Rarity was in her room and busy with sewing. As most of the time, she was creating dresses. It was her passion and there was nothing else that brought her so much fun like this. And it was not just her hobby, she relied on it, because she also did it for a living. Designing clothes and dresses was vital and essential for her life. It was important. And the dresses she created right now were even more important.
It was a whole new collection she designed for the upcoming gala in Canterlot. No, not the Grand Galloping Gala. This gala was different.
Canterlot was a very festive city. Galas were a trademark of the mountain city. Almost every month, two or three different galas were held. There were galas for carpenters, architects, artists; for every sort of craft guild, profession or business that existed in Equestria. There were even galas for animals! Many ponies from all of Equestria came to this galas, which made it possible for the organizers of them to earn a lot of money. Galas were a business on his own. The gala Rarity prepared dresses for now was a gala for cooks and chefs.
Since she had made herself a name as fashion designer in the last few years, many cooks who planned to attend this gala approached her and ordered dresses for them to wear there. And since they were cooks and chefs, they wanted to have dresses that looked like things to eat: Cupcakes, pies, hayburgers, daisy sandwiches..... Even dresses that looked like horseshoe fries or noodles! And a lot more. It was a strange order and dresses that looked like food were awfully impractical to wear. It was something Rarity would never do at will. But an order was an order and she got a lot of money for this one. And so she was sitting there, creating designs and sewing dresses for everyone of the thirty costumers that ordered at her, week after week. It was a strenous job, but it needed to get done. And she had almost finished everything.
Right now she stitched down the seams for the last dress. It looked like a giant donut and it was a mystery for Rarity how it should be comfortable to wear it for the mare that ordered it. She did her best to make it practical, while sticking to the design wishes, but she wasn't successful completely. It won't be easy to wear it a whole evening long.
Rarity hummed a tune while she pulled the dress through her sewing machine and carefully stitched the seams. In her thoughts, she was already at another place. With the money she would get for the dresses, she planned to make a trip to Horseshoe Bay. Just lying on the beach, enjoying the sun and a good Pony Colada. She would need such a trip to relax after finishing the giant, and unusual, order. Rarity grinned in anticipation. And then she was done. The last dress was finished!
With a relieved sigh, she took it out of the machine and trotted down the stairs to her boutique. The small room was brim-full with clothes horses. All of them except one were adorned with the strange dresses she made over the last weeks. Rarity went to the last clothes horse that was without a dress. Carefully, she put the dress on the horse with her magic and made sure that it couldn't slide down. Then she made a few steps back and looked a last time at the dress. It looked good. Not great or marvelous, and especially not fabulous, but she fulfilled the wish of the customer who ordered it and created a perfect looking donut from fabric. It was not one of her favourite works, but she was happy about the result nonetheless. Properly fulfilling a costumers' request was her job, after all, and she handled that job greatly. Now she only needed to wait until tomorrow when the costumers came to pick up their dresses. She could finally rest.
The exhausted fashionista got back up the stairs and into her room. She shut the door behind her and retreated into her bed. A little reading and then a nap was the exact right thing now. Grabbing her favourite book, “50 Shades of Hay”, from her nightstand, she snuggled back into the soft pillow and, a satisfied grin on her face, she began to read. And Rarity was not the only one who was satisfied.
Far, far away, on a planet called “Gaia” in a different universe, a universe whose existence Rarity was not aware of, a member of a race called “Qu” with the name “Quina Quen” was satisfied too because he had just gobbled up a monster he was fighting against with his comrades. It was a red amphibian creature, not unlike the frogs he loved so much, just bigger and with spikes on the back.
It was his way to learn new techniques. His comrades weakened a monster and when it was almost killed and too weak enough to defend itself from his attempt to eat it, he swallowed it and gulped it down in one go and then he learned a new spell for his blue magic. Though, as useful as that was, Quina did not really care about that aspect. He only cared about eating and how the monsters tasted, because perfecting what her master called “The Art of Eating” was his only goal and the only reason why he joined these travelers.
