached to flyin’ for the weather team here an’ all. Talks about it whenever she comes by the farm for cider or somethin’. I see her workin’ when it’s time for waterin’ and she loves it.”
My mane falls into my eyes, and I brush it aside with a hoof. It is a bit out of place today, isn’t it? But I suppose that’s to be expected, with how busy I have been as of late! I look back at Applejack, my face prepared to meet her face, my eyebrows arched like vaults.
“Oh, believe me when I tell you that I know. We have talked about the weather team at length, Applejack. I have loved her passion. It’s... refreshing, to be out of my own world for a moment, to see the world through her eyes.” I cough, realizing that I’ve ambled. “Thank you, dear, for your concern. However, I assure that she is quite alright with it. We’ve... talked.”
Ah, but I stumble! Does she notice? I doubt it. It was slight.
Of course, on the other hoof, if anypony at all was going to notice, it would be Applejack. When it comes to truth and falsehood, her mind is like a knife through hot butter, magical fire through silk. She catches many things, and so I quickly gesture vaguely towards the storefront as she narrows her eyes. “Twilight! Where is she? I haven’t seen her in a bit. I’m assuming she’s somewhere up there?”
“Oh, yeah,” Applejack says, those narrowed eyes widening again as she nods. “Yeah, she’s up front, stackin’ boxes of dresses and such. I wandered back in half an hour ago, and she sent me back here t’ check up on ya.”
“Well, I am quite fine,” I say and offer her what is hopefully my most charming smile. Smiling is like choosing wine for dinner; you do it with thought. Too wide or too small and you send a wrong message. This time, it seems my selection is adequate, for she returns it.
“Well, regardless,” she begins as we walk down the hall, “I am right proud of ya. Now you’re a proper Lady, capital letter an’ all. House of Belle, indeed.”
The hall is rather bare, shorn of its usual adornment. It stirs a bit of sadness in me. I still remember when Cross Stitch gave me the keys to the old place when she retired, my magic almost dropping it in awe which gave way to glee. And then I had walked the halls when they had been bare, just like this.
A new beginning, just the same as that one. That’s what this all is! Leaving a good life for a good life, no loss.
We find Twilight with a pleased look on her face in the center of the room, a clipboard hovering before her. Boxes lay about her, stacked and ready to be carried out onto the carriages tomorrow. I imagine that she made the room a storm and sat at the center of it, a smug and smiling maestro conducting.
“Twilight, darling! I see you’ve been busy,” I say and grace her with another smile. This one comes easier.
“Oh, definitely! But I think I just finished up. A place for everything, and for everything a place! I’m glad I could help,” she replies, voice enthused with cheer. It’s endearing, how excited Twilight is, given any chance to put things in order.
“And I am very glad that you weren’t busy! You’ve much more talent with levitation than I. I would’ve been quite tired.” I glance around. “Anyhow, the back is bare as the day I got the old place. I think we’re just about done.”
“Aw, shucks. Sorry I couldn’t make it back in time to help,” Applejack speaks up from beside me. She frowns, and I can’t help but feel happy.
Ponyville is so full of friends. Wonderful, wonderful friends who I have always counted on. I have never had to live on the whims of strangers because of them, and looking at Applejack now, I feel a little ache. I will miss seeing her in town selling her wares or doffing her hat in the sun to wave at Rainbow and I as we stroll by. Looking at Twilight, I see her sitting across the table from me at the cafe down the street from the library, talking about Macintosh, and my smile wavers.
“But it really is exciting,” Twilight says, and I realize she’s been talking.
“Hm?” Excellent, Rarity. That was highly intelligent right there. Eloquent in the extreme.
“Oh, sorry. You know. House of Belle and all that. I mean, I had read about them in books, but I just never made the connection to you! I had no idea you were descended from noble blood.”
Ah, finally, a subject I can warm up to! “Yes, it’s a long way back, of course. The House of Belle lost so much in the civil war, you know, and it had a long slide. We’ve been common for a long, long time.”
And so we had. My father was always perplexed by my attachment to our ancient lineage, but I had held it before me as a shining example. It wasn’t the riches. It was the acknowledgement of worth. It was the legitimacy! It was, in a word or two, making it. And now...
“You’ve done a lot for the kingdom,” Twilight says, drawing me back into the present. “I was surprised, but after our adventures in the west... well, your adventures.” She shifts, and I see her eyes darting away from my face. I remember my scar.
