Rarity stormed down the stairs angrily, her hooves stomping loudly the whole way. She paused at the base of the stairs, gave an angry “Oooooooo,” and turned to stomp back up.
She repeated this several times until she realized that all she was doing was making herself sweatier.
She stomped into the small living room that connected her kitchen to the boutique showroom.
“That dragon!” she growled. “Thinks he’s Celestia’s gift to mares…”
She stopped her angry stomping as her eyes fell on a framed picture of Spike that sat on the end table near her couch. He was standing in front of the boutique, holding a framed diploma for some sort of honorary degree that he’d been awarded from the university in Canterlot. He’d been so proud when he’d received it that he’d rushed right over to tell his marefriend all about it, and she’d insisted immediately on capturing the moment for posterity.
“Oooooooooo!” she furiously hooted as the sight of the photograph fueled her ire to greater heights. “Look at you. Sitting there with that smug little grin on your smug little face… Think you’re so damned smart; let’s see if you’re smarter than this frying pan!”
Her horn flared brightly with magic as she gripped a pan from off the stove and rocketed it into the living room where it smashed against the picture frame.
“Now look what you’ve done!” she accused. “There’s glass everywhere!”
Her magic wrapped around the broken frame and each of the tiny glass fragments and dumped them into a dustbin in the corner. The picture floated gently over to Rarity where she could scowl directly at it.
“You were nothing when we met!” she shouted bitterly at the grinning Spike in the picture. “You were just a wide eyed little boy, following me around like a stray kitten! I thought that having a few more years under your belt would change that!”
She looked to the sky and waved her hooves around dramatically. “’Oh,’ everypony said, ‘he’s too young for you! That’s weird! Surely he’s not stallion enough for such a refined lady as yourself!’ But did I listen!? No! Because they didn’t know you like I did, didn’t know how mature you really were! And I gave you the chance!”
She spun around and wiggled her rump enticingly at the photo.
“I let you have a chance at all this! But did you appreciate it!? Of course not!”
She slapped the photo to the ground, grinding it into the plush carpeting with her hoof.
“But! You! Wanted! Somepony! Else!” she accused, bouncing up and down on the photograph with all four hooves to punctuate every word. Picture Spike’s cheery grin crumpled into a sad little frown under the mare’s anger.
“Two can play that game!” she told the crumpled picture on the floor. “I am Rarity! And I will find another before the night is through!”
Rarity strode into the boutique with purpose, levitating a small bag of bits from her cash box and stowing it atop her head, beneath a red pillbox evening hat from her display window. She pulled the thin, barely perceptible red lace over her eyes and huffed.
She opened the door with a flourish, turned, and addressed the empty boutique. “By all that is fashionable and by Celestia’s pointy horn itself, whether mare or stallion I care not, but I shall not sleep alone tonight!”
And with that she stepped into the night and descended upon the unsuspecting singles of Ponyville.
***
Rarity groaned in pain at the throbbing ache that stemmed from her brain and spread its roots through her body like a weed. Her head hurt, her joints hurt, her mouth was foul, her eyes were painfully dry… she felt like pain itself given pony flesh. Her right shoulder in particular throbbed in agony with every heart beat. She rubbed the crust from her eyes and bit back a yawn; it hurt too much to open her mouth that wide.
She looked around and found that she was lying alone in a stranger’s bed. It was a twin-sized, horribly cramped compared to her princess-sized bed back home, and fitted with plain white sheets of low thread-count cotton. She looked around for her hat and cursed herself when she realized it wasn’t in sight. She realized that she must have lost it at some point in the night.
“Oh, drat…” she mumbled, realizing that she might have gone a bit far the night before. She scanned the room for pictures or decorations that might indicate who she might have gone to bed with, but found the walls to be as bare as the single plain dresser in the corner.
And where was the lucky mare or stallion that had managed to snatch her up?
Rarity climbed out of bed and tiphoofed her way to the door. She opened it and looked up and down the hallway. She was alone, with no indication of there being anypony else around.
She stepped into the hall and examined one of the crooked hanging photographs on the wall.
A gray coated pegasus mare with an adorable blonde mane was smiling brightly at the camera, her eyes closed tightly with the fierceness of her grin. The mare in the picture was standing in front of the Ponyville post office with a mail carrier’s satchel hanging from her side.
“Well aren’t you a cute little thing?” Rarity quietly complimented the picture.
“Well that’s quite a compliment from somepony as pretty as you.”
Rarity nearly jumped out of her own skin at the surprise appearance of the bubbly voiced intruder. She wheeled around and found the very mare from the photograph, the same full-faced grin lighting up her face.
“Oh my, you startled me ever so badly,” Rarity laughed nervously.
“Sorry about that,” the mare apologized. “I don’t make a lot of noise, so sometimes I kind of sneak up on ponies without meaning to.”
Rarity held back a gasp as the mare relaxed her smile and opened her eyes. One of her gorgeous golden eyes was pointed right at Rarity, while the other was completely misaligned, pointing inward and upward like it was trying to read something on her forehead. Rarity resisted the urge to curse as she realized that there was a medical term for that particular condition, and that Spike, smug little well-read jerk that he was, would have known it. He was always the one that knew that kind of random thing.
“My name’s Ditzy Doo, if you didn’t know,” the mare said, seemingly oblivious to Rarity’s shock over her appearance. “You’re Rarity, right?”
“Err… yes…” Rarity said cautiously. “Thank you… Ditzy…”
“Come have some breakfast with me, I made waffles,” Ditzy said as she turned and disappeared around a corner.
Rarity followed her host, trying not to think too hard about the fact that she’d gone home with somepony whose name she didn’t even remember and who hadn’t even been sure of her name.
Ditzy’s house was small but cozy. Unlike the bedroom she’d awoken in, the rest of the house was filled with photographs, kitschy little knickknacks, and tacky tourist trap souvenirs.
Rarity took a seat as Ditzy led her into the kitchen, settling into a plush floor cushion in the shape of a sandwich with slight reluctance. A ceramic frog in the center of the table, the handle of a red spoon sticking out of its mouth like a tongue, stared at her with bulbous, lifeless eyes as it offered judgment and sugar in equal measure.
Ditzy brought over a heaping plate of waffles, pushing the condescending frog away to make room. She quickly added butter, syrup, a pitcher of water, a few plates and glasses, some flatware, a few slices of toast, and some orange juice. All in all it was a fabulous start to the morning.
“Thank you, dearie, this looks fantastic,” Rarity complimented as she poured a glass of water and swished the horrid taste out of her mouth.
Ditzy smiled and sat down, serving herself some of the waffles and making a decent dent in the stack as she did. The two mares ate their fill in silence, the sound of clinking forks and muffled chewing the only indication to either of them that another pony was in the room.
Rarity cleared her throat, now feeling civilized enough to speak.
“Thank you for last night,” she said nervously. “I do hope that you will keep my… indiscretions private, yes?”
Ditzy laughed suddenly but covered her mouth in embarrassment. “It’s a little late for that isn’t it?” she asked. “You were so loud last night the entire neighborhood heard you. One of my neighbors actually came over to complain.”
Rarity’s face burned so hotly that she was certain that Celestia was, at that very moment, checking to make sure her sun was still in the sky and not sitting in a kitchen in Ponyville. The urge to crawl inside that hideously judgmental frog’s mouth and simply live among the sugar was powerful in her.
“Well then,” Rarity said in a tight, squeakily deflating voice. “Congratulations on your performance. Brava. Why don’t I head on home and leave you to bask in your own sexual accomplishment? I think I’ll just… draw a nice hot bath and drink until I pass out and drown…”
“My what accomplishment?” Ditzy asked in wide eyed confusion. Realization fell over her like a fog. “Oh… Oh! Oh! Oh no no! I never! You never! We didn’t!”
Rarity’s jaw dropped. She surreptitiously rubbed her thighs together, noting that none of the stickiness or soreness that would indicate intimate congress seemed to be present.
“Oh my… so it would seem…” Rarity laughed in tired relief. “What happened then?”
