29/11
Well, since the countryside isn't doing anything for me, I shall have to find some other way to entertain myself. I dare say this diary should keep me more preoccupied than staring out the window at an endless procession of identical green hills. Perhaps not its intended use, but desperate times call for desperate measures. It is in a sense remarkable exactly how unremarkable this landscape is. Or am I just used to it? No, I think not. I think this level of drudgery is just as repugnant each and every time I see it. I wish I'd remembered my confounded book.
Admittedly, I'm not entirely sure what I should write here - we've only been travelling for about an hour, and it's not as if anything has happened in that time that I feel a need to chronicle for future reference. The snack trolley came through ten minutes ago. I hope that you find this journal many, many years from now, and these mere words conjure such vivid recollections, the sights and smells of its baked goods on offer, that it is as if you are transported back to this very moment in time! Ho hum.
I thought I was rather stoic in taking this trip alone, but I am perhaps beginning to regret this decision...
Tried pony-watching for a little while, but it seems everyone in this carriage is either boring or disgusting. That buffoon of a stallion three seats ahead of me can't keep his repulsive little spawn under control - is it possible he's relishing the chaos they're wreaking? I may have just imagined it, but when they pulled down their suitcase from the overhead rack and it exploded all over their sleeping mother, I swear I saw him smile. Smile! The poor lady is still re-packing their clothes. The buffoon is eating corn chips with audible gusto.
I suppose if I keep this up over the course of the trip, these pages will serve as the introduction to it all, and will provide valuable context for future entries. Very well. Here is all the relevant information you'll need, dear future reader:
- I am presently on a train from Ponyville, bound for Vanhoover via Central
- It is early afternoon (we are set to arrive tomorrow morning)
- I am bringing a modest suitcase. Contents: boots, scarf and parka (with gorgeous matching paisley print), toothpaste, toothbrush, photo album, this journal, not my book
- I forgot my book
- I really wish I hadn't forgotten my book
- I know exactly where I left it too
Blessed heavens! We've entered into the mountain now. Those hills have been rather mercifully replaced by darkness, peppered with little lanterns zooming past the windows. As grateful as I am for the change in scenery (or lack thereof), I must say it's a miracle that anyone survives the passage through such dimly lit tunnels. A big enough rock dislodged onto the tracks would bring this train to a rather brutal stop… Perhaps there's a unicorn at the helm illuminating the path ahead. From what I can make out, these tunnels are really quite small. The engine noise is reverberating all around the carriage, engulfing us like a miasma of terrible wheezing…
Still, it’s better than those bloody hills.
~
After some time the tunnel began to widen and the train began to slow in tandem, emerging into the great cavern of Royal Central Station. Head flattened eagerly against the window, Rarity gazed upwards in awe at one of her favourite views. The incoming trains pulled into a bank of platforms on the floor of the artificial cave, deep into the hollowed-out heart of Equestria's centrepiece, Mount Royal. On the level above them, spiralling away on a track etched into the mountain's wall, was the Canterlot shuttle line, obscured in part by clouds of steam that rose from the myriad trains below towards the impossibly distant ceiling. When it was in use, one could watch its charge crawling up the spinning path towards the apex, like a ball rolling around and into an upside-down sink. The capital itself was perched on a plateau only halfway up the mountain, but the towering emptiness reached past it, unimpeded, right up to the apex. Concentric rings of magical lamps that lined the lower floors transitioned into skylights about thirty metres up, drilled into the rock face at regular intervals, forming a gradient of natural to unnatural light. The sun was nearing the horizon now, and at the summit the cave was swallowed by darkness.
Rarity decided to exit the carriage last, putting as much space between her and her newfound nemeses, the holidaying family, as possible. Suitcase in magical tow, she trotted down the length of the platform, snaking her way through the crowd of ponies waiting to board what was now the outgoing Manehattan service, and up a steep flight of steps to the elevated concourse. Here, ponies milled around with varying degrees of patience - they lined up at the refreshment carts, breathed in the thick cave air with ever-increasing effort, and waited to be taken anywhere else. Walkways jutted out from the sides of the hall, linking the plaza to the Canterlot platform on the opposite side.