“It’s alright, Twilight. I don’t mind. And yes, I was very honored when Celestia gave me any boon I wished... and I suppose she was surprised at my choice. Or was she? I know she remembers my line.”
“I haven’t asked, but I suppose she wouldn’t be too surprised,” Twilight replies, tapping her chin with a hoof. “Huh. I should ask! Anyhow, I bet you’re excited.”
“Very!” I say, and giggle despite myself. Like a foal, really, but who would blame me? “I’ve always dreamed of it. I’ve dreamed of only two things, really, Twilight. This and to be a true fashionista in the ranks of Canterlot’s peers! And they are not so far apart, really. To be among the highest of highs and to to be the pony everypony should know! To have really ‘made it!’ It is simply divine. Oh, Twilight, but the old Belle estate is still there and being returned to us! Can you believe it?” I gesture grandly and reign in a rather piercing squeal. It is simply unbecoming for a Lady, now! “I will walk in the halls of my father’s father’s fathers, my head high and my heart soaring!”
Applejack again. “Shucks, is it really as important as all that? Never heard any of yer kin in town talkin’ ‘bout this.”
I gesture and lead them back into the living area of the boutique. “My father prefers to forget, as his did before him. Oh, but it will be simply splendid. I will be the talk of the town, I assure you of that, and I will walk with the best and the brightest of Canterlot’s aristocracy soon enough.” I hold my head high, and I can simply imagine it all. The sophistication of the Canterlot high life, the quiet and refined talk of nobles drawn from lines millennia old, the smell of rich perfume and wine, the quiet bubbling of genteel society all around.
“Yes,” I continue, the smile so wide on my face that I must look a fool to them as I strut, but I do not care. “Yes. I, Rarity, will be walking in the doors of Fancypant’s residence in a mere few months. A dress of my own design gracing this supple form, and they shall see me.”
I whirl to face the girls, who have both taken a seat on one of my couches. These are the last things left in place, really. Our bed, Rainbow’s and mine, has been dismantled, the frame ready for... well. I don’t know, really. The Belle estate in Canterlot has a bed ready for me, so I suppose the bed Rainbow and I share is... well. Of no use.
I sit on the other couch, upholstered in red and perpendicular to theirs, and sigh.
“You certainly seem ready,” Twilight says.
“Yes,” I say, and lie down flat on my back. I gesture aimlessly with a hoof, back and forth. “Oh, Twilight, don’t get me wrong! I simply adore Ponyville, but this is my dream! My wildest dreams, even, coming true right before my eyes. It is simply wonderful.”
“Sounds like yer set,” Applejack drawls, and I smile over at her.
“Of course. It shall be a wonderful new life for us, I think. I will be able to really bring my brand to Canterlot in force, and Rainbow... well, I really believe, Applejack, that Rainbow will do much better in Canterlot. Eventually.”
“An’ why’s that, exactly?” she asks, and I see her over there on my couch, her eyebrows rising. I sigh and turn on my side.
I love this couch. I want to find a good home for it in my new abode. I have rather fond memories of lazy afternoons here. It’s rather comfy. I feel it with my hoof idly, enjoying the texture. Rainbow also likes this couch.
Where is she?
“Rainbow’s injury has made flying on the weather team difficult. True, with time it’s gotten much, much better, but I still worry about her. You know how it is by now. She’ll be perfectly all right most of the time, and then comes that one moment...” I sigh. I really don’t want to say this aloud. “I think she’ll be safer on the ground, walking around. Not flying. Rainbow shouldn’t fly. It’s just... too dangerous. She can’t do it. It’s better for both of us if she stays on the ground more.”
They’re staring at me.
I blink back. “Girls?”
Twilight bites her lip. Applejack tries something that looks... vaguely like a smile? It’s so warped that I’m not sure what emotion it is trying to be. It’s so pained that I try to sit up and ask what’s wrong when somepony is speaking right behind me. I jump, my face flushed with shame at my own lack of poise.
“Hey.”
It’s Rainbow. Oh sweet Celestia, it’s Rainbow. She heard me, I know she did, she heard every bit of it. Every single word.
She’s standing there, in the doorway. She must have been in the kitchen, probably wanting to jump out and shock me. She loves that kind of childish trick, is always gleeful with them. She’s watching me with flat eyes and a look on her face that I can’t read. I can always read her face; it’s how the world works—it’s the way of things—but I can’t right now. And that makes me want to shiver. But I suppress that. Now is not the time.