“Well last night I was reading the newspaper in the living room,” Ditzy explained. “I heard something crash against my garden fence and start thrashing around. I went out to investigate and I found you on your back, rolling around in my radishes and screaming.”
“Screaming…?” Rarity asked despite her fears. She idly rubbed her shoulder, now knowing that crashing through a fence had probably been what had injured it.
“Yeah, you were screaming,” Ditzy nodded. “You were all ‘Why doesn’t anypony want me!?’ and stuff. I could tell that you were having a rough night from the smell of liquor on you, so I just helped you inside and got you into my guest room.”
Rarity sat in silence, her face an unreadable, unfocused stare into the middle distance.
“I see,” she said simply, her voice lifeless and dark. “That’s quite a pickle I’ve gotten myself in. I think I’ll have that bath now; thank you for your hospitality and excuse me.”
Ditzy shook off her surprise at her guest’s sudden moody departure and stood quickly. She rushed into the living room and stood in Rarity’s way, blocking the front door with her wings held out like a barricade.
“No you don’t!” Ditzy commanded sternly. “Nopony leaves this house with a frown! Only smiles! Go sit on the couch and let’s talk about this.”
In the furthest reaches of Rarity’s mind she considered simply pushing the pegasus down and continuing on her way, but the will to fight had already left her body. She turned back into the room and sat on the enormous plaid sofa that took up a third of the tiny living space. The feel of cheap wool touching her fabulous coat slapped her back to reality, making her squirm in discomfort until her rear was able to acclimatize to the dreadful material.
Ditzy disappeared back into the kitchen, giving her a sobering glare and a commanding, “Stay here.”
She returned a few moments later, her wings wrapped around two big glasses of iced tea. Rarity normally preferred hot tea, but she wasn’t going to complain given the direness of the situation; when the chips were truly down, tea was tea.
“I’m so ashamed…” Rarity admitted as Ditzy set the drinks down on the coffee table and sat next to her. “I’m simply going to have to leave Ponyville, that’s all there is to it.”
“Oh that’s crazy talk,” Ditzy replied. “Where will you go? What will you do?”
“I’ll live in the Appleachian Mountains and design overalls for hillbillies. Nopony there will bat an eye when the local seamstress goes on a moonshine fueled bender.”
“It’s really not that bad,” Ditzy told her soothingly. “Lots of ponies have off days.”
“I don’t,” Rarity countered. “I’m an avante garde fashionista, on the bleeding edge of Equestria’s clothing scene. Everypony who is anypony has worn my designs. In my business image is literally everything, and what I did last night didn’t just tarnish it, it set it on fire and threw it to the bottom of the ocean, then set the ocean on fire, then crashed the sun into the burning ocean.”
“Ooooo,” Ditzy cooed. “That’s an interesting image. Do you think the sun would go out or would the water evaporate first? Let me tell you, that sounds like a pretty busy day for the weather teams.”
Ditzy shook her head to clear her thoughts.
“Sorry,” she apologized. “I get distracted easy. But listen, nopony’s going to think any less of you for whatever you might have done last night. Ponyville’s a great place; we’re all friends and neighbors here.”
Rarity narrowed her eyes.
“I tried to pick up a random pony at the singles bar and apparently struck out, then stumbled home, drunk and belligerent, and crashed into another pony’s garden where I writhed and shrieked like an idiot before passing out.”
“Well you can make anything sound bad if you deconstruct it like that,” Ditzy said with a nervous chuckle.
“You think I’m vile, don’t you?” Rarity asked as she took a huge gulp of tea, which turned out to be quite good, and wiped her mouth on the back of her hoof like an unmannered trollop. “I can’t even imagine how horrible I must have been last night that I couldn’t even get laid on just the celebrity of being an Element of Harmony.”
Ditzy sighed and gently sipped her own drink. “I’m not going to judge you, Rarity. Everypony breaks a little at least once in their life. All I’ll ask is if you think what you did was right, because that’s the only opinion that should matter. Although the way you’re being hard on yourself, I think I’ve got a pretty good idea of what you think of your own actions.”
Rarity stared at the floor, so deep in introspection that she barely even noticed the scary looking clown woven into the throw rug under the coffee table.
“This is about Spike, right?” Ditzy asked suddenly.
“What?” Rarity asked, completely taken aback. “How ever did you know about Spike and I?”
Ditzy flashed a knowing grin. “I got today off, but most every other day of the week I’m a mail carrier. The library’s been on my route since before Twilight and Spike even came to town. Spike always answers the door if I have a delivery, and boy does he like to talk about you.”
“So he gossips about me, does he?” Rarity began to fume.
“Nothing like gossip,” Ditzy assured her. “It’s always just things about having plans with you, or how pretty you are, or how well a date went. Nothing too personal, I promise, just chit-chat.”
Rarity sighed, cutting off her anger before it started to froth. Getting angry was what had started this whole mess in the first place.
“He came to my shop yesterday,” she explained, “came with his new marefriend.”
Rarity let the word ooze out of her mouth like a bad taste and took a drink of her tea to rinse her palate.
“We’ve only been broken up a few weeks, and he’s already got somepony else,” she growled. She took another deep breath and another drink. No need to get upset.
“I thought your break up was mutual,” Ditzy pointed out. “That’s what Spike had said. Of course he didn’t give me any details, but he did say you two didn’t have any hard feelings and wanted to stay friends. This seems like hard feelings.”
“It was mutual,” Rarity clarified. “We were both… I suppose bored with each other, but even that’s not accurate. There was just no excitement, no passion. We enjoyed the same things, we perfectly complimented one another, but there was just… no harmony. No magic. We love each other as the very best of friends, but the romance just isn’t there.”
Rarity slumped backwards against the arm rest, pulling her rear legs under her in a poor attempt to get comfortable. She was feeling rather squeamish, and not entirely because of the sofa.
“Then what was up with last night?” Ditzy asked.
“I’m just so painfully lonely…” Rarity admitted, the words coming more easily than she would have expected. “Do you know what it’s like? To have something so perfect but knowing it’s not right?”
Rarity’s expression saddened as she looked to Ditzy’s face, focusing on her good eye, and pleading for understanding. The thoughts and meditations of the past few weeks rushed to her lips and spilled out of her fluidly, with increasing ease and surprising eloquence.
“Spike chased me for years, becoming everything I could have wanted in a lover, just to please me… But it was so difficult to get over the differences in our ages. I’d known him as a child; as the little brother of one of my best friends. I wasn’t much older than he was, but still, a few years so early in life can make worlds of difference, and that initial impression was something nearly monumental to overcome. In spite of that, he wanted me, and by Celestia I wanted him as well, so I got over it, and it was with no small amount of reflection and worry that I had.”
She dropped a hoof to her stomach, grinding it into her coat to still the onset of emotionally triggered indigestion. Ditzy’s sweet breakfast certainly disagreed with such a sour topic of discussion.
“Acknowledging that it was a doomed enterprise was soul-wrenching. I’d thrown caution so deeply to the wind that, when it failed, I felt a piece of myself hollow out. The frustration we felt in the weeks leading to our eventual split was indescribable, and when it finally did end… It was painful, but the weeks went on and I was beginning to recover, to become myself again…”
Rarity sat up straight, tears in her eyes as she neared the most difficult part.
“And then he found somepony else! I can still smell him in my damned mane, and he’s already moved on! From me, the mare that he said was the love of his life! He wanted me to be friends with her! Wanted me to be the first of our friends to meet my replacement!”
She felt Ditzy take her hoof gently in her own. Ditzy’s eyes shone with teary empathy. Rarity took a moment to blink away her own tears and center herself with a shuddering sigh.
“I was all smiles until they left. And when they were gone… I started railing against the very memory of our love. I worked myself up into a fury. ‘How dare he get over me so quickly?’ and so on. I convinced myself that it had been his fault that we didn’t work out. That he didn’t love me enough. That he’d loved that guttermouthed strumpet the whole time. That even if it had never been physical, there must have been at least emotional infidelity.”
“You don’t want him back, do you?” Ditzy asked.
“Of course not,” Rarity said with confidence. “The writing is on the wall and not even separation has changed it. I’m… I’m happy for him…”
“There’s a ‘but’ there, isn’t there?” Ditzy guessed, leaning in just a little.