She consulted the timetable board by the stairs to the Vanhoover platform - forty minutes until her connection departed. Harrumphing with resignation, the mare took her place in the shifting tableau of commuters, joining the interminable line for Double Roasted's coffee cart. She wasn't particularly thirsty, but the wait alone would fill up a good deal of the interim.
"Miss Rarity! A pleasure as always," the barista greeted her emphatically when she finally reached the front. His eyes shone from beneath his visor and coffee-brown mane. "Just can't stay away, eh?"
His enthusiasm, however put-on it may have been, was enough to bring a smile to her lips. "No-one back home knows how to make a good cocoa, Double. I've no other choice, really."
He laughed, grabbing a takeaway cup from a stack. "Feels like you practically live here at Central these days. Usual?"
"Mmhmm," she nodded, then - "Am I really here so often? I suppose having a 'usual’ speaks for itself, in a way.”
"I would venture to call you a regular, Miss Rarity. I hope that's not rushing things." The coffee machine glowed faintly and began to sputter while its operator chuckled to himself. "Another Manehattan trip?"
Her smile faltered. "Vanhoover, would you believe it."
Double Roasted only beamed brighter. "Ah, the Northwest! Gorgeous, just gorgeous. A mare like yourself will blend right in," he winked. The coffee machine issued a final, effortful gasp. "Business as usual?"
"Not as such." She hesitated. "It's, well, I suppose it's a personal matter. I'm looking—"
She was cut off by an exaggerated clearing of the throat from the customer behind her. Double Roasted gave a small shrug. Rarity pursed her lips. "Tell you next time," she muttered, magicking her bits on to the counter.
"I'll hold you to that," Double Roasted replied warmly. As Rarity walked past the impatient queuers towards the westbound platforms, she could hear him greeting the next customer with just the same affability, and she sighed. Still twenty minutes until departure. She found a vacant seat that afforded a wide view of the plaza, framed by ethereal columns of steam wafting upwards through the still air from the level below. The surrounding crowd could not hold her attention, and her eyes traced the Canterlot line's tortuous route as she sipped at her cocoa, contemplating Double Roasted's choice of nomenclature. This was a familiar view indeed. Trips abroad used to be special occasions to be treasured, in times gone by; lately she'd been passing through Royal Central two or three times a week. She had poured as much of herself into her work as she could afford to give, and was finally tasting the fruits of her labour. Her name was spreading up and down the Eastern cities, and now she was bouncing from client to client, outlet to outlet. There was a soirée just about every weekend where Fancy Pants would introduce her to someone important for something or other… And here was the nexus between all of her dreams, and her home and friends.
Nights in Ponyville were becoming rarities themselves.
A tendril of doubt stroked at the corners of her conscious mind. Should you really be here?, it probed softly. You don’t owe them anything. Why act like it’s your duty to…
“You know I won’t beg, but I’m askin’ mighty nicely here, Rarity. Don’t go.”
But a shrill whistle smothered her worried thoughts, and she realised her train was now boarding.
She barely paid attention as she produced her ticket from her suitcase and held it in front of the attendant. Her mind was many miles away, in a place that grew more distant with every passing day.
"Travelling alone, ma'am?" the attendant said mechanically.
"Regrettably so," Rarity mumbled, and a hoof reached up unconsciously, unnoticed, to touch the base of her neck.
~
Oh, I do like this train. I like this train a great deal more than the last. These seats are plush beyond imagining. Managed to shake that rowdy pack of holidaying morons - I caught a glimpse of them on the Neighagara-bound platform as we were departing, children scampering about, knocking over other ponies' suitcases… Not my concern at all. Ha! At any rate, this carriage is markedly devoid of unkempt bumpkins, and the noise level rarely peaks above a gentle murmur. It's rather serene.
Ah!, and we emerge into dazzling sunlight... beating down upon yet more infernal bloody hills. Incredibly uninspiring. How I miss the scenic vistas of the Canterlot line, climbing ever upwards towards the heavens as all of Equestria unfolds in snatches through the zoetropic windows…!
