“Okay, so I might have, like, underestimated the prices on those outfits a tiny bit,” Palm Spring admitted as she and Electric Wave sulked out of the boutique.
“Yeah, Palm, totally. Just a teeny-tiny bit,” Electric Wave replied sarcastically. Even the plainest dress had been worth more than what the two mares had spent on both of their current wardrobes, combined. And they weren’t known for their inexpensive tastes.
“Ha ha. You’re sooo funny that I forgot to laugh,” Palm Spring retorted.
Through her orange sunglasses, Electric Wave’s eyes gave her friend a look that begged to know if she was serious. “Girl, I used that line, like, five minutes ago. Seriously.”
“Whatever,” Palm Spring growled, with a dismissive wave of her hoof. “Now, we have a totally major problem.”
“You can say that again,” the pink mare agreed, with a heavy sigh. “How are we going to look super-hot tomorrow if we can’t even buy, like, one dress between the two of us?”
“I would so not want to share a dress,” Palm Spring declared. “You’d probably get it all grody.”
“Oh, really? This coming from the mare who only bathes once every—” Electric Wave paused, looking from her indignant friend to the bright lights of the Everfree Boulevard boutiques. She let her body relax, and even managed to giggle wryly. “Look, Palm, this is so not even close to important right now. We need dresses, and we need them super-soon.”
With some effort, Palm Spring managed to flash her friend a smile. “You’re right, Lex. Totally right. We need to figure this out—like, now.”
“—two ponies alright? You look positively horrendous.”
Wearily, Palm Spring removed her head from her hooves and glared up at the ivory unicorn. “Thanks, like, so much, lady,” she hissed. “Thanks a million.”
Brushing a lock of her elegantly-coifed purple mane behind her ear, the unicorn rolled her eyes. “Oh, surely you understood what I meant, darling,” she said. “You girls must have had a rough night. Your clothes are dirty, your manes are simply disastrous, and you—well, frankly, you stink.”
“Hey, give me a break. After the kind of night we’ve had, you’d so be a total mess, too,” Palm Spring replied indignantly. “But even if you were, they‘d probably, like, give you a super-nice bath when you got back to the old ponies’ home.”
“What!?” the unicorn screeched indignantly. “Why, I’ll have you know that I’m not a day over—”
“Seriously, could you just, like, get a life?” Electric Wave added, glaring at the unicorn from behind her orange sunglasses. “We’ve had a totally super-awful day and we just need to, like, get to our hotel and get some sleep.”
“Well, don’t let me hold you up!” the unicorn sniffed, flipping her gorgeous amethyst hair such that it sparkled in the city lights. “You must be very important little ponies with very important things to do. Good night!” She turned her back on them, muttering something about undignified whelps.
She would have trotted off into the deepening darkness of the night without a second thought had she not heard the soft, yet unmistakable, sound of a stifled sob. She glanced over her shoulder to see the blue mare on the ground, her face contorted with untempered despair. “It’s not fair, Lex,” Palm Spring moaned. “It’s so not fair.”
Acting against her baser impulses—Walk away, Rarity; seeing how rude they were to you, they probably wouldn’t even accept your assistance—the unicorn spun to face the two valley mares once more. “If I may ask,” she began, slowly, “what was it that made your day so—umm, super-awful?”
“Well, Palm signed us up to, like, be in the Equestria Girls Beauty Pageant,” Electric Wave explained, obviously fighting back tears herself. “We have like, a totally major problem, though, because all of the dresses in these stores are, like, totally expensive.”
“Is that so?” the unicorn asked, eying the boutiques critically. None of them could compare to her own Carousel Boutique, of course, but at the center of such a commercial hub as Manehattan, even stores that dealt in relatively unremarkable couture could make an obscene profit overpricing their wares.
“Yeah,” Electric Wave confirmed, swiping with a hoof at the teardrops dribbling down her cheek. “It’s the worst.”
“Worst thing ever!” sniffed Palm Spring, who was still lying prone on the cold street. “In my life!”
Stooping down, the unicorn lifted the young blue pony gingerly to her hooves. “Oh, come now. Don’t give up so soon,” she said. “Now, if you two girls would care to accompany me back to my hotel, I believe that I can work out a solution to your problem.”
“Seriously?” Electric Wave and Palm Spring asked in unison.
“Of course,” the unicorn said, with an earnest smile. “I wouldn’t dare to allow the two of you to participate in the pageant in this dreadful state. Quite the contrary—when I’m through with you, you’ll be the most bedazzling mares in all of Manehattan.”
“Thanks so much, lady!” Palm Spring said. “I totally mean it, too.”
“You’re very welcome, darling,” the unicorn replied, trotting southward down Everfree Boulevard. The two young mares followed her eagerly. “The name’s Rarity, by the way. And I’ve made it my personal mission for the night to make the two of you absolutely gorgeous!"