The Argument
”Can I help?!”Sweetie Belle asked whilst jumping up and down, a huge enthusiastic smile plastered across her face as she was looking at her elder sister, who was currently too engaged in her work to bother looking at the smiling filly standing beside her.
Sweeties smile quickly turned into a frown when she got the more than familiar answer from her big sister.
“I am sorry Sweetie Belle but I don´t have time to both work and keep an eye on you.” Rarity said, picking up a scissor and cutting out a piece of fabric.
“Okay” Sweetie Belle said in a disappointed tone whilst looking at the ground.
Her face brightened a little as she got an idea. “Can we go to the park the afternoon?” she asked her sister, some of the happy hopefulness back in the voice. “we could have a picnic and play some games”.
“I can´t go today, I am going to the spa with Fluttershy. And this order has to be filled tomorrow morning”. Rarity answered, still not bothering to look at her sister. “maybe we can go tomorrow”.
Sweetie Belles mood suddenly changed, as the disappointment of another rejection turned into anger. “That´s what you said yesterday and the day before that!” she almost yelled whilst stomping in the ground for emphasis.
“You don´t use that tone with me young lady!” Rarity said sternly, finally turning around to look her sister in the eyes. She almost regretted her outbursts as she saw the mix of anger, disappointment and heartbreak in the fillys eyes.
“You never take time for me! Maybe I would be better off without you!” Sweetie Belle continued ignoring the elder unicorns reprimand. “You are never there anyway!”
“That´s enough from you, I will not have you talk to me like this!” Rarity stomped in the ground. “Now go to your room, you can come back down when you can behave yourself!” She said in as stern a voice as she could manage. She wasn´t used to her little sister behaving like this, and admittedly didn´t quite know how to handle the situation.
“Fine! I don´t want to be around you anyway!” the filly shouted trying to fight back the tears forming in her eyes, she turned around and started walking up the stairs, she couldn´t let her sister see that she was crying.
Sweetie Belle slammed the door shut behind her, tossing herself on the bed as tears started streaming down her cheeks.
As she was lying there on the light purple rug that was covering her bed. She started thinking. “Why do I even need a sister, it´s not like she really cares about me.” that´s when it came to her, the thought she feared the most, “Rarity doesn´t love me anymore” her expression turned from sadness to one of pure horror and then from horror to anger. “Why would I live with her if she doesn´t love me!?”. She was angry with her sister now - very angry - “What kind of big sister abandons her little sister like that!? She does not deserve to have me here!”. “I loved her you know” she said to into the empty room.
She was silent again as she laid pondering what she had just said to herself, eventually she decided on a course of action. “I am leaving, I will find a better place with a better sister who loves me and cares for me, one who will play with me and read me bedtime stories before I go to sleep.”
Reaching this conclusion, Sweetie Belle started packing her saddlebags – not that there was much to put in them – the only things she could really find that would be of any use. All she ended up packing was “Survival 101, all you need to know about staying alive in the wild” a book the Cutiemark Crusaders had gotten from Twilight when they tried to find their “wilderness survival cutiemarks”, and she found a chocolate bar for provisions, “It´s not much, I guess I will have to find some more food on the way.” She grabbed the blanket from her bed, folded it and put in her bag.
Then a thought came to her. “Although she doesn´t love me anymore, I still should leave a note telling her, that I am going to find a better place to live, one with ponies who love me!” She made a short note, just writing what was currently on her mind, she then left it on the table next to her bed.
Carefully grabbing the book with her mouth and tugging it into her saddlebag, an old thought returned “I wonder when I can start using my magic, I heard it normally comes to unicorns when they are about my age” she put a hoof to her chin as she wondered, “I will have to ask Rari.... ”she quickly put her hoof back down as she caught herself mid sentence. “NO NOT HER! She probably doesn´t even care.” the anger returned, “and by the way, I am leaving and I am never wanna see her again...ever.” On that note Sweetie Belle grabbed her saddlebags and threw them over her back, then proceeded to jump out the small window in her room leading out onto the roof. “Now how to get down from here?” She spotted the drainpipe leading down to the street bellow. Wrapping her hoofs around it and holding on to the best of her ability, she slid down the pipe and landed safely on the ground.
As she looked around there was nopony in sight, the street was empty, that’s when she noticed that it was getting dark, the sun hung low in the sky. She had perhaps an hour of daylight left before the bright sun would be replaced by the dim light of the moon. “Have I really been lying on my bed for so long?” She stopped her train of thought as she realized just how stupid her question was, off course she had, it was quite evident from the fact that the sun was going down. She shortly contemplated on going back inside, but decided against it, it was too late to turn back now. “I better hurry if I want to get out of Ponyville before dark.” Then it struck her “where do I go?”Once again she lifted a hoof to her chin as she considered her options, she came to a conclusion she thought reasonable, “I´ll have to find shelter for the night, there are plenty of hollow trees in whitetail woods, so that’s where I´m off to.”
Whitetail woods was a very large forest, best known for hosting Ponyvilles annual ´Running of the leaves´a funny name, as the leaves wasn´t actually doing any running. The forest was spreading many kilometers away from Ponyville. Along the edge of the forest was Ponyville park. Fillies and colts - including herself - often played in the outskirts of the woods. Nopony ever ventured far into the Whitetail woods as the forest grew denser and predators like wolves and bears became more frequent, the white filly had no intention of going far into the dangerous parts of the Whitetail.