I'm going to try to take a nap, out of boredom more than fatigue.
~
The sounds of the train permeated her dream. Her head lay resting on a warm chest, dappled light shining through the canopy above them, and she heard and felt the rhythm of the wheels as a steady heartbeat that matched her own, and the muted chatter of the passengers became the wind in the leaves and the cicadas' hum. It was perfect, and the perfection of it jolted her awake. There was a terrifying pause as the boundary between real and imagined was redrawn, then she sighed and sat up, returning to the world again.
It was approaching sunset, and her fellow commuters were all looking intently out the north-facing windows, murmuring slightly louder than before. From her own window on the opposite side, she could see the slow rises and falls of the Unicorn Range painting the horizon, occluding her view of Ponyville; and in front of them, a staggering number of identical green hills. She glared at them each in turn, then got up in search of a vacant window on the opposite side. She could glimpse bursts of multicolour through the gaps between ponies, but it seemed that all the seats with views had been taken already, and she begrudgingly made her way to the adjacent dining carriage.
Barring a single earth pony mare reading at a table near the back, she found it empty, with a plethora of north-facing windows on offer. The view they afforded, she quickly decided, made up for the trip's preceding drudgery. The train was passing Cloudsdale Flats: above them, the great clouds of the city hovered and spilled water and rainbow run-off from the city's massive weather factory down to the earth in eternal slow motion. The excess caught the light of the setting sun quite dramatically, and its rays twinkled off the cascades of colour and the rivers they'd formed on the ground below. It was picture perfect, and Rarity couldn't help but smile.
She also couldn't help but wonder what on earth that other pony in the carriage was doing missing out on such a view. She casually glanced sideways at the mare, trying not to move her head and attract attention, only to find her gaze met by the other pony's own. Rarity started inwardly, and quickly turned to the nearby drinks table, busying herself by nonchalantly (she hoped) making a cup of instant coffee.
"Nice view?" The stranger's voice was soft, with a quiet air of irony.
"Oh, um, yes. It's quite something." She spooned out the sugar deliberately. Basic etiquette told her not to pry into other ponies' affairs, much less in public; but they were alone in the carriage anyway, and curiosity got the better of her. "You… don't seem too taken by it."
"No, it's cool," she said calmly, closing her book. Her powder blue coat caught the light with an almost metallic sheen. "It's very cool. I'm just used to it. I’ve taken this train before, so."
"Surely such a view does not lose its beauty so easily…!"
The mare raised her eyebrows. "You'd be surprised. You know that rainbow is basically toxic? There's a reason they're throwing it all out. It's like, super high-concentration magic. Any wild animals around here drink it - and it's right next to the rain basins, so you know they do - it's like a system overload for them. They pretty much just stop working, just like that. You go down to the bottom of those falls, you'll find all these petrified little animal bodies all along the stretch of the river. Crazy stuff." She glanced out the window at the flats. "That's the beauty of nature for you."
"Tell me you're joking!" Rarity exclaimed.
"Wish I was. Ponies keep complaining to the Cloudsdale Council, of course - myself included, y'know, I try to do my bit - but the powers that be have decided the Flats are too good an advertisement for the city, and they won't do a damn thing for fear of losing tourists." She gave a short, low laugh. "I hear they're even thinking about making it an attraction, doing these riverside tours. Like, 'come to Cloudsdale, see our amazing one-of-a-kind frozen animal collection!' What a selling point, eh?"
"But that's insane!" Rarity laughed, equally horrified and amused. "Just what kind of perverse clientele are they trying to bring in, anyhow! Eugh, I can't even imagine…"
"Rich ponies— I'll tell you this much for free: rich ponies are weird." The mare leaned forward conspiratorially in her seat, brushing her cobalt bangs from her eyes. "Maybe not Canterlot high society types, but like, Eastern nouveau riche, you know? Their little businesses take off, and they find themselves with buckets of money to spend in an urban town with all the arts and culture of a cow's ass. They hear about some crazy dead animal rafting tour, they'd jump all over that, 'cause if it's interesting, and they go see it, then they have to be interesting too, right?" She rolled her eyes, chuckling - then started and looked sharply at Rarity. "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, you're not from the East, are you? You don't seem the type, but… I don't mean to just insult you to your face right off the bat if you are…"
Rarity smiled, absently twirling a teaspoon in her cup. "You're in luck, dear. I am but a simple mare, of modest means, from Ponyville. A good deal of my customers are exactly the type you've described, though."
