Frivolity
Hotel
Hotel Attraction – without the accent – was big. Pinkie had been able to see the top of the building from the other side of Manehatten, a lone curve against a sea of rectangles. And now, standing here in the plaza with its giant pillars, the front of the building just seemed to go up and up and up and …
“Woah, there!” said Rarity, barely catching Pinkie as she toppled backwards. “Yes, it very impressive, I know, but please be careful.”
“Oops,” said Pinkie, with a giggle. “Sorry! I guess I got a bit carried away there.”
“It's perfectly all right, dear. It's just that I would hate to see you hurt yourself on our first day here.” Rarity looked at a bellhop who was cantering over to them at a fair pace. “Ah, here we go. Yoohoo! Over here, my good stallion!” She gestured to the small mountain of luggage behind her, where the taxi had dropped her off. “We'll be on floor fourteen, room eight. Thank you so much.” Turning back to Pinkie for a moment but not lowering her voice, she continued: “Such a strong stallion, see?” And back again: “Here, please take this.”
Seeing Rarity tipping the bellhop, Pinkie felt an urge to do the same. She wouldn't want Rarity to think she was being ungenerous. “Oh, wait. Here!” she said, rifling through her mane.
Rarity and bellhop both stared at her.
The first thing Pinkie found in her mane was a rubber chicken, which she flung at him. “Take it. Take it!”
The bellhop managed to get over his bewilderment long enough to catch the rubber chicken and stuff it into one of his pockets. Then, after a nervous glance from side to side, he went back to gathering Rarity's luggage.
“A … good try,” said Rarity. “But perhaps we need to work just a little on your finesse.”
“Ooh, yeah, that sounds like fun!” said Pinkie. She looked ahead at the hotel's giant archway, and bounding forward, continued: “I wanna see what's it's like inside. Whee!”
Halfway there, she stopped and turned to Rarity. “What's finesse?”
Rarity froze for a moment, frowning, chewing her lip. Then she broke into a laugh, shaking her head. “Oh, Pinkie,” she said.
There – job done. Grinning, Pinkie continued onwards. But really, what was finesse? It might be something important to Rarity. She would have to look it up.
The foyer of Hotel Attraction had made Rarity swoon a lot and gush more, and even at the reception desk she had insisting on pointing out what she called “naturalistic details on the gilt catenary arches” above them, until the receptionist hemmed for a third time and nodded to indicate the line forming behind her.
“Oh!” said Rarity, blushing. “I'm so so sorry. I just got a little caught up in it all. It really is a wonderful creation we're staying in, isn't it?”
“Yes. Yes, it is,” said the receptionist without even the littlest hint of wonder on her face. “Now if you could appreciate it after you've signed in, I'm sure we'd all be grateful.”
While Rarity signed in, Pinkie stared at the arches. They were super beautiful, she was sure – Rarity had said so after all – but still, it would be awfully difficult to get decorations all the way up there, even with a party cannon, and she wondered if these ponies would even appreciate it –
“Come along!” Rarity took Pinkie's hoof mid-thought and led her away from the desk. She wasn't smiling.
“Rares?” asked Pinkie tentatively.
“What is it?” said Rarity, still trotting.
“Are you okay?”
Rarity stopped and looked at Pinkie. “I believe so. I mean, I …” She frowned.
“But you were being all chatty and happy and now you're not.”
Rarity snorted. Then her gaze softened, and Pinkie relaxed.
“Oh, sweetheart,” said Rarity. “You needn't worry about that. I'm just a little peeved about how boorishly that receptionist was acting when everything was going so well. And … I could hardly rebuke her, could I?” She sighed. “I was at fault too.”
“So?”
“Excuse me?”
Inside, Pinkie quailed at Rarity's expression, but she kept her smile on anyway.
“You were having fun! And even if she got peeved – but I didn't notice at all so maybe you just thought she was and really she was … uh, where was I? Oh, yeah, she even if she totally was, it's all finished now and she's happy enough – look!” Pinkie waved at the receptionist, who didn't wave back but didn't look angry anyway, so that was okay. “ – and you were having fun and you're in a building you love! So so so: So?” Finishing her lecture and nearly out of air, Pinkie took a deep breath.
“You're right,” said Rarity, smiling at last. “Dear me. And I was about to let something silly like that ruin my day. Or hour, at least. However do you do it, my love?”
“Do what?”
“Not let it get to you.”
“Oh,” said Pinkie. “I dunno?”
Rarity smiled even more and took her hoof again, more softly this time. “Shall we get going, then?”
The lift, like everything else in the building, was super pretty, with gratings shaped like a mass of vines and a colourful carpet showing a bunch of grapes. Bouncing lightly on her hooves, Pinkie peered out through windows of uneven glass that made everything going past all wobbly. It would have looked even more fun if it wasn't just the inside of a lift shaft on the other side.