By the time Sweeties Belle reached the woods the sun had set behind the trees and a beautiful full moon was rising on the horizon. Out here away from the lights of the village you could clearly see the thousands of stars in the sky, Sweeties Belle had never really taken her time to study the night sky, but when she looked up she could truly see how stunning it was. Despite her wanting to, she knew she didn´t have the time to stay and gaze at the stars. “I have to find some shelter before the cold sets in.” At that the filly set of into the forest in search of some kind of shelter to spend the night.
Rarity had gone back to her work on the dress, but she didn´t really get anything done, as none of her usual creativity seamed to come forward. She kept thinking of the argument with Sweetie Belle. She contemplated on what her sister had said about her never having the time for her. Thinking back she found – though she hated to admit it – that Sweetie Belle was right, she really had been neglecting her sister lately. The dressmaker decided that she would make up for it by taking tomorrow off, so she could spend the day with her sister.
In all her thinking she had apparently lost track of time and it was nearing dinner. In order to cheer Sweetie Belle up a little she would make pancakes, the fillys favorite dish.
Checking the cabinets in her meticulously clean kitchen - Rarity had some almost OCD-like tendencies when it came to cleaning, especially the kitchen, after all it is where you cook your food, so it was kept clean enough for someone to do heart-surgery on the table -. “well I seem to have all I need. Onto cooking then!” Mixing the dough didn´t take long, as she had the recipe memorized, pancakes was something often served in the household, as Sweetie Belle was not the only resident with a fondness for the particular food.
“Sweetie Belle, dinner is served!” she yelled out towards the stairs leading to the upper floor, as she carried a large plate loaded with pancakes and put it down on the dining table. Receiving no answer she continued “Come down now and get something to eat, it´s pancakes, your favorite!” Still no answer... “curious… that usually makes come running down here.” She thought “I better go check on her… make sure she is alright.” The white unicorn proceeded up the stairs towards her little-sisters room.
Rarity lifted her hoof and gently knocked on the door, “Sweetie are you in there?” Still no answer, “it´s okay, you can come out now” she said in the gentlest voice she could offer. Still no answer came from the other side of the door. Now Rarity was getting tired of this little game “I am coming in now” she said, annoyance clearly evident in her voice, maybe a little more than she wanted it to be.
Rarity slowly opened the door and stepped into the room, looking around she saw no sign of her younger sibling, the only evidence that Sweeties Belle had been in the room was that the blanket on her bed was gone. Assuming it had just been pulled of Raritys mild case of OCD kicked in and forced her to make the bed, as she walked closer she could see that the pillow muffled up and soaked in what she assumed was tears, this made her worry a little, “I had not expected it to be so hard on Sweetie Belle.” She thought with a frown on her face. The next thing she took notice of was the little white note on the bedside table lying next to the night lamp, curiosity getting the better of her she turned on the lamp, bathing the otherwise dark room in a soft yellowish light.
The hair on her back stood on end, when she read the few lines her sister had scribbled on the paper.
Dear Rarity
I am running away, because you don´t want me here anymore, as you say yourself “I can be quite a handful.”
A good sister is supposed to love and care for her sister.
So I am going to find a home with a sister who loves me.
Your former sister Sweetie Belle
Tears began to stream down Rarity´s cheeks as she read and re-read the message.
“I had no idea she had such troubled thoughts, I have been a simply horrible sister… I was to blind to see it… and now I have lost her!”
Rarity could no longer stand, she dropped to her knees and started sobbing. Lying there flat on the floor, the dressmaker started thinking back, for once considering her own efforts, after a short evaluation she found her performance as a sister to be inadequate.
“I have to find her, I have to fix this!” Springing to her hooves, head held high and with as much determination as possible, she declared “I swear by all that is good and beautiful in this world, that. I Rarity will get my sister back!”
On that note, the fashion designer bolted down stairs, using her magic to grab a white- and purple-striped scarf hanging by the front door. There was no time to waste, she was a mare on a mission, and no force in Equestria would be powerful enough to stop her, she would take on the combined power of Discord and Nightmare Moon if it meant getting her beloved Sweetie back.
The white unicorn was running through the otherwise quiet streets of Ponyville, calling out her sisters name as loudly as her voice could muster. The dressmaker had set her course for the town square as she believed that would be the most likely place for the filly to have run of to and it was not to far away.
Reaching the the fountain in the middle Ponyville town square, Rarity slowed down, breathing heavily, She could see no sign of the filly. A renewed sense of terror welled op in her when it finally dawned on her, that really she had no idea where Sweetie Belle would go. She stood still for a moment, thinking and catching her breath after the intense running.
“Where would she go, Sweetie Belle is a smart filly... She would go somewhere with shelter from the cold.” A flood of thoughts went through her head, as she tried to figure out where the younger unicorn, would be able to find a good place to spend the night. “Why yes off course... she will have gone to the Cutie Mark Crusaders clubhouse, down at Sweet Apple Acres!” Her face lightened up a little, as she allowed herself a brief moment to enjoy her own brilliance. Snapping back to reality, Rarity set off towards the apple orchard.