"Oh." She looked down sheepishly, though a glimpse of a smile was visible on her face.
"And if you asked me, in the privacy of this empty dining carriage, I would have to say you hit the nail precisely on the head there." The other mare raised her head, grin definitely showing now. "Oh yes, I know the type. I run a fashion boutique, you see… One time I was commissioned by the most— shall we say, eccentric lumber mill owner from the Manechester region, to make this utterly bizarre headwear…" Levitating her teacup, she nodded at the mare's table and the empty seat across from her. "May I…?"
"Of course," the stranger enthused, gesturing at the vacancy.
~
"I mean, I think ultimately the problem is that most ponies are just stupid." Soul Searcher tilted her head and mock-frowned. "Is that too elitist of me?"
Rarity chuckled into her glass of water, adding her small part to the warm blanket of susurrus that enveloped the dining carriage. "Astoundingly so. Not to say that you're wrong, but…"
"I know, I know, it's horrible of me to say, and I honestly wouldn't go around blurting that out to just anyone. But— look," she leaned forward and rested her head on her foreleg, "we're artists, right? You and I, we're— it's a simple statistical fact, we're not like most other ponies. They're the consumers, we're the creators; this shit is our life, so of course we care about what's actually being created far more than the average pony. We don't waste our time wearing tripe from Equestrian Apparel, or listening to lowest common denominator pop like Sapphire Shores, or…" She stopped, noticing Rarity's glance shift conspicuously downwards. "Oh gods, you don't."
"She's... a client of mine, as it were. A client that just so happens to have the voice of an angel."
Soul Searcher snorted. "Strike one, Rarity. Watch yourself."
Rarity pointed an accusatory hoof, smirking. "And who are you to decide what is a waste of time and what isn't, hmm? Who crowned you the Princess of Good Taste?" She squinted. "You don't look like an alicorn to me…"
Her companion sighed, reclining in retreat. "Eugh, that's the whole kicker, isn't it though? Everything's subjective and there's no such thing as good or bad and blah blah fucking blah. I'm not claiming to be some divine authority, but I can give you some damn good reasons, I can actually explain to you why, critically speaking, the compositions of one Sapphire Shores are less innovative, less impressive and less historically important than the symphonies of Ivory Keys, or the pop ballads of Maressey, or any single thing produced by her current artistic competition that's languishing in obscurity. And you'll nod and say, sure, critically speaking, and then the conversation is over and you haven't changed your mind, because I can't convince you not to like what you like, and I can't convince you to actually give a shit about art if you don't."
"And most ponies don't," Rarity ventured.
"Most ponies take pride in not caring. If I had a bit for every time someone scoffed when I told them about my latest exhibition…! I'm sure you've gotten that too, right? Ponies are always denigrating fashion. Like it's conceited to care about aesthetics. Like it's uncool to know what you're talking about." She rolled her eyes for emphasis.
Rarity pursed her lips in contemplation. "Not so much of late - I believe I've finally infiltrated the social circles of ponies who actually care. Or ponies who give the pretence of caring, so that they seem cultured… But back in Ponyville, absolutely. I don't think many locals ever caught on to what I'm actually capable of. They always come in looking for something utterly beneath me. I remember one lady was looking for a new hat - I asked if she were after any particular kind, and she shot me a look of complete incomprehension and said, 'you know, for your head.'"
Soul Searcher slammed her foreleg on the table as she cackled, almost upending her empty plate. "My point exactly!" she exclaimed. "Stupid! Just stupid." Rarity could feel the glances from their neighbouring patrons, but the knowledge that she was hurtling ever further away from anypony she actually knew, combined with the two glasses of wine in her belly, quelled any embarrassment she may have otherwise felt.
