• Published 24th May 2013
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In the Pale Moonlight - LDSocrates



[Complete] Rarity never really thought of Luna as a friend; they've barely ever even spoken. When Luna decides to step in when Rarity starts working herself to death and obsessing over her career, the pair grow closer than either them ever expec

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Luna Dimidia

Rarity hummed a little tune to herself as she cantered down the long hallway. As composed as a lady like herself preferred to be, she allowed herself a little spring to her step and a sway to her hips to show off her pride to a job well done. And as humble as a country girl like herself preferred to be, she also let herself hold her nose up high and put a smug smile on her face. Thankfully nopony was around to see either set of indulgences, each door tightly shut and none of their tenants wandering about, until she reached her destination.

Her magic glow took hold of the brass knocker on the hotel door and rapped it against its mount.

“Come in, it’s unlocked!” came the graceful voice of a Canterlot mare.

Rarity bowed slightly out of reflex and opened the door. She crossed the threshold from a high-class hotel into a home of clashing styles. The apartment’s mix of modern and antique furniture and decorations had the feel of Luna’s personal dining room yet the comforts of home, while the intricate designs painted onto the walls themselves with their bright colors and string-of-consciousness designs looked like Manehattan street art collided with Canterlot fine art.

The soft sound of hoofsteps came down from the second floor of the apartment as Rarity closed the door behind her. Down the spiral staircase in the corner of the room came Octavia, her trademark white collar and pink bowtie fastened to her neck. “Ah, Rarity! I was wondering when you’d grace us with your presence,” she greeted as she climbed off the stairs. “Enjoying your stay in Canterlot, I hope?”

“I come to Canterlot for business, not to enjoy myself; I come here for pleasant company,” Rarity said, her smile less smug and more warm.

“I’m hoping you haven’t forgotten your business here, though,” Octavia giggled as she trotted up to her friend. “Do you have the dress?”

“I have it right here,” Rarity said with a nod, pulling a box out of her saddle bags before she hung them on a nearby rack. “Again, sorry it took so long to complete. I’ve had so many other projects lately, and truth be told this has been the most difficult.”

“I never said it would be easy. Pleasing Vinyl so often is when it comes to this sort of thing,” Octavia said, rolling her eyes with a loving smile. “Why do you think I didn’t give you any sort of deadline?”

“Hey sweetcheeks, who is it?” Vinyl called down from up the staircase, sending a blush straight into Octavia’s face.

“It’s Rarity, Vinyl,” she called back over her shoulder. “Would you kindly come down? It’s rude not to greet guests.”

“I know, I know, I’m coming,” the DJ grumbled more than yelled in return.

“You still let her call you that?” Rarity giggled behind her hoof.

“Yes,” Octavia sighed, her cheeks still pink. “Truth be told, I find the pet name endearing in a strange sort of way. Don’t ever tell her that, though, or she’ll never let me hear the end of it.”

“My lips are sealed,” Rarity promised, making the zipping motion with her hoof.

Instead of the sound of hoofsteps coming from the staircase, there was the sound of fur against polished wood as Vinyl slid down the railing literally by the seat of her plot. She hopped off when she reached the bottom, a cocky smile on her face along with her violet-tinted shades. “Good afternoon, Rares. How’s it hangin’? Whatcha got there?”

“How many times have I told you not to slide down the stair railing like that?” Octavia huffed. “It’s undignified and unsanitary.”

Rarity could see Vinyl roll her eyes behind her glasses. “Tavi, sweetcheeks, you of all ponies should know how clean-”

Rarity loudly cleared her throat before Vinyl could go further, sparing Octavia from her head popping like a cherry from how red it was getting. “What I have,” she said pointedly, “is a commission from your marefriend here.”

“Another dress?” Vinyl said with a raised brow, turning to Octavia. “You’ve already got, like, a bajillion of them!”

“I have eight,” Octavia said flatly.

“And I get by without even one,” Vinyl huffed, plopping down on her plot and crossing her forelegs.

“And that is about to change,” Octavia added with a smug smile.