“I’m happy for him,” Rarity continued with a quivering lip, “but I want to be happy for myself as well. Is that selfish? I just want to not be so alone.”
Ditzy scooted closer and pull the other mare into a tight hug.
“Oh, honey,” Ditzy soothed as she stroked Rarity’s back. “It’s not selfish at all. Nopony wants to be alone.”
Rarity cried softly into Ditzy’s mane, rubbing her face deeper into the sweet smelling hair. She realized now that what she’d felt wasn’t only loneliness, it was jealousy. It was jealousy that Spike had been able to recover from their failure so much more easily than she had; jealousy that she was still mourning their loss and he wasn’t.
Why did he have to move on so quickly? Time would have helped. Time would have made it all so much easier. Time would have made the loneliness, the jealousy, less profound.
If she had met somepony else first, would he have been as distraught? Might the bizarre machinations of fate have led Spike to be the one on Ditzy’s couch being pulled off the edge of an emotional cliff? She had no idea, and didn’t care to ruminate on such matters; meditating on metaphysical possibilities had always been more Spike’s thing.
Ditzy held the crying mare until long after the tears had stopped. She released her grip only once Rarity had felt well enough to push herself away and swipe daintily at the tracks running down her cheeks.
“Goodness, look at me,” Rarity laughed in embarrassment. “I barely know you and I’m here pouring my heart out to you.”
Rarity reached out and smoothed out Ditzy’s soft, golden locks tenderly.
“I’ve positively ruined your gorgeous mane,” Rarity sighed. Her eyes widened as her own hair came to mind. “Mirror! I need a mirror!”
Ditzy hopped off the couch and pointed to one of her tchotchke shelves.
“Flip the lid on that,” she suggested, directing the frantic fashionista towards a wooden box painted with zebra stripes.
Rarity rushed to the shelf and did as instructed. The lid opened, triggering clockwork mechanisms within and filling the air with a hauntingly out of tune melody. The music box certainly had seen better days, but Rarity couldn’t have cared less about that.
The disheveled diva turned the box this way and that, examining herself in the mirror affixed to the inside of the lid with growing horror. Her mane was an absolute rat’s nest of tangles. Her normally vibrant, glossy hair was dull and greasy, with little clumps of dirt and stray splinters of wood that were presumably from her trip into Ditzy’s garden.
She reached up with a shaky hoof to try and straighten out one of her locks. A knot came undone somewhere deep inside the mass of hair and a radish fell to the carpet with a thud, coaxing a pained whimper from her throat.
Rarity turned to Ditzy and mewled pathetically.
“You can use my shower if you want,” Ditzy offered. “Go down the hallway, it’s the door right after the guest room you slept in.”
Rarity thanked her host and quickly trotted to the indicated room.
Ditzy Doo’s bathroom was just as queerly decorated as the rest of her home. Hideous decorative towels designed with misshapen kittens and gaudy ceramic dolphins cluttered the bathroom, making it almost impossible to maneuver. Rarity didn’t care about any of that, because the enormous bathtub made it the most beautiful room she had ever seen… even with the rubber ducky themed shower curtain.
Rarity pulled back the curtain and turned the water on while she held a hoof out to test the temperature. The water pressure, the most important aspect of any shower, in Ditzy’s house was fabulous. Soon the stream was just a degree or two hotter than she normally enjoyed; a perfect temperature to soothe her pain and help scrub away the filth.
She climbed in and let the hard stream of water beat against her aches and run down her coat. She watched the dirtied water swirl down the drain for a few minutes in quiet pleasure before beginning her thorough scrubbing.
Ditzy, sadly, had none of Rarity’s various oils, poultices, and imported shampoos. She made do with the off-the-shelf shampoo, squirting it liberally into her coat and lathering it briskly with her magic. The same sweet scent that had been in Ditzy’s hair now filled the air, replacing the earthy stink of sweaty fur and wet dirt. Rarity had never been a fan of food-scented hair care products, but the smell of cherries certainly seemed to suit the kindly mare.
Rarity finished rinsing off and dried herself with a fluffy white towel. She wiped the fog from the mirror over the sink and checked the medicine cabinet for a hairbrush. Her magic plucked a few stray blonde hairs from the bristles and she went to work sorting her mane back into something resembling her usual curls. Usually she would never dream of using something as personal as another pony’s hairbrush, but these were exigent circumstances. It took several attempts but she finally managed to make herself presentable.
“Ditzy,” she called as she stepped out of the bathroom. “I’m finished! Where are you?”
“Kitchen!” Ditzy called back. “Thought you’d fallen in!”
Rarity checked an ornate cuckoo clock on the wall and noted that she had indeed taken nearly three quarters of an hour in the shower without even realizing it. It was less time than she would have spent in the bath at home, but more than she would have preferred when using somepony else’s. She entered the kitchen to find Ditzy standing upright, leaning against the counter, a knife held by one wingtip while the other pulled vegetables out of glass bowls and arranged them on a cutting board.
“Sorry I took so long, but the water pressure in your shower is fantastic, I simply had to take the opportunity to enjoy it fully,” Rarity complimented with a smile.
“Thank you!” Ditzy exclaimed happily as she spun around to return the smile that she knew she was receiving. Her free wing brushed across the cutting board as she turned, sweeping the chopped vegetables to the floor.
“Ooops,” Ditzy declared in a deflated tone. “Looks like we’re not having stir-fry for lunch…”
She put down the knife and went to the pantry to fetch her broom and dustpan.
“Please, allow me,” Rarity offered. She levitated the mess off the floor in a single movement and dumped it all into a garbage can in the corner.
“Wow, wish I could do magic,” Ditzy giggled. “I have a lot of ‘oopsie’ moments, and magic like that would totally be super convenient for clean ups.”
“Everypony is a little clumsy sometimes,” Rarity soothed.
“Nah, not like me,” Ditzy said as she cleared away the chopping board and started digging around in her fridge for something else to make. “You probably noticed my eyes. They’re not too good at judging distances, and it makes some things really difficult. And because of that, I get kind of nervous out in public when I’m doing stuff and I think other ponies might be watching. Plus, I think I might’ve mentioned, but I do kind of get kind of scatterbrained sometimes. I’m pretty easily distracted by my own thoughts, or sometimes by really interesting things happening around me. It’s a lot of little things that add up to one accident prone pony. Rainbow Dash used to call all my little quirks a perfect storm of accidents waiting to happen.”
“You know Rainbow Dash?”
Ditzy nodded despite her head being in the fridge where Rarity couldn’t see the affirmation. “I know her from when she used to run the weather teams. All the pegasi in Ponyville are part of the volunteer weather patrol reserves, on account of it being such a small place compared to places like Cloudsdale.”
Rarity wanted to ask more about her new friend’s acquaintance with one of her best friends, but the sound of a hammer striking wood came from outside. She went to the window and found an older, brown coated stallion repairing a broken section of the white picket fence surrounding Ditzy’s home. The stallion must have sensed eyes on his back because he turned, allowing her to see the saw shaped cutie mark on his flank. He gave her a nod and returned to work.
“Oh my, you’ve already found somepony to repair the damage I caused?” Rarity asked.
“Yeah, that’s my neighbor, he’s a carpenter,” Ditzy explained. “I talked to him while you were in the shower.”
“You simply must allow me to reimburse you for the repairs,” Rarity insisted.
“Don’t worry about it,” Ditzy said. She pulled a bowl of mixed greens out of the fridge and gave it an experimental sniff. “I watch his foals for him sometimes, so he does little things like this for me for free.”
“The materials, then?” Rarity asked hopefully.
“I already had them,” Ditzy laughed. “I have lots of extra lumber, and paint, and other repair stuff in my back shed. Like I said, I’m kind of accident prone, so I like to keep that stuff around just in case.”
“Please, there must be something I can do to repay your generosity,” Rarity pleaded. She pressed her snout against Ditzy’s side and nudged her towards the table before taking the liberty of checking the fridge and removing the necessary ingredients for a nice fruit salad.
Ditzy allowed herself to be divested of the duty of lunch preparation with a smile.