"Oh, come now, not stupid, just… A lot of ponies simply don't have time for fashion, or art in general. They're busy with their own professions, doing all those menial tasks that society actually needs to exist and to thrive."
Wide magenta eyes met her gaze from across the table. "And society doesn't need art? Strike two…"
Raising an eyebrow - "What cruel fate awaits me at the third strike?”
Bouncing hers - "I think you'll find out soon enough."
Rarity found herself blushing, and pushed on. "What I really mean is, I don't think these average ponies of yours are deliberately trying to ignore our efforts. I think their lives are rather full as it is with their own emotions and characters and narratives, and when they find the time to unwind, they're too exhausted to invest themselves in works that require concerted effort. By contrast, we spend our days and nights, our professional and our free time, submerged in such high-maintenance art. We don't know how not to invest ourselves in it. So it's not that we're smart, or they're stupid. Rather, we're just… different. And it seems our two camps are, regrettably, incompatible."
"Incompatible," Soul Searcher echoed, sipping at her wine. "So who are we even making all this wonderfully obscure art for?” She gestured at her cutie mark with her free hoof, a thin paintbrush resting on a heart-shaped palette. “What’s the point of this damn thing? Why are we still doing this?"
"Because sometimes, dear, you'll happen upon an eccentric young mare on an intercity train who, well— who does give a shit, as you so eloquently expressed." She giggled, satisfied, at her own crassness. "And we're not more important than the rest of society at large, but us like minds are the most important things to each other."
Soul Searcher raised her glass. "Cheers to that."
The train rolled on through the valley, the distant northern trees softly aglow with the dying light of the sun as its sister rose somewhere far behind them. As her companion polished off her third glass of the evening, Rarity asked, "pray tell, Ms. Soul Searcher - what wonderfully obscure art are you working on at the moment?"
"Nothing. Sweet nothing. Free as a seapony. I spent the last year doing this one exhibition in Vanhoover, then Whinniepeg, then Fillydelphia, and now it's all over and I'm slouching back to where it all began."
"Ah. Hoping to find inspiration at home?"
She snorted. "Fuck home. Only coming back to pack my shit up and figure out where I'm escaping to."
“Escape?” Rarity shifted in her seat. “Is Vanhoover really so awful?"
"Yes. No. No, look, it's not Vanhoover's fault, I've just… I grew up there, and I got bigger, and it didn't." She sighed, ran a hoof through her mane, pulling up her bangs only for them to fall immediately back into place. "I didn't tell you about my last exhibition? The one I just finished up?”
"By all means, fill me in."
"It's like, an encapsulation of exactly what I mean. So it’s— eugh, it’s so weird trying to describe it, I wish I could just show you… It’s a series of paintings of really important places in Vanhoover. The places that everyone who grew up there or lives there knows and loves. Not the shitty tourist attractions - that’s not the real heart of the city, right? That’s looking in from the outside. I mean places like, the Sea Spray Café by the marina. Best espresso in town, ask anypony, and with the best view of the northern forests. And right across from the carriage stop on West Haystings, there’s this flower cart run by this adorable old mare, Late Bloomer, and I swear to the skies above, nopony has ever seen her leave that cart. No-one’s ever seen it closed, or if they have, they don’t tell anyone, because why ruin it for everypony else?” She chuckled, then caught herself and continued - “places like that. These integral little parts of the city that we all know about and cherish like they’re secrets from the rest of the world. I painted those, except - please bear with me here - I painted everything, realistically as possible, as its skeleton. The café, stripped of all its walls and decorations, down to the wooden framework that barely looks stable; chairs and tables as their most basic, unpolished forms; all the baristas and regulars, too, just bones, somehow holding themselves together.”
“How delightfully bleak.”