“Come again?” Vinyl asked, peering over her glasses.

“Octavia commissioned it, but it isn’t for her. It’s for you,” Rarity explained, levitating the box over to the DJ.

“Oh no,” Vinyl said hastily, pushing it away from her. “No no no no no no, not happening, nuh-uh, not going there.”

“I had her design it specifically to your tastes, not mine,” Octavia assured, pushing it back into her lover’s lap. “I’m sure you’ll love it.”

“Have you seen it yet?” Vinyl asked, a brow raised again.

“I haven’t had the chance to,” Octavia admitted, “but-”

“Then how in the hay do you know I’ll like it?” Vinyl cut in.

“I was going to say,” Octavia said pointedly, fluttering her eyelashes and nuzzling her cheek against Vinyl’s, “that I’d rather see it on you first.”

Vinyl’s cheeks went pink. “Fine, I’ll try it on,” she mumbled, taking it in her magic grip and taking it with her back upstairs.

After she was sure that Vinyl was out of earshot, Rarity let out a hail of giggles. “My word, do you know how to tame that wild mare!”

“She’s hard to please when it comes to clothes and music. For everything else, she’s a simple mare with simple pleasures,” Octavia giggled back with a knowing smirk.

After the two shared a good laugh and Vinyl called down that she could hear them, Rarity stifled her mirth and gulped hard. “Um… while she’s trying her dress, mind if I talk to you about something a tad… personal, Octavia?”

Octavia’s brow furrowed ever so slightly, but she nodded all the same. “Of course; come and sit down,” she said, ushering her guest over to the circle of chairs, pillows and a couch around the unlit fireplace. “What’s on your mind?”

Rarity hesitated, but followed her host. The two stood at an impasse, both of them motioning for the other to take up residence on the couch.

“You’re the guest, you take it,” Octavia insisted.

“Yes, but you’re the host. It’s only right that you have the best seat,” Rarity insisted in return.

“You took months out of your time to make a dress for Vinyl, the most anti-clothes mare either of us has ever met. I at least owe you this tiny favor.”

“And it did take months when it could have taken less time, though, and besides, I’m getting paid for it. You don’t owe me anything besides bits.”

The two looked hard at each other for several seconds, the silence only broken by a grunt of frustration and a thud upstairs.

“We both take it,” Octavia said.

“Agreed,” Rarity nodded.

The two mares climbed up and laid their stomachs on the antique cloth couch, facing each other.

“So, what’s on your mind, Rarity?” Octavia asked as she settled in.

Rarity closed her eyes and pulled her lips taught in a thoughtful frown. “Oh, how do I put this tactfully…?”

“Living with Vinyl has made me used to a lack of tact,” Octavia dismissed with a wave of her foreleg. “Just let the words flow.”

“Okay.” Rarity took in a deep breath and braced herself, looking Octavia in the eye. “How did you first realize you were a filly fooler?”

Several agonizing seconds passed between the two, Octavia looking bewildered at her guest before she said, “If this were any other setting and you were any other pony, I’d ask if you were a tabloid journalist.”

“I’m serious!” Rarity asked, her tone a bit more pleading than she wanted it to. “How did it first come to mind? Did you always just know, or did something happen, or did it hit you like a bolt of inspiration, what?”

Octavia hummed in thought, her gaze going past Rarity and into a different time and place. “Do you want the long version or the short version?”

“As long as you feel necessary,” Rarity said over another irritated cry from Vinyl.

After another second of humming Octavia said, “For a long time I suppose it didn’t really occur to me at all. The von Clef family is very traditional, you see, and I was sheltered to an absurd degree. I never thought I wasn’t straight because I didn’t know there was an alternative. After spending most of my adolescent years dating stallions and just not getting along with them, I at first decided to blame my luck. I just assumed I hadn’t met the right colt yet. After a while, I eventually started blaming myself. I thought there was something wrong with me.”

Rarity felt her chest get tighter and her heart ache in far more than sympathy.