“It’s no big deal,” Ditzy assured her. “You’d have done the same.”
“It certainly is a big deal,” Rarity declared with a flip of her hair. “I mean, not even counting the fact of you taking me in after my… foolishness last night, you were remarkably kind to sit me down and listen to my sad, rambling tale.”
“No really, it’s no big deal, I mean it,” Ditzy proclaimed cheerily. “I love listening to other ponies’ problems. Plus I’ve always kind of wanted to be a psychiatrist, so I guess that’s probably why I don’t mind listening to that kind of stuff. Or maybe I could’ve been a bartender, ponies tell bartenders their problems too, right? But if I was a psychiatrist I could totally get business cards printed up and I’d have a jingle and it’d go ‘Ditzy Doo is here to listen to you~’ and I’d get it to play on the radio.”
Ditzy snapped her mouth shut and turned away so Rarity couldn’t see her tapping her forehead and muttering, “Focus, focus, focus, you have a guest, focus,” to herself.
Rarity did see her, and she tittered at the adorable antics of the silly pegasus.
“You’re exceedingly cute, you know that, right?” Rarity told Ditzy.
Ditzy turned her gaze downward and blushed at the compliment.
“But really, there absolutely must be something I can do for you,” Rarity insisted. “A new dress? A nice dinner? Anything your heart desires, please just name it.”
Ditzy’s head snapped up, her eyes bright with excitement.
“The Flea Market!” she shouted.
Rarity blinked. “The what, dear?”
“Flea Market!” Ditzy repeated. “Flea Market! Flea Market! You can come with me! Nopony ever comes with me!”
Ditzy was on her hooves now, wings buzzing like a hummingbird, bouncing around in unrestrained glee at the prospect of having a shopping buddy for the first time.
“I still don’t follow you, my dear,” Rarity said as she turned from the counter to look at Ditzy, her magic working the knife on the chopping board behind her. “I can tell you’re excited, but I’m afraid I haven’t the foggiest idea of what a Flea Market is.”
Ditzy stopped bouncing and sat on the floor, a hoof to her chin in consideration.
“Well, it’s the best place in the world,” she began explaining. “It’s this market they have over in Rainbow Falls, where ponies can bring their own stuff to sell.”
“You mean the Traders Exchange?” Rarity asked. “Isn’t that a few months off?”
“It’s not the Exchange, no,” Ditzy corrected. “It’s the same place, and kind of the same thing, but the Traders Exchange is like a great big game that only happens once a year, where everypony deals only in swaps. The Flea Market is about cold hard cash and it happens the first Saturday of every month. That’s in just a few days!”
“So bits instead of trades, like the regular market in town square?”
“Yeah, but anypony can set up shop as long as they reserve a stall. If you wanted to sell something in town you’d have to get a vendor’s license from city hall and those’re expensive. This is more like… like a yard sale! A bunch of yard sales congregating together into a single, huge yard sale, forming a mega-yard sale of ultimate bargains!”
“A Yard Sale of Harmony?” Rarity quipped.
Ditzy nodded animatedly. “Exactly so!”
Rarity cocked her head curiously. “But why is it called a Flea Market?”
“Anypony can sell their stuff there, so it’s a ‘Flea Market’ because there’s always the danger that whatever you bought came from some dirty pony’s house and is covered in fleas.”
Rarity’s eyes widened in a mixture of fear and revulsion. She had never heard of anything so foul in her life.
“Are... are you sure I can’t just make you a dress…?”
Ditzy rushed forward and wrapped her arms around Rarity in a bone crushing hug.
“Flea Market!” she insisted.
“What if it’s a really nice dress…?” Rarity asked desperately. “Or two dresses…?”
Ditzy tightened her squeeze just a little more.
“Ten dresses, any six hats from my boutique, and a wheelbarrow filled with sapphires. That’s my final offer.”
“Flea Market!”
“…Flea Market… hooray…”
“Hooray!”
Rarity began to wonder if there was still time to drown herself in the bathtub.
***
For the next two days Rarity poured over every newspaper she could find. Luckily, the paparazzo hadn’t been around to catch her at her nadir, and Ditzy’s assurances that nopony in Ponyville would judge her harshly for her slip had been correct. There had been a few hushed whispers at first, but they had died very quickly. She was, after all, a respected hero of Equestria, and one of Ponyville’s most lauded citizens, so the townsponies were very quick to forgive and forget a single horrifyingly embarrassing mistake.
The days passed quickly and soon it was the morning of her trip to the Flea Market with Ditzy. They met early in the morning, just after sunrise, and breakfasted on donuts and coffee. A short train ride later and they were in Rainbow Falls.
Rarity was no stranger to the Rainbow Falls Fair Grounds. It was one of the largest open air venues in all of Equestria, and even despite their busy schedules, she and her friends always did their very best to make the trip for the yearly Traders Market as a group.
However, her many trips had ill prepared her for the spectacle of the monthly Flea Market.
While the spirit of the Traders Market urged ponies to bring their very best wares for trade, the Flea Market could only be described as the fallout of a junk yard explosion hurling garbage into an antique store. Ponies moved as a single, writhing mass, milling about between cramped stalls filled with everything from criminally out of style clothing to fresh garden-grown produce. The air was filled with the sounds of lively haggling and smelled heavily of moldy furniture.
It was very clearly the place that Ditzy had acquired the majority of her… unique décor.
Some stalls had newer items, of course, but they were mostly low cost, low quality items bought in bulk so they could be flipped for a profit. Almost immediately upon entering the grounds Rarity had spotted a table filled with bootlegged toys. She trotted over to inspect the items, and there, right next to a Princess Celestia doll with a pink paintjob that made her look suspiciously like Cadance, was a Rarity doll with four rubies for a Cutie Mark and a manufacturing defect that left a tumor-like growth at the base of its horn.
She promptly purchased the offending toy, stomped it into pieces, and dropped it in a nearby garbage receptacle.
“Well I’ve done my good deed for the day,” she declared.
Ditzy giggled at the small act of vanity and took her friend on a tour of what she considered the best parts of the Flea Market: the Farmer’s Market Alley, the food court, the stage where small time bands could perform, and the bounce house.
“The bouncy castle is probably my favorite non-foody thing here!” Ditzy explained as they strolled past the enormous inflated replica of Canterlot Castle. “You only pay a bit and you get to jump for five whole minutes! It’s so bouncy and jumpy! It’s like flying!”
Rarity’s hooves stalled on her for a moment at this description. “But Ditzy, dear, you’re a pegasus. You can actually fly.”
“Yeah but the bouncy castle is like flying, which is totally different from actually flying!”
Rarity blinked. The time that Twilight had given her a pair of gossamer wings came to her mind, and she mentally compared the experience to a memory of playing in a bounce house as a filly.
“I suppose I never thought of it that way… but you have a point,” Rarity admitted.
“Hey look at that!” Ditzy exclaimed as she darted off to fawn over some chipped pottery.
Rarity followed after her and nodded to the stall owner, a spruce colored unicorn mare that was loudly popping bubble gum. She found a rather sizeable clothing rack to browse through while Ditzy inspected whatever had caught her eye.
“Hideous… a travesty… a sin against fashion… oh this is just plain ugly,” she commented loudly on each piece of clothing as she went. “What is this supposed to be, haute couture? More like not couture. This is… actually this one is quite nice.”
Rarity levitated the mauve colored evening gown and examined the fabric. It was a lovely little satin number in an informal tea-length cut with chiffon accents.
“The stitching on this is magnificent…” Rarity critiqued. “It’s resplendent, it’s masterful, it’s… It’s one of mine!”
Rarity gasped and waved the garment indignantly in the face of disinterested looking salespony.
“What is this doing here!?” she demanded.
“I dunno, lady,” the mare said with a shrug. “I got all those clothes from a thrift store.”
“What what what!? I made this for the mayor of Baltimare!”
“That’s nice. If you want it, it’s two bits.”
“Two bits!?” Rarity shrieked. “This is hoof-stitched satin, designed by one of the finest clothiers in Equestria! Even used, this dress is worth fifty times that!”
“…three bits.”