Soul Searcher smiled ruefully. “Just like life, right? Just like reality. I’m only trying to point out something that’s already there, right under our muzzles, every single day. We pile all these layers on top of it to disguise it, but… What is this place, without memory? Without years of recognition and meaning being accrued? You have to ask yourself - why is this place home? What separates form from function? What separates your favourite café from just an architect’s blueprints and wood and sawdust? I think— honestly, I’m sure some ponies walked away feeling more attached to the place, like, out of fear, and ignorance…” She shrugged. “But what I was trying to show ponies is: it’s only home because you keep subjecting yourself to it, day in and day out. It’s home because it’s static. Stagnant. It’s always there, and it’s warm and safe and it will always try to keep you there until you sip your last latte and breathe your final breath.”
There was a long, thoughtful pause. Rarity stared at the artist before her, this young and inscrutable thing, so full of life and somehow so tired of it. At last she imparted - “yikes.”
“Sorry, I get pretty dramatic when I drink.” With a look of sudden remembrance, Soul Searcher reached for the wine bottle by the window.
“Consider yourself lucky. I just get sad.”
“Are you sad now?” She frowned as she upturned the bottle and yielded only drops.
A wry smile - “You’re certainly pushing me down that path, Ms. Soul Destroyer.”
“Oh, pshaw. You seem to be dealing with the harsh truths of existence just fine.”
“Looks can be deceiving.” It was said with humour, but something stung inside Rarity as the words left her lips, some dull residual ache echoing out from her centre. She felt a heaviness in her next breath, and quickly moved on - “How did it fare? The exhibition, I mean.”
“It was awesome. For me, at least. I don’t think I made any dents in the collective conscience of the Vanhoover populace, but… That exhibit ran back at the start of the year, and a week or so after it finished up, I get this letter from Whinniepeg. Someone from the arts council there caught it and loved it, just loved it, and they want to host it for a few weeks. I tell them, I'm real glad you liked it, happy to send it over, but nopony in Whinniepeg is gonna go see it, and if they do, they're not gonna understand it, because it's all about Vanhoover - the phenomenology of living there and calling that particular city 'home.' It's meaningless to anyone else. And they write back and say, 'okay, come stay here for a while, make Whinniepeg your home, and make us a localised version.'"
"Now there’s a concept."
"Fuckin' right! I thought they were insane at first, but no, they had a modest little box in the middle of the city I could crash at, happy to subsidise my living expenses in exchange for the commission, plus another one next summer. I still thought the whole idea was loony and I was sure my commissioned work would be awful, but I finally had my way out of Vanhoover, y'know? So I said yes, and two weeks later, there I am, living on my own at the south end of the Whinniepeg arts district, in a whole new city, half the country away from everyone and everywhere I knew.” She swept a hoof through the air, as if trying to encompass something too large to be grasped. “Sweet princess breath, you think moving out of home is such a big deal when it's happening - but really, when it's all over, you're still living in the same world as your friends and colleagues, your family's only a few suburbs over… There’s a safety net there. Not with this, though.” A grin spread across her face. “This was such a new sensation, and it was so profoundly alienating, and so liberating. And it was like, vindication, y’know? I talked a damn lot of talk about leaving Vanhoover behind, and now I was finally walking the walk, and it was everything I’d hoped it would be. Whinniepeg isn’t even a great city! But it was new. Everything felt so refreshing, looked brighter, tasted better…”
“But surely—” Rarity stopped herself, glanced down at her hooves before continuing in a smaller voice - “surely you felt lonely?”
“Alone, sometimes. But not lonely. I made friends, of course, met some colleagues, had some flings. And I had myself. At the end of the day, I’ll always have myself, and I think… yeah. I think that will always be enough. Not that I’m not enjoying your company,” she winked.
“What a charmer you are.” Gravity shifted minutely as the train veered around a bend in the track. “How long did you stay there?”
“Four months. Spent the first three doing everything I could to make Whinniepeg my new home, trying to become a working part of the city; trying to connect to it, so I knew how best to destroy that connection.” That mischievous grin spread across her face once more. There was something in it, some subtle intelligence behind those magenta eyes, that ensnared the beholder. “Then I painted my commission and it ran for just under a month. If you ask me, it was a pile of crap; but ponies are stupid, and someone from Filly caught wind of it and asked me to head east and do the same damn thing. Things began again, and finished again, and now I’m heading back to Vanhoover for a pit-stop while I plan my next move.” Soul Searcher trailed off, paused, then exhaled as she sunk bank into her seat. “Whew. You gotta stop me when I’m rambling. I’m boring you to death.”