I rise to my hooves, leaving my couch behind with its comfort. I try to smile at her.
“H-hello,” I begin. I stop trying to talk immediately, feeling an odd feeling, like a hole has been drilled in me. Like my spirit is sliding out of it onto the very floor. My happiness, my little glass fantasy, is a vase that shatters on the cold floor, and my long-practiced poise is slow to come.
But it comes, it comes. My smile straightens, my eyes focus in on those pools of rose and do not falter. My legs are steady. I prepare a face to meet the face before me which is also straight and still.
It’s like talking in fog. “Hello, Rainbow. I didn’t know you were coming home this soon.”
“Just had to sign some last things. They threw me a party. Brought the cake home, what was left.”
“Oh, Rainbow, that’s lovely! That was kind of them!” I say, smiling. It is, really, and I had an inkling that they might. Raindrops was by a few days ago, chatting. Asking after Rainbow.
“Yeah, it was. Got a plaque,” she says, and I see now that she has a saddlebag. It’s slumped, as if weighed down, and my heart sinks with knowledge as she pulls out a rather beautiful plaque. She is offering it to me, like some sort of present, and I take it with my magic out of her mouth’s limp grip. I examine it.
The craftsmanship is superb. Rainbow may not know this, but I do. I may not be a worker of wood or bronze... but I know an artist’s hoof when I see one, and this was born out of the work of someone who loves what they do. It was commissioned with care.
“I love it,” I say, and it is not the mask that speaks but my own self. I really do.
“Yeah,” she replies, and I can almost hear it, how her mouth must cut in that dissatisfied little line. “It’s cool.”
I give her offering back with my magic, and she takes it. Back it goes, into the saddlebag, and I watch it go. Her voice pulls me back.
“Well, I think I’ma work on packing my stuff.”
“It’s all done.”
She blinks. “Oh,” she says lamely and grimaces. She glances over at Twilight and Applejack, over my shoulder. “Oh. Thanks, you guys.”
“It was our pleasure, sugarcube,” Applejack answers. Her voice is flat. My heart beats in my throat. I feel like a bug pinned on a card. I am abased before you, Applejack, judge me not overmuch. I swear to you, I mean no offense.
“Of course, Rainbow. Anything to help a friend,” Twilight speaks up, and she seems happier. Her voice seems to rise in little peaks on my beloved’s name. She’s trying, and I love her for it. “Anyhow, I think Spike has been alone quite long enough! I think we’re just heading out, Rainbow.”
“Oh.”
Rainbow shakes her head a little, as if waking up. She smiles a small smile over my shoulder, and I turn my head to see Twilight and Applejack awkwardly sliding up to give her quick hugs. I watch them. They hug me too.
Applejack hugs me first, and I hear a whisper. The air tickles it, but I try not to flick my ear.
“Good luck, sugarcube. I mean it.”
And then Twilight, who only offers me a sort of sad smile, and then they are walking back out. Rainbow and I walk with them, of course, and see them to the door.
And then we are alone.
I turn to Rainbow and try to smile.
She doesn’t smile back immediately, but she does in the end. Eventually. It’s all that matters. Eventually. Cautiously, I edge closer. Rainbow sighs and hugs me. I am... confused. Unsure. I am reminded of being on the open sea and wondering if the boat is supposed to toss and turn this much.
“Rainbow?” My voice sounds so small. I am waiting for a hammer to come I am waiting for a sword to fall down on me.
“Yeah?”
I don’t really... have a good answer. “I love you,” I blurt and then quickly recover. “Rainbow, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Mean what?”
I sigh. I’m not sure if she means it. I’m pretty sure she’s not, but I can hope she didn’t hear. A girl can dream, right? I want to laugh.
“Nothing, dear. Nothing,” I say, and I am a coward. “Everything’s packed. Come tell me about the party?” It is a suggestion. My voice is light, because the time is fragile and it is not time for demanding anything, even something so small as this. I feel tiny, like I am a foal who has done something terrible. I can see it in her eyes, though her gaze will not stay even with my own for long. The floor is like glass between us.
I lead her back towards the couches, where I can smooth it all out, I know I can. As she begins to speak and follow me, as I glance at the bare walls, I know I can just... smooth it out, all of it, like imperfections in a mold, I can smooth it out. Quiet words that turn away wrath.
A Lady does what she can. It’s important.