The lift operator was a young stallion with a very neat and very uncomfortable-looking uniform. He accepted Pinkie's “Hello!” and hoof-shaking with barely a wince. Unlike the receptionist, he seemed very interested in the building, and after asking for their destination, spent most of the ascent talking with Rarity about green fillies or filly greens or something like that. While she talked, Rarity stroked her rear hoof against Pinkie's cannon, and by the time they reached the floor, Pinkie was struggling to keep her tail down.
“Here we are, ladies!” said the operator, opening the door. “Room eight is just down that way, on your left. You have a pleasant evening now!” He smiled at Pinkie and smiled more at Rarity.
“Thanks!” said Pinkie, bounding out of the lift, then stopping to wait for Rarity.
Behind her, she heard: “We will! Thank you so much. Here, take this, I insist!”
Pinkie froze. Oh dear. She had forgotten to give him anything. Was she being ungenerous? She put the issue out of her mind and out on a smile for Rarity as she came up the corridor.
“Now,” said Rarity, as they reached the room. “Seeing as how you felt on our first night, I thought it prudent to get a room with two single beds.” Horn aglow, she unlocked and opened the door. “And we can always push them together should you feel comfortable enough to … I mean, not that I'm trying to pressure you into doing anything, of course!”
The room was the same wash of colours and high class pretty things that Pinkie was getting used to by now, but was smaller, more intimate, more like Carousel Boutique, and smelt of clean linen rather than perfume. Pinkie felt a sudden urge to gallop forward and jump on the closest bed, so she did, untucking the perfectly-tucked sheets and sliding them off-kilter.. It was soft but not too soft and nice and springy too.
“I … trust that's okay?” said Rarity.
Pinkie turned round, untidying the sheets further, and took a moment to recall what Rarity had said. “Oh! You did that just for me? Oh, Rares, that's so totally super nice! I ...” She felt a bit of a lump in her throat. “Look out!” she cried, leaping across the room and bounding into Rarity to hug her.
Rarity had just enough time to let out a squeal, and the two of them rolled back out into the corridor, ending up against the far wall with Rarity lying on her back beneath Pinkie.
“I'm so, so glad you remembered, and oh, really, I am, and thank you!” Pinkie continued, dabbing at her eyes with the tip of her mane.
“It's nothing, really,” said Rarity from the floor. “I just thought you'd be happier that way. Shall … ” She glanced up and down the corridor. “ … Shall we go inside before somepony sees us?”
“But that's totally why it's not nothing! Doing stuff to make other ponies happier – that's like the most important thing there is! And when it's about things like that it's even more most important!”
“Um. Pinkie?”
“Oopsie! Sorry!” Pinkie jumped up and bounded back into the room. “Let's jump on the beds again!”
“I think I'll pass on that one,” said Rarity, closing the door behind her. She walked up to Pinkie and kissed her nose. “You go ahead though, sweetheart. Just … try not to trouble the ponies below us, okay?” She trotted over to Opalescence's carrier and tugged open the door, getting a grumpy mew from within.
“Okie dokie!” Pinkie jumped as softly as she could. Something green bounced beside her hooves as she did so. “Ooh, a mint!” She unwrapped it as quickly as she could and gobbled it down. “Mmm, minty! So whatcha wanna do tonight? I saw all those awesome colourful thingies from the taxi, so I bet they're really fun, what do you think?”
Rarity sat watching her on the other bed with Opalescence beside her, scritching her cheek with the tip of a hoof.
“What are they?”
Pinkie shrugged. “I dunno. They just look fun!”
“Because they're colourful?”
“Yeah!”
“Well, I suppose that's as good a reason as any.” Rarity petted Opalescence, who was now lying stretched on the bed, purring. “I'm afraid I can't stay awake for too long. I have my first meeting with some of the senior Flaxseed ponies tomorrow morning, and it's absolutely essential that I feel and be at my best. You can entertain yourself for a while, can't you? Oh, what am I saying? Of course you can!”
“Yep!”
“We still need to get dinner,” Rarity said. “I would love for us to eat out at Falabella's, but in all the excitement it slipped my mind to make a reservation, so that will have to wait until another night.” She stopped and looked up at Pinkie. “You would like eating there, wouldn't you?”
“Of course I would! I love eating!” said Pinkie. She stopped jumping and let the bedsprings bounce her about. Most of the bedsheet was lying in a heap beside the bed.
“These places are often formal, sweetheart. Are you sure it wouldn't make you feel uncomfortable?”
“Nope!”
“No, you aren't sure; or no, you wouldn't feel uncomfortable?”
The bouncing had died down. Pinkie shrugged and flopped down on the bed, knocking the remainder of the quilt off. “Let's do it! It'll make you happy, so it'll make me happy!”
Rarity smiled. “Okay. I'm glad. Now, as for tonight …”
“You could eat your mint!” said Pinkie.
Rarity looked at her pillow and nodded. “I certainly could. But that won't take all night.” She broke into a conspiratorial grin. “So I suggest we get a delightfully classless takeaway. Then we can go and investigate the 'colourful things'. How does that sound, my love?”
Pinkie nodded hard enough to start the bedsprings bouncing again.
“In that case, shall we get ready?”