“Not at all,” Rarity said without hesitation. “You are a riveting pony, Ms. Soul Searcher.”
The mare in question waved a hoof dismissively. “Naw, forget me… But, do you get what I’m saying? Not like, ‘do you understand,’ I mean, do you feel the same way about yourself? About Ponyville? Do other ponies feel these things? Am I just totally batshit?”
In the moment Rarity took to collect her thoughts, she became aware of their solitude. The sun had well and truly set; the other patrons had finished their meals and bid a quick retreat to their seats. The dining car was saved from the chill of silence by the background rumble of the train’s motion, and the lofty conversation of the two mares. She drew in a deep breath. “If I’m honest - with you and with myself - I’ve been visiting home less and less for that exact reason. I’ve lived in Ponyville all my life, but even from a young age, I knew how much bigger the world must’ve been. There was Ponyville, and there was Everywhere Else. It used to be this shapeless place, just a feeling I harboured in my gut, an idea of something greater than my humble little home. I remember the first time I travelled to Canterlot, and I finally had a real, physical location to embody my dreams… Nowadays my work has me travelling all over, to Canterlot, Manehattan, Fillydelphia, and I’ve seen such amazing things and truly felt a resonance I can't quite explain at times, like I’d found something that had been missing for so long I had simply grown numb to its absence…” She sighed. “And I always come back to sweet home Ponyville. I have to. That's where my friends are, and my family, and I love them all so dearly, but…”
She rolled her empty glass between her hooves, staring intently at its shifting surface as it caught the carriage lamplight. “It's a trap, isn't it? If you stay in any place for long enough, you make connections, and those connections wrap you up and weigh you down so that you can’t leave. You couldn't possibly leave now - who would look after your sister when your parents are out of town? Who would go on spa dates with Fluttershy, have sleepovers at Twilight’s? Who would… it's all so…” She fumbled for words.
Her companion nodded. “I get it, I totally get it. You need those connections to other ponies, to make your life worthwhile - to complete yourself. But then, you're not really you in your entirety, are you? You're made up of some central pony plus all your friends and your relatives and neighbours and colleagues. And if you want to get out and see the world, you tear all that apart. Whoever it is that leaves, all shredded and limbless, the world gets to find out - who is that, really?”
Rarity’s voice came softly, when it came. “I… tore one of those connections. The biggest one, really, not long ago. It feels as if our relationship was as much a part of me as my cutie mark, my accent, my mannerisms - and now it's gone. But I can still feel it, like a phantom limb. There are these moments where I realise I’m thinking of myself as hers, defining us by our relation to each other…” She looked up, locking her shining eyes with her companion’s. ”I don’t know who I presently am, Soul Searcher. I’m trying my hardest to be like you, to have myself, to only need myself, and I don’t even know who that is… But it's gotten me to thinking. That's one connection, the strongest one in my life, gone. And I’m still alive, aren’t I? At a cost, but it can be done. The process has begun - perhaps I should keep it going? Perhaps it's time I just snapped all these ties,” she continued breathlessly. “Who's to say I’ll even come back from Vanhoover?”
Soul Searcher cocked her head. “You mean that?”
The moon was still low on the horizon, its ghostly light teasing the outlines of the boulders that lined the tracks around them. Rarity gazed, unfocused, at the rocky outcroppings of the Unicorn Range that towered in the distance. “It feels like… the only things keeping me there are my obligations to everypony else. Isn’t that absurd? Isn’t that just the most absurd—”
There was a jarring transition as the train entered into a tunnel with a gusty crescendo, and in the window there appeared the reflection of the dining carriage, and she caught a mirrored glimpse of her own furrowed brow and the sorrow in her eyes before the train burst out of the cave, and the view returned to the earth and motion and darkness. She turned to her silent friend.
“What the hell gives them the right to do that to me?”
~
She slept dreamlessly.