“I can’t really pinpoint an exact moment when I realized what I was, or rather what I am,” Octavia continued. “It was very gradual. I became very close with a friend of mine from the Heartstrings family, and one night during a sleep over, in the heat of the moment, we kissed. I was horrified at first, and avoided her for a while, but over time I realized that I rather liked it. We started dating in secret. Obviously, in the end, it didn’t work out between us, in a very bad way. She decided to move from Canterlot to get away from me.”

“I’m very sorry; I didn’t mean to bring up memories like that,” Rarity mumbled.

“It’s fine,” Octavia said, holding up her hoof and refusing to wipe her glistening eyes. “Time has a way of healing a lot of wounds, and it was mostly my fault to begin with. But enough about that; I’m curious as to why you wanted to know.”

Rarity bit her lip and took another bracing breath. “In all honesty, I think I’m starting to question my orientation as well. I’ve gone through quite a few stallions, and even the ones I liked just didn’t feel right. And now there’s a mare who I’m really close to that does feel right, and I’m not really sure how to handle that. I don’t even know what her orientation is.”

“If one believes the tabloids, you and the other Elements have been getting comfortable for a while,” Octavia chuckled.

“The tabloids are always making things up about the six of us,” Rarity huffed, lifting her nose as if the word “tabloid” was in the room emitting a noxious smell. “And besides, it isn’t them. They’re my best friends, and though I’d gladly fight beside and risk death for any one of them, I just don’t feel that way about any of them.”

“And I was so sure it’d be one of them. Am I allowed to know the identity of your mystery crush, then?” Octavia asked with a conspiratorial smile. “Maybe Vinyl’s seen her lurking in a filly fooler bar.”

Rarity giggled nervously. “I think I’d prefer to keep her identity anonymous for now. Besides, I’m not sure Vinyl would be able to keep a secret like that, no offense. I don’t want anypony getting wind of this until I’m absolutely certain.”

“No, I understand,” Octavia sighed with a smile. “The mare’s always making a fool of herself in front of the paparazzi, so I wouldn’t trust her either if I wasn’t-”

“Finally figured out how to put this thing on!” Vinyl groused from above, her hoofsteps coming down the stairs. “I’m coming down, and you better appreciate this, Tavi!”

Rarity looked at the stairwell and back to Octavia. “Has she ever even worn clothes before?”

“As far as I’m aware, never,” Octavia giggled.

The two mares turned to the stairwell to see Vinyl step down from the stairwell. A midnight blue evening gown swirled around her hooves as she walked forward. Bands of cloth that changed every color of a neon-charged rainbow with each movement adorned the dress in elegant swirls and patterns that formed musical notes and her cutie mark on each hip. A similarly blue cavalier hat with a parrot feather tucked into the band sat on her head, the brim also decked with a shifting rainbow.

Vinyl cocked her hips half-heartedly, a grudging frown on her face. “Well? How do I look?” she asked.

“It’s beautiful,” Octavia breathed. “Rarity, get a mirror; Vinyl, you have to see this!”

Rarity smiled and did as she was asked, taking a full-body mirror off the wall with her magic and hovering it behind Vinyl.

“What, it’s blue with some pretty colors,” she grumbled as she turned around. “It can’t possibly be that… woah.” Her eyes went so wide and her jaw went so slack that her sunglasses dropped to the carpet, her bare candy red eyes staring at her own reflection.

“You didn’t look closely at the pattern, did you?” Octavia guessed with a knowing smile.

“Not really, but who cares! This looks awesome!” Vinyl squeed, posing in the mirror in ways ranging from heroic to sultry.

Rarity giggled behind her hoof. “I’m glad you like it. Let’s just say that I’ve been looking at the night sky a lot recently, and inspiration hit me when I remembered the northern lights; flashy, colorful, energetic, but beautiful and elegant. I thought it would fit.”

“Hay, it even goes great with my hips!” Vinyl celebrated, wagging her plot at the mirror. “You sure you didn’t make this to Tavi’s tastes?”

“Minus the elegant part,” Octavia muttered through her blush.