But this time it was different anyway. Instead of learning a new technique after eating the monster, the air flickered and a blue portal appeared where the monster just stood. A tempting flavor came through the portal and rose up into his nostrils. Quina sniffed. There was definitely food behind this portal and he had to find out what it was.
Quina trudged over to the portal, his steps letting the ground shake under him, and sniffed again. “Quina? You don't wanna go through there for real, right? We don't know what's behind it”, one of her comrades warned her.
Quina turned round and nodded eagerly. “Of course, Zidane! Tasty food behind portal. Must eat it to master art of eating!”
“But we're in a hurry. Burmecia can't wait”, he continued to try to dissuade Quina.
But the Qu had already went through the portal and it was closing behind him. Zidane hung his head.
After Quina had stepped through the portal, he found himself at a completely different place. The colors around him were brighter and he was surrounded by creatures he had never seen. They were walking on four legs and long hair was flowing down their necks. They even had a long and hairy tail. Some of them had wings or a horn attached to their head. And their bodies were all colorful.
Quina looked around. There were white ones, blue ones, yellow ones, purple ones; four-legged creatures in all colors Quina could imagine. And with the food-oriented mindset he had, the colors reminded him of course on food. “Are creatures edible?”, he thought.
Quina began to walk around in the place he was now, which seemed to be a little town, and curiously observed the creatures around him, trying to figure out how they tasted. The glances he got by the creatures were not any less curious and many eyed him sceptical, but Quina only paid attention to their colours.
A small, yellow one of the four-legged creatures, with red hair, rushed past him, an orange one with wings and a white one with a horn following it, both of them as small as the creature at the top. “Yellow one maybe tastes like pineapples. And hair like ketchup. Orange one like apricots. And white one marshmallows”, he said, saliva dropping from his giant tongue and landing on his blue napkin that was tied around his fat neck. But before he could grab them to try out how they taste, they were already past him and with all his weight, he wouldn't have been fast enough to follow them, so he decided against it. Which was not bad for him, because another one of these creatures had already piqued his interest. It was purple and unlike most of the creatures it had wings and a horn.
Hungrily and eager to try out how this creature tasted, he trudged over to it. The expression in the face of the creature was disbelief, but the creature seemed to be friendly. “Hello. Who are you? Or..... WHAT are you?” it said.
Quina was surprised as he heard the creature talking. He thought of these creatures as simple animals, but now it was clear that they were more than that. In this case, he probably couldn't eat them. But his appetite got the best of him and he just couldn't hold himself back. He grabbed the creature and encompassed it's back with his hands. The creature protested as he lifted it up to her mouth, but it's words became muffled as he put it in his mouth and swallowed it down as a whole, accompanied by shocked glances of the other creatures.
He rubbed his stomach. “Does not taste like grapes. But delicious anyway”, he said. Then he bent forward, sniffing and deciding which of the creatures he should taste next. But all of a sudden, his stomach began to glow purple. A purple flash appeared in front of him and suddenly, the creature he had just swallowed stood in front of him again. Quina was surprised and did not understand how the creature could leave his stomach again, in a different way than the usual one and still in one piece and perfectly in shape, but he was not angry. “Could taste anyway.” He shrugged.
“What was that all about? Why were you trying to eat me?!”, the purple creature asked agitatedly.
“Art of eating”, Quina answered taut. “Must eat everything.” Then he proceeded in his task and lifted up one of the other creatures around him, a blue one this time. It flailed around in panic, screaming for help. The purple creature's horn glowed suddenly and a moment later, the blue creature was warped out Quina's hands in a purple flash. It ran away in panic, still screaming.
Then the horned and winged creature in front of Quina aimed it's horn at him and a purple ray shot out of it and hit his massive body. But it was just reflected by the giant mass his stomach was and almost hit the creature in front of him. It tried it a few times more, but it was useless. “Ok, everypony, run!”, the creature shouted across the place. “There's an enemy here who tries to eat ponies. Get into your houses and lock yourselves there and don't come out before I have found a way to defeat it!” Then it chased away. And the other creatures followed it's example. In a matter of seconds, all of them run away screaming. They entered the houses around and soon, it was completely empty around Quina.