“Three bits!” she scoffed. “Do you hear that, everypony? Three bits for a dress that took seven hours of painstaking labor to design! This was special ordered to be worn to the Grand Galloping Gala!”
“…five bits?”
Rarity floated a stack of bits out of her saddlebags and slammed them angrily on the counter.
“Thirty bits!” she declared. “And not a bit less!”
“Sold!” the mare quickly agreed, sweeping the coins into a metal lockbox.
Rarity grinned triumphantly and turned as she stowed the dress in her bags. She began to walk away when she was struck by a moment of clarity.
“Wait what just happened?” she wondered aloud. She spun around in time to watch the salesmare lean a piece of cardboard reading ‘ALL SALE IS FINAL’, misspelling and all, against her stand.
“I don’t think you quite grasp the point of haggling,” came Ditzy’s muffled voice from behind her.
“I just don’t know what went wrong…” Rarity muttered. “Speaking of wrong, what’s wrong with your voice?”
Rarity turned to her companion and chortled in an unladylike manner. Ditzy had somehow gotten her head inside of an old porcelain vase and was completely unfazed by her new addition.
“Ditzy, darling, what happened to you?” she snickered. She tugged the vase gently with her magic, pulling the silly pegasus free with an audible pop.
“Phew, thanks, Rarity, it was getting kind of hard to breathe in there,” Ditzy sighed. “I thought that vase might be valuable, so I was looking for a maker’s mark in case it was signed by some super famous pony, because that kind of thing happens at the Flea Market sometimes. But it wasn’t on the bottom or anything so I thought maybe it’d be inside but when I put my head in my neck blocked the light so I couldn’t see so I tried to pull it out but then I got stuck.”
Ditzy snapped her mouth closed with an audible click of her teeth. She breathed deeply and looked at the ground sheepishly, tapping her forehead silently.
Rarity laughed behind her hoof and pretended not to notice the adorable ritual the pegasus used to keep her train of thought on the correct rails.
Ditzy opened her saddlebags and checked a small pocket watch, the kind that train conductors kept, and noted the time.
“Wow, we’ve already been here for two hours,” Ditzy commented in surprise. “Time is really flying by. Want to get something to eat?”
Rarity smiled gratefully. “Absolutely, my dear. I’m positively famished.”
“Anything you’re in the mood for in particular?” Ditzy asked, chewing her lip in thought as she perused her mental catalogue of everything available to eat in the Flea Market.
“You are the expert here. I shall leave myself in your capable hooves.”
“Food court, then!” Ditzy declared. She darted off into the crowd, trotting at a slow jog.
Rarity followed but soon lagged behind. Although Ditzy wasn’t running very quickly, she easily covered more ground. She wove through the gaps in the crowd like a needle through thread, making her way to the food court with confident strides.
By the time Rarity had reached the food court, Ditzy was already paying for their lunch. The cute little pegasus waved to Rarity over the crowd and pointed to an empty spot in the grass near the middle of the picnic area.
“Here you go,” Ditzy said as she offered Rarity’s share of lunch. “It’s just something to snack on. I know you prefer nicer food, so we can hit a restaurant or something when we get back to Ponyville later, but this’ll tide us over.”
Rarity lifted one of the long, sticklike foodstuffs that Ditzy held tucked under her wing and examined it closely. It was golden brown and made of some sort of fried bread covered in white sugar.
“What is this?” she asked cautiously.
“Churro!” Ditzy said with a grin. She took a bite and hummed happily as she savored the taste. “The guy here makes them with chocolate filling. It’s great.”
Rarity eyed the confection curiously but took a small bite.
“This is ever so delicious,” Rarity said as she chewed. “It’s something like a donut.”
“Something like one, yeah!” Ditzy nodded.
After they finished their churros, Rarity asked for a second one with a bold declaration of, “What do I care if I get fat? I’m single now, who do I have to impress?”
She quickly rescinded the comment, but ate the second churro anyway.
“So did you get anything good?” Ditzy asked, eyeing the bags next to Rarity.
“I’m afraid the pickings are rather slim,” Rarity sighed. “I did, however, find some lovely costume jewelry and a wonderfully stylish antique brass oil lamp.”
She pulled the items out of her bags and held them up for Ditzy to inspect.
“Great finds!” Ditzy complimented. “You’ve got an eye for quality. But I guess that goes without saying.”
“And you?” Rarity, asked. She was almost afraid to find out, knowing the sort of tacky things her friend seemed to like decorating her house with.
Ditzy rummaged in her bags and pulled out a few of her purchases.
“Check out this goofy cactus!” she said excitedly. The miniature desert plant was in a plastic dome dangling from a keychain. It sported a pair of googly eyes that flung about wildly when she shook it and the slogan 'Viva Las Pegasus' was written across the pot. “You can unscrew it to give it water. The lady I bought it from said you only have to water it once a month!”
She pulled out a few more items: a ceramic rooster lawn ornament; a poorly constructed rag doll that was presumably made by a child judging from the loose stitching; and a small framed velvet portrait of a sad, crying Princess Celestia in clown makeup.
“Isn’t this the ugliest thing you’ve ever seen in your life!?” Ditzy gushed as she fawned over the velvet painting.
Rarity’s jaw dropped in shock. She had not expected such an apt assessment from a pony with what she had assumed was such clearly bad taste.
“Wait, Ditzy, my darling, are you saying… you know that these things are ugly?” she asked cautiously.
“Well, duh!” Ditzy laughed with a chuckle. “My eyes may be bad, but they’re not that bad.”
“And the objects in your house, you also think…?” she questioned with a raised eyebrow.
“Every knickknack is tackier than the last!” she declared proudly.
“But… I don’t understand, why collect these things? Do you derive some sort of ironic enjoyment from them?”
“Well, maybe a little,” Ditzy said with a shrug. “But I really do honestly like this kind of stupid, tacky stuff, precisely because of how ugly it is.”
Rarity shook her head in confusion. Rarity was a mare who’d spent her life chasing the finest that life had to offer: the finest clothing, the finest food, the finest everything. She just could not wrap her brain around the concept of loving things because they were hideous.
Ditzy noticed the turmoil written on her fashionable friend’s face. She took a deep breath and tried to explain.
“Look at this ugly painting,” she urged. “Somepony loved this painting. Even despite how stupid it looks, how poor the perspective and use of light are, they loved it. Just like all of the things I collect. Maybe it was because they had bad taste, or because it reminded them of somepony else or someplace they’d been, but these things made their owners happy, if even only for the brief moment when they were buying or making it. Don’t you think that’s beautiful? To see past imperfection and find something that’s meaningful to yourself?”
She stroked the velvet painting lovingly, enjoying the feel of the soft velvet against her hoof as she traced the tears falling from Clown Celestia’s eyes.
“That’s why I love this place. It’s filled with things that ponies loved despite the flaws or silliness. I’ve never thought too hard about it, honestly, but I guess I buy these things to rescue them. I want to give them a new home with somepony who appreciates them for what they are.”
Ditzy laughed sadly, lifting her hoof from the eyes of the painting and bringing it to her own face. She ran her hoof gently along the outside of her own eye, the misaligned one, and sighed.
The significance of Ditzy’s words and the way she stroked the side of her own face were not lost on Rarity. She began to wonder if maybe Ditzy saw herself as one of these broken, imperfect objects, and lived in the hope that one day she would be cared for as well. All the time they had spent talking about her relationship problems, she had never once asked Ditzy about her own love life, or lack thereof.
Rarity could certainly understand the fantasy of wanting to be ‘rescued’. She’d had fantasies about being swept off her hooves by a handsome stranger or a gallant prince since she was just a filly. Perhaps, in this regard, she and Ditzy were not too dissimilar.
“Oh buh,” Ditzy laughed. “This isn’t Flea Market talk! This is way too serious a discussion! The Flea Market is fun, not serious!”
She stood and packed away her new additions to her collection.
“I saw a stall on the way here that had some really homely quilts,” she informed Rarity. “I didn’t stop, but they looked super fluffy and warm. I like ugly things, but something like that has to be functional too, ya know? You can tell me if the stitching is any good.”