Rarity blushed a bit as well, but she hid it behind her hoof with a giggle. “I don’t think I even have to ask if you want to keep it.”

“I’d be crazy to give this thing up,” Vinyl giggled. “I mean, just look at me!” She took a few steps away from the mirror and started strutting up to, with her eyes half lidded and a sultry smirk on her lips, like a fashion model down the runway, or a cat that cornered a mouse, or much more realistically an amorous mare that cornered her marefriend.

…wait. Fashion model.

Everything in Rarity’s brain came to a screeching halt. “Oh…oh no,” she said through a slack jaw. Her horn flared to life, dropping the mirror to the carpeted floor and picking up her saddlebags. “So sorry, have to go, just remembered something terribly important, I’ll expect your cheque in the mail, bye!”

She was a blur of white and purple streaking down the hall and down the stairs before either of the two musicians could say a word.

The two stared at the door, then stared at each other before Vinyl asked, “What poked her in the plot?”


Twisted sheets, shifting pillows, soft groans, tightly shut curtains and snuffed out lights leaving the room in the tight embrace of the dark… all telltale signs of an unhappy, brooding Luna. The Princess of the Night shifted in her bed again with a sigh, flipping one of her many pillows over and laying her head on its colder side.

Her eyes turned to the wall. Among the few portraits of herself and her old friends and confidantes that managed to survive a millennium of absence, she focused in on one in particular. The only one left of… her.

Luna’s horn glowed gently in the dark as she took the painting off the wall and brought it up to her face. It was a life-sized portrait of a young mare’s face in front of Canterlot palace, a charming smile on her face and a twinkle in her eye. Though it was likely that Luna’s memories were inventing those; no brush or magic could capture the real thing. The princess reached out and ran her hoof along the mare’s cheek, almost feeling her hoof against fur instead of canvas, stroking her face again across centuries of time and the barrier of death.

The sound of the lock clicking open caused Luna’s eyes to snap wide and hastily put the picture back on the wall. She raised her head and shielded her eyes as the doors opened. The sudden introduction of light to her shadowy lair blurred her nocturnal vision, but the size of the silhouette in the door could be only one mare.

“Luna, it’s time to raise the moon,” came the soft voice of her sister. “We’re almost five minutes late as it is.”

Once her eyes adjusted, Luna turned to look at the clock. “My apologies; I just wasn’t keeping track of time.” She slid out of her bed with an earthward gaze and a half-hearted attempt of her normal regal grace.

She didn’t have a chance to take a step forward before Celestia raised her hoof for her to stop. “No; sit back down,” Celestia insisted as she came forward instead, closing the door behind her and lighting a few candles with her magic. “The moon can wait a bit longer.”

“I’m fine, sister,” Luna assured, though her voice was weak and soft. “I can perform my duties just fine.”

“A troubled heart in the family is more important than the changing of heaven’s guard,” she said, speaking with the old eloquence of a Celestia from many centuries ago. “Please, sit down. It’s quite clear that something is bothering you.”

Luna couldn’t help but smile, but it faded quickly. “You could always just ask, you know.”

“Would you ever open up to me if I wasn’t persistent?” Celestia asked with a smile, nuzzling their cheeks together.

“I suppose I might not,” Luna admitted with a sigh, setting her hindquarters back on her bed. “All the same, I’m not sure I want to talk about it.”

Celestia climbed on the bed and laid on her stomach, her eyes surveying the room closely. “It’s about her, isn’t it?” she asked softly, her eyes squarely on the portrait.

Luna looked up at her sister, wide-eyed. “How did you-”

“You put it back on crooked,” she cut in. “You were looking at it before I came in, weren’t you?”

Luna looked back to see that, indeed, the painting was at an extreme slant. “Damnation,” she spat under her breath as she fixed it. She let out a sigh and laid down next to her sister. “Yes, I was. But it isn’t about her. Well, it somewhat is… it’s hard to explain. I’m not even sure I know myself yet.”

“I don’t think I’d lose any bits if I bet that part of it is that you miss her,” Celestia said.