Disappointedly, the Qu hung his head. “Now all tasty creatures gone”, he said sadly. But his appetite was strong enough to not let him give up. He became determined again quickly. He just had to enter the houses to get his prey then. And he had already decided which house he would enter first. It lied directly in front of him, just a few meters away. It caught his attention, because it looked different than the houses around it. It was round and very colorful. Over the entrance door a picture of the creatures he saw was painted on and higher up, the building transitioned into a narrow tower. Here he would start. He plodded up to it eagerly.
As Rarity was at the most exciting part of her book, a loud crash sounded at her ears. It came from downstairs, from her boutique. Worried, she put her book aside and got out of her bed and down the stairs. What she saw there was desaster. The door of her boutique was smashed in and lied, broken into two pieces, aside from the entrance. Even the wall around it was damaged, so big was the impact. “W-What could have done this?”, the mare exclaimed terrified. And that was just the beginning of the horror for her. Right from her, she could hear a loud nom-nom-nom.
As she looked aside to find the source of the sound, she saw a big, blue-skinned, obese creature, whose sight let Rarity grimace in disgust. It walked on two legs, his body was covered by a wide cloth and it had a chef's hat on it's head. The worst thing was that the strange creature was busy with eating her dresses she worked hard on creating so many weeks! “Y-You!”, Rarity cried out hysterically. “Get away from my dresses! They aren't to eat! I need them for my costumers!”
The obese figure turned around to her. “But must eat! Doesn't taste like food, but looks like food. Must be important for master art of eating.” Then it turned around again and continued it's nefarious deed. Three of the dresses were already gobbled up by it and it proceeded to the fourth now.
Rarity narrowed her eyes. “Only over my dead body! I won't allow anyone to eat dresses, no matter if they look like food or not!”
The unicorn mare galloped up to the hungry creature. “Get away from my creations, you overweight monster, or you are going to regret it!” With these words she turned around and started to buck the back of the chowhound, that was destroying her work, with her hindlegs. But it was unsuccessful. Bucking after bucking she threw at the creature, but it did not budge. It didn't even seem to feel the bucks. Another three dresses had disappeared in the mouth of the greedy creature by now. “Stop it finally!” Rarity bucked harder and harder. “Stay away from my dresses and eat something else!”
Surprisingly, this did work. It turned around to Rarity and nodded. “Right. Must try out you. Must know if you taste like marshmallows! That's why came here.”
“W-What?”, the fashionista mare asked flabbergasted.
It grabbed Rarity and hold it to it's mouth. Rarity began to struggle in fear. “No! Let me go immediately! Don't dare to put me into your filthy mouth!” The creature did not listen. Instead, she lifted the long tongue that was hanging out of it's mouth and slid it over Rarity's coat. “Ewwww!” Rarity grimaced and shuddered, almost fainting from what the creature did.
“Not taste like marshmallows! But still delicious! Going to eat you!”
“No!”, Rarity cried out again. She bucked at the stomach of the obese thing behind her, but it was useless again.
The creature had almost put Rarity into it's mouth, as Twilight appeared in the door suddenly. “Hold still!”, she called over to the fashionista who was wriggling around in the fat hands to get free. Her horn ignited, the creature became engulfed by the purple glow and then it disappeared. Rarity fell hard to the ground.
Before the Qu realized what happened, he found himself back where he came from again, his comrades sitting on the ground in front of him, apparently having waited for his return. Quina hung his head in disappointment. “Could not eat everything. Many missed chances”, he said.
Zidane rose up from his sitting position. “Good, now that lunchtime is over, we can finally go on!”
The comrades decamped and continued their way to the endangered kingdom, with Quina walking sadly at the end of the group.
And once again, this feeling was shared by someone else in another universe. Except that Rarity was not just sad, but desperated. After Twilight had helped her on her hooves, she looked for her dresses and found them destroyed. All of them. The creature had not only swallowed six of them, it also had taken out bites of all the others! Now she would have to make them all anew, but she had only time until the next day! This was too much for the hard-working fashionista.
She fainted and fell unconscious.