“I’d love to lend you my expertise,” Rarity answered shakily, taken aback by the sudden shift in Ditzy’s mood.
“Let’s go!”
“Wait Ditzy! I’m not done with my churro!” Rarity called while she slipped on her bags and stuffed what was left of her snack into her mouth.
She galloped off after her friend, her eyes alight with a new appreciation for the wares being peddled at the monthly Rainbow Falls Flea Market.
***
Rarity sat in front of her design table, her chin resting atop her arms on the table like a pillow. She was levitating a pin and stabbing it lazily into a little pony-shaped pin cushion.
Try as she might, inspiration just would not come to her. This was not something she was used to. Even in the very depths of depression, she could always design.
But for over a week, she’d been a dry well. Her inspiration room’s carpeting had a circle of wear in it from the amount of worried pacing she’d done since she’d found herself in a drought of creativity. She was becoming very worried.
“Is this because of Spike…?” she wondered aloud. It couldn’t have been him, she decided. It had taken the help of somepony that she now considered a very good friend, but she no longer felt a hot pang of jealousy stabbing into her gut with the mere mention of his name or the name of his new marefriend.
“Maybe I should see Ditzy…”
A smile came to her face as she considered a visit with her friend. It was already nearly evening, so Ditzy would no doubt already be home from work. Every day since that first night that Rarity had literally crashed into Ditzy’s life, the two new friends had taken time to at least get together for a quick cup of coffee and a recap of the day.
She tilted her head to the side in an attempt to get more comfortable, causing one of her curls to fall across her face and tickle at her nose. She took a deep breath to try and blow it away. She noted that the smell of Ditzy’s cherry scented shampoo still lingered in her hair despite the several baths she’d taken since that day. Her breath came out as a sigh of content at the scent and a small flutter in her chest increased her heart rate for just a beat or two.
She sat up straight, her eyes wide in surprise.
“Oh dear,” she muttered. “Oh dear, oh dear…”
She held a hoof to her chest, closing her eyes and trying to feel the beat of the thing.
So took a deep breath and whispered gently, “Ditzy…”
Her heart rate jumped once again, just a beat or two.
“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear…”
She needed a walk, desperately. She went downstairs, through the boutique, and out the front door, locking it behind herself.
Did she really have feelings? For Ditzy? It couldn’t be.
Ditzy being a mare wasn’t even remotely an issue. Most ponies had fairly fluid sexual preferences, and Rarity knew only a few who were staunchly in a single camp in regards to gender attraction. Besides, Rarity had always considered herself to have a greater than average appreciation of the female form, strictly as a matter of her trade. And how silly would it be if she turned down a potential romantic interest just because of a silly thing like gender, especially when she’d just gotten out of a relationship with a member of an entirely different species.
Yes, that was the issue: Spike.
It had already been almost two months since their break up, but she still felt very much on the rebound. She couldn’t trust herself to make a decision like this, and especially not with a pony that she felt was a friend. Not after the disappointment of her and Spike’s friendship-turned-romance.
She needed to talk to somepony, to talk to another friend.
But the friend she would normally go to first about such life altering decisions wasn’t an option at the moment, not for something as delicate as romance… Or maybe that didn’t matter. She still considered him one of her very best friends, and he always had a good head on his shoulders. His advice would of course be invaluable.
But then again, it wasn’t like she was without other friends who could be just as insightful. Yes, she thought, she should visit one of them, or maybe all of them and get a spectrum of advice with which to formulate a conclusion.
On the other hoof… nopony knew her heart the way Spike did…
Rarity looked up as a shadow fell over her. She had been walking without thought, her legs carrying her along on a path that she had walked countless times before. They had made the decision for her and led her straight for the library.
She wiggled her ears and blushed as she heard the voices floating down from the open balcony doors on the third floor where Spike’s room was.
***
When Spike had decided to begin dating Lyra, he’d never once thought things would have ended up this way.
“My lovely, wonderful, loving little Spikey,” Lyra cooed as she nuzzled her face against his cheek.
“Lyra…”
“My wuvy-duvy little puddin’ smoopy!” she cried as she increased the intensity of her nuzzling, peppering his face with little kisses.
“Lyra…”
Lyra dropped off Spike’s bed and writhed rapturously on the floor.
“I just love you so much, my beloved darling!” she cried, tears in her eyes at the thought of the power of her love. “I just feel like I could die!”
“Lyra!” Spike shouted with enough force to blow a small puff of fire.
“Yes, my scaley lovemachine?” she asked from her position on the floor, looking up at his snarling face through fluttering eyelashes.
“I am…” he muttered through tightly clenched teeth. “I am very, very sorry…”
“Sorry for what, lizarddove?” she asked as her saccharinely lovesick voice dropped and her eyes narrowed fiercely.
“I’m sorry that I ate the last strawberry éclair at lunch…” he said.
Lyra shot to her hooves and grinned in triumph. “You better be!” she snapped. “Now come give me a kiss, you dork.”
Spike slid off the bed and gave his marefriend a rough peck on the lips.
“You don’t have to be like that,” he sighed. “You could just tell me right out that you’re mad at me.”
“I shouldn’t have to, éclairs are my favorite donut-ish sugar treat,” she replied. “You have standing drakefriend orders to always leave the last éclair for me, no matter the circumstances. You should already know that.”
Spike did know that, and he’d only eaten the treat as a bit of revenge for her snatching one of his favorite figurines to add to her own collection. He wasn’t angry of course, but he did feel entitled to a bit of playful retaliation.
She usually wasn’t that bad. She had only turned up the dial on the teasing this one instance because he had admitted that he’d eaten her éclair on purpose. In fact, he was generally far less in danger of being on the receiving end her snark than the population at large: she’d once repeatedly mooed at a pregnant lady for taking too long picking carrots at the market.
“If I promise to never again bring sugar into our arguments, will you stop being mad at me?” he asked hopefully.
“Maybe…” she answered coyly. “Let’s hear what you got.”
Spike put one claw over his heart and held the other up in a pledge.
“I hereby solemnly promise to never again bring innocent sugary snacks into our petty squabbles, even as a joke. I’m guaranteeing it. I’m putting my big old official Spike seal of approval right on the box, with a thirty-day manufacturer’s warranty and a certificate of authenticity.”
Lyra leaned in and pressed her forehead against Spike’s.
“You know how hot it gets me when you talk like a toy,” she said with a grin as Spike pressed back, deepening their contact. She rocked her head back and forth gently, playfully flicking the cartilaginous spine on Spike’s head with her horn.
Spike kissed the tip of her nose.
“Seriously, sorry, I know how you get about sugar,” he laughed. “Now come on, let’s get to the park already.”
Lyra nodded and donned her beat up old busker’s hat and the saddlebag with her lyre. The couple headed downstairs and opened the front door to find a blushing Rarity with her hoof held up in mid knock.
“Whoa, hey there, Rarity,” Spike said nervously. “Um… it’s great to see you, what’s up?”
Rarity was at a loss. Should she go through with talking about her problem with Spike? It still wasn’t too late to simply make some excuse and take her problem to another friend.
The dilemma must have been clear on her face because Lyra took the initiative and drew attention with a polite cough.
“Hey, Spike, why don’t I just go on ahead so you and Rarity can catch up?” she suggested, shooting a sidelong glance at Rarity as she spoke to her guy. “I gotta get to the park before that mime starts getting brave. He lost some territory to a new juggler that showed up and I don’t like the way he’s been eyeing my bench. Just meet up with me later so we can hit Pasture for dinner.”
Spike was going to ask if she was sure, but he was silenced by a nod and a smile; his mare’s silent assurance that she trusted him.
She trotted away without looking back, swaying her hips just a little more than she normally would, just as a tease for Spike, and maybe a bit to show off to Rarity, too.
“You two seem happy,” Rarity commented wistfully as she watched the other mare leave.
“We are,” Spike laughed nervously. “So what’s up?”
With Lyra gone, Rarity wasn’t quite sure whether being alone with Spike made her feel more or less nervous. An idea came to her, and she knew what she could do to ease the butterflies in her stomach.
“Can we talk inside?” she asked. “Maybe go up to the balcony? I’ve rather missed the view from up there.”
Spike smiled and stepped aside to let her enter. Rarity paused at the stairs, allowing Spike to take the lead. Despite their familiarity, her demotion in status from marefriend back to just friend was still ever present in her mind. It hadn’t been long since she’d been comfortable traversing the library as though it were her home, but it only felt right to behave more as a guest given the circumstances.
They climbed to the third floor, walked through his room, which was much messier than she would have liked him to keep it, and out onto the balcony. They sat on a pair of cushions and stared out over Ponyville as the darkness of night began to slowly crawl through the sky. They watched for a while, until the street lights flickered on, lighting the streets below.
“Lyra is very different from the kind of girl I thought you would end up with,” Rarity said, breaking the silence at last.
“Yes,” Spike agreed with a glittering smile that Rarity could see even in the near darkness of ambient street light and starshine. “But I don’t think anypony else could have pulled me out of my funk after… you know.”
“So you’re happy, then?” Rarity asked. “I know I asked already, but I want to know for certain.”
Spike nodded immediately. “Very much so,” he replied.
“That’s good,” Rarity said with a grin of her own. “I hope she can make you happier than I could have.”
She turned to find Spike watching her, his eyes scanning her face with intensity in the soft darkness.
“I’m really happy to hear you say that so sincerely, Rarity,” Spike said with a release of tension from his voice that she hadn’t noticed until it was gone. “After the way you reacted to me bringing Lyra to your place, I was worried that maybe… maybe you didn’t want to see me anymore. That you didn’t want to be friends.”
“I was nothing but polite!” she replied hotly.
Spike replied with a simple look that she recognized immediately. It was his, “Really, Rarity? Really?” face.
“Feh,” she huffed. “Think you know me better than I know myself…”
“That’s because I do,” he chuckled.
Rarity sighed. “That’s probably true.”
“It’s definitely true.”
“Oh, hush,” she snapped playfully.
They sat for a bit more, feeling a bit more like the old friends that they were. The air chilled a little as a light breeze swept through the tree, rustling the leaves slightly. Rarity felt Spike scoot closer to her, sharing some of that dragon warmth that seemed to always radiate from his scales no matter how cold it got.
“So what is this really about?” Spike asked. “I know something’s on your mind. Just tell me what’s going on, please.”
“I wanted to ask you something, and to tell you something,” Rarity explained. “But before either of those, first I think perhaps I should confess something.”
“That’s quite a trio of somethings,” Spike laughed nervously.
Rarity nodded, marshaling her courage.
“I was jealous of you,” she admitted. “Jealous of how quickly you moved on; that’s why I behaved so poorly that night. It’s why I took the news so hard. It wasn’t easy when we split up, and when I saw you with another mare, it just opened those wounds right up again.”
“Rarity…” Spike whispered. His heart began to ache for the pain he’d caused the mare who had meant so much to him.
“It’s alright, I’m not jealous anymore,” she assured him. “You did nothing wrong, and I’m glad that you still thought well enough of me to want me to be the first of our friends to formally meet her. But now I need to ask: how did you know? How did you know it was time to move on? That Lyra was the one to pick you back up?”
Spike cleared his throat.
“I didn’t know,” he replied. “My heart knew. When I was around Lyra, whenever I thought about her, my heart would beat just a bit faster. It made the decision for me, and all I had to do was listen.”
Rarity held her hoof up to her chest and felt the beat of her own heart. Had it already been letting her know?
“But she’s so odd,” Rarity muttered.
“But that’s the fun, isn’t it?” Spike answered, assuming that she had meant Lyra. The struggle to encapsulate the intricacies of his attraction was clear on his face. “She’s got a lot of wabi-sabi, that girl.”
“I’m sorry?” Rarity asked, blinking in confusion.
Spike sighed.
“The Japonies have a philosophical aesthetic called wabi-sabi,” he explained. “It’s kind of complex, but an ultra simplified explanation is that true beauty comes from the impermanence and changing aspects, the asymmetry, of nature. The idea is that the flaws in something don’t make it worse, they make it better; the flaws make it more real. That’s Lyra in a nutshell. She’s all rough edges and unassuming bluntness. To further simplify: I like her for her qualities, but I love her for her flaws.”
Rarity mulled his words over. Spike always did tend to overthink most problems, and the whole wabi-sabi thing reeked of his usual academic overthought, but she couldn’t help but agree that it made some sort of sense.
“Do you think that’s what happened to us…?” she ventured. “Our relationship was too… symmetrical?”
“My mom thought so,” Spike answered.
“Oh, you talked to Madam Velvet about this already?”
Spike chuckled. “I’ll tell you about it later. It’s kind of a long, funny story.”
Rarity nodded. Spike’s mother was always a little intense, but a lovely mare. She’d definitely have to get the story out of him later.
“Asymmetry, huh?” she muttered to herself, thinking about Ditzy, and the odd angle of her one wonky eye.
“That’s the thing you wanted to admit and the thing you wanted to ask,” Spike pointed out. “What’s the thing you wanted to say?”
This was the hard part. This would be even harder than admitting that she’d been jealous of Spike’s new relationship. She would have to say out loud that she was ready to try again with somepony new, and it would be as much for herself as for Spike.
“I think…” she began slowly, looking into Spike’s face so she could clearly see his reaction. “I think I might have met somepony…”
The sides of his mouth curled up slowly into that smile of his that he reserved for only the best of news. He leapt up and wrapped his arms tightly around Rarity.
“That’s amazing, Rarity!”
“Goodness!” Rarity exclaimed, somewhat taken aback by the sudden embrace. “I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t a hug!”
Spike pulled away and smiled meekly. “Sorry… too soon for hugs?”
“Oh, Spike,” she said with a grin, reaching out and bringing him back close. “Hugs were never off the table.”
They held each other for a while, glad for the familiar comfort of one another’s warmth. The last remnants of whatever regrets and hard feelings that lingered in their hearts seemed to float away, banished by that simplest expression of friendship.
“I’m guessing you haven’t said anything yet, judging from the questions you asked about Lyra,” Spike said into Rarity’s fur. “Who’s the lucky stallion? Is it anypony I know?”
“No, I haven’t made my feelings clear,” Rarity answered. “It’s … she’s not a stallion. And yes, it’s somepony that you know.”
Spike pulled away so he could waggle an eyebrow suggestively. “Oho, a comely lass, is it? So spill already, who is it?”
Rarity turned away to hide her smirk and cleared her throat. “Ditzy Doo.”
“Ditzy Doo?” Spike repeated, blinking his eyes. “The girl who brings my mail? How’d you meet her?”
Rarity kept her face turned away, and pulled her hair down her face in a very Fluttershy-like manner so Spike couldn’t see the embarrassment tinting her cheeks.
“I’ll tell you about it later. It’s kind of a long, embarrassing story.”
“Fair enough,” Spike conceded.
He let go of Rarity and returned his gaze to the sedate Ponyville night.
“Ditzy, huh?” he mused, stroking his chin as though toying with a long beard. “I can see that.” He nodded his approval. “I think you two would be a good match, congratulations!”
“Do you really think so?” she asked hopefully. “Your opinion means ever so much.”
“Well let me ask you this,” Spike began. “You’ve been inside her house before, right?”
“Yes, I have,” Rarity answered, cocking her head to the side in confusion. “Have you?”
“She invited me in for lemonade once,” he explained. “You’ve been inside more than once?”
“Yes…”
“Ever throw up?”
“Goodness, no!” Rarity exclaimed in shock.
“Yeah, you probably love her then,” he smirked. “If you, the Chick of Chic, can put up with that décor, then it has to be love.”
Rarity pouted in bemusement. “I see that that tongue of yours is as sharp as ever.”
“You used to like my sharp tongue!” he said in feigned hurt.
“Careful,” she warned amiably. “If you want to be dirty then do it with your new marefriend.”
“Every chance I get,” he said.
They shared a laugh and spent a while more just catching up about the little things in life that they’d missed. Soon a clock in Spike’s room chimed, reminding them of the time.
“Lyra’s probably wondering where you are,” Rarity pointed out as she stood. “Please thank her for me, for letting us have a little privacy. I never would have guessed from the few times I’d met her before, but she’s really a wonderful girl.”
Spike stood and showed his friend to the door.
“What’s your plan?” he asked as they walked. “For Ditzy, I mean.”
“We’ve had coffee every night this week,” Rarity explained. “I should think that she’ll be expecting me to drop by her house tonight as well, if she hasn’t already tried to find me at the boutique. I think I might stop by just long enough to feign illness and invite her to a picnic tomorrow.”
“Going to make a move tomorrow, then?”
“Yes, that seems like the best course of action to take.”
Spike and Rarity stepped onto the street and faced one another beneath the streetlight across from the library.
“I can’t thank you enough, Spike,” Rarity said. “I couldn’t have asked for a better friend. Now go on, go get your mare.”
“Only if you go get yours,” he countered. “Good luck, Rarity.”
They hugged once more beneath the streetlight, squeezing as tightly as they dared.
“Goodbye, Spikey,” Rarity said, her voice hitching with emotion as she said her farewell.
“See you later, Rares,” Spike said as he gave an extra little squeeze.
They released one another and walked away in opposite directions, each one glad that they’d come this far together.
***
“I’ve never been to this part of Sweet Apple Acres before,” Ditzy commented as she took a bite of her delicious daisy sandwich.
“Yes, most visitors rarely see the back fields,” Rarity explained. “I thought this would be nicer than the camp grounds or the park, so I asked my friend Applejack if she wouldn’t mind us having our picnic here.”
“Sure was nice of her,” Ditzy said happily.
The two mares were sitting in a small clearing in the middle of the apple orchard atop a red and white checkered blanket. An enormous picnic basket filled with goodies sat between them. Ditzy had immediately helped herself to a sandwich and some potato chips, but Rarity was too nervous to have much of an appetite.
Rarity sipped gingerly from her tea, hoping that the warm liquid would quiet the nervous burbling of her stomach. She forced herself to alternate bites between a sandwich and a scone in an attempt to appear relaxed.
Rarity swallowed hard as Ditzy’s hunger seemed to be satisfied.
“Ditzy, my dear,” she began. “I’m afraid I called you out to this picnic for something of a talk. You see, I have this problem and I wish to discuss it with you.”
“Sure thing, Rarity,” Ditzy said. Her usual happy grin widened into that full-faced smile from that very first day they’d met. “Ditzy Doo is here to listen to you~”
“Y-yes…” Rarity stuttered as her heart began thumping at the sound of the other mare’s sweet voice. “Well, you know how hard my last relationship was on me. But I’ve been thinking, and I believe it might be time for me to put myself back on the market, so to speak. I even have somepony special already in mind.”
“Oh my gosh!” Ditzy exclaimed. “That’s super amazing! Who is it!? Is it that nice Fancy Pants guy that you’re always talking about?”
Rarity let out a loud, sharp bark of laughter. She quickly covered her mouth and cleared her throat, a blush of embarrassment on her cheeks.
“Fancy Pants is a loyal friend, and a valued customer,” Rarity explained, “but I’m afraid I’m not his type. I’ve the wrong… endowments.”
Ditzy’s eyes lit up with understanding. “You mean he’s…?”
“Extremely so,” Rarity affirmed. “You could stack all four princesses on top of each other and he would still be the biggest queen in the room. Why do you think he orders so many dresses from me?”
“That’s so silly,” Ditzy commented with a giggle while trying to imagine the alicorn princesses standing atop one another like circus acrobats.
“I’m actually fancying somepony… closer to home,” Rarity said.
Ditzy tilted her head and motioned for her to continue.
“It’s somepony who is a very good friend to me.” She slid her hoof across the blanket and brushed it against Ditzy’s. “A mare... one who I think is very, very beautiful.”
Ditzy gasped. “Is it Applejack?”
“What? No!” Rarity denied. “It’s you, you silly girl!”
Ditzy blinked.
“Really, who is it?” she asked.
“It’s really you!” Rarity shouted, grasping the other girl’s hoof roughly. “I like you, Ditzy Doo!”
Ditzy pulled her hoof back and held it to her chest like she’d been burned. Her wings flapped hard and floated her gently to the other side of the blanket, out of Rarity’s reach.
“I had hoped to segue into this more carefully,” Rarity muttered sadly as she cast her gaze downwards. “I wanted to maybe get a feel for whether you would be open to reciprocating before just blurting it out, but you sort of caught me off guard.”
A single tear fell from Rarity’s eye and she quickly wiped it away before Ditzy could see.
“It’s fine if you don’t like me,” Rarity said with a laugh. “I had anticipated being turned down, but wow, I hadn’t expected this exchange to go quite so quickly. It’s fine, don’t worry, you haven’t hurt my feelings.”
Ditzy muttered something under her breath, far too quietly for Rarity to hear.
“Could you repeat that, Ditzy dear? I’m afraid I didn’t quite catch you.”
“I said I like you too,” Ditzy repeated. “You’re gorgeous, and smart, and nice, and… you’re amazing. I’ve been thinking about you a lot this last week…”
Rarity stared in wide-eyed wonder. “Well, this is wonderful! We both feel the same way about one another!”
“No,” Ditzy said with a shake of her head. “No you don’t really feel this way about me. You’re just confused.”
“I assure you that the only confusion I have is over the way you’re acting,” Rarity huffed.
“You can’t like me," Ditzy stated bluntly. "You’re too out of my league. You’re an ultra glamorous, fashionable, sophisticated beauty. I’m just… I’m just a derpy mailpony that collects junk that nopony else even wants…”
Ditzy’s hoof began to rise slowly, unconsciously moving to stroke the side of her face with her esotropic eye. She felt her arm stopped by Rarity’s magic. She looked up and found Rarity on her hooves, staring at her in irritation.
“You stop that,” she demanded. “You stop whatever you’re thinking. You are not out of my league. Gorgeous? Smart? Nice? You’re all of those things, a hundred fold over. Don’t you see how beautiful you are?”
Rarity stamped her hoof dully on the soft earth. She hadn’t meant for her confession to be so impassioned, but Ditzy’s reticence had forced her to open her heart entirely. Rarity became surer of her desire to be with the silly pegasus with every passing moment.
“I’ve lived my entire life trying to attain perfection. I primp, I perm, I moisturize; I spend hours out of every day making sure my appearance is as flawless as the diamonds on my Cutie Mark. But you… you’re gorgeous without even trying; gorgeous inside and out. I could never, if I tried for a hundred years, be as beautiful as you are on your worst day. Your beauty is the real deal, Ditzy, and I want you.”
Ditzy’s breath was ragged, her heart beating so rapidly in her chest that she felt like it would burst.
“Do you mean that, really?” she asked, fearful until the last moment that Rarity might change her mind.
Rarity strode closer and embraced Ditzy.
“Positive,” she whispered as she nuzzled gently into Ditzy’s cherry scented mane. “I want you to rescue me, Ditzy Doo. Rescue me like all the other unwanted, imperfect things in your home.”
Rarity pulled back and swiped a few stray strands of hair away from Ditzy’s wonderfully golden eyes. Slowly, breathlessly, they came together, their lips mere inches apart.
Rarity pulled away with a gasp. “Ideeeeaaaaa~”
Ditzy blinked, her lips still puckered in anticipation of a kiss that never came. “Huwhabbawhu?”
“Idea!” Rarity shouted while dancing in place ecstatically. “Oh, I just got the most fabulous idea for a new design! Ditzy, my beloved, could you please tidy up here and meet me at my boutique? I simply must get this down on paper!”
Ditzy watched as her new marefriend turned to gallop away. She blinked in confusion but none the less did as requested and stooped to clean up the remnants of their lunch. She felt a tap on her shoulder and lifted her head to find herself face to face with a grinning Rarity.
“Almost forgot!” Rarity exclaimed. She leaned forward and kissed Ditzy hard, licking the other mare’s lower lip sensually as she pulled away. “Don’t take long, my muse. I may need more inspiration.”
Rarity galloped away at full steam, cackling with laughter that echoed through the apple trees.