Luna bowed her head, avoiding eye contact. “More than you know.”

She felt her sister’s cheek against her own as Celestia whispered, “I know. And I can’t apologize enough for… everything.”

Luna pushed her away gently and shook her head. “It’s not your fault. It was a different time; you had no reason to think differently than you did.”

Celestia shook her head in turn. “No, that’s no excuse. It was a different time and a different culture, but you’re still my sister. I should’ve stood by you. I should’ve defended what made you happy… instead of trying my best to destroy it.” Her lips were pulled taught as her eyes narrowed. “I was a fool.”

“Please, let’s not dwell too much on the past,” Luna pleaded, pulling her sister into a tight hug. “There are only dark memories there.”

Celestia wrapped her arms and wings around her little sister and hugged her tight in turn. “Very well; if that is what you want, Luna. I’m sorry if I dug up memories you wanted left buried.”

Luna pulled away slightly and nuzzled her. “It’s really no trouble at all.” She looked into her sister’s grateful eyes for a few moments before taking a deep breath. “Thank you for trying to help, but my troubles are less about the past and more about the present, truth be told.”

Celestia broke the hug and sat in rapt attention. “Am I allowed to know what they are?”

“Do you have the password?” Luna teased with a shadow of a smile.

Celestia grinned back and tapped her hoof to her chin. “Would it happen to be… poison joke salad?”

“I still have yet to get you back for that,” Luna giggled, trying to scowl but failing. “I was invisible for a week! But yes, that’s close enough.”

Celestia smiled and nuzzled her nose against Luna’s. “So, what really is troubling you?”

Luna’s smile faltered, but it didn’t invert. “Well… let’s just say that I know a mare who I may be interested in. Who I may be feeling about the same way I used to for, well… you know.”

“Twilight or Rarity?” Celestia asked flatly.

“Rarity,” Luna said just as flatly with a sigh.

Celestia giggled behind her hoof. “You know, there’s little use beating around the bush when you only have two really good friends who happen to be mares.”

“Hush, you,” Luna said, lightly batting her sister with her hoof. “As I was saying, I’m really interested in her. I mean, I’m not head over hooves in love, but I do remember feeling this way at first for my last love.” She sighed and flopped on her side. “But she’s straight, and even if she wasn’t, I know next to nothing about modern courtship. I know that dowries no longer exist and the marrying age is no longer thirteen, and that’s about it.”

Celestia hummed in thought, her brow furrowed ever so slightly. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“No love potion,” Luna said flatly.

“Blast,” she spat with a joking smile. “But no, I wasn’t thinking that. I was thinking that maybe I could persuade Twilight to keep an eye on Rarity and perhaps probe her for her exact feelings on you. Twilight’s a bright girl, and she’ll do essentially anything I ask.”

“You really need to get that mare to stop worshipping the ground you walk on if she’s going to be one of us someday,” Luna said with a roll of her eyes. “She’ll need to know some autonomy to be a ruler.”

“I’ll get around to it,” Celestia assured with a wave of her hoof. Luna just rolled her eyes harder. “But even if she ends up not being interested, you still need modern courtship lessons for when the right mare comes along.”

“Lessons? I was hoping I could get a book,” Luna said with a frown. “Lessons involve… interaction and socializing.”

“You have more in common with this generation than you think,” Celestia deadpanned. “But no, most books on the subject are rubbish, written by what I hesitate to call authors who just have a quota to fill. Trust me, I’ll provide what you need.”

“Though I shudder to think what will come of this, thank you for the help, sister,” Luna said, nuzzling her nose to Celestia’s one more time.

“Think nothing of it,” she said, sliding off Luna’s bed. “Oh, and before I forget, I’ve been told that Rarity was seen scrambling up to her room in a panic earlier today. She has yet to come out. I think it would be wise if you checked in on her after we raised the moon.”

Luna bit her lip before she climbed off the bed and fell in line behind her sister. “Very well, but let’s make it quick. If Rarity’s been in a panic for hours, there’s no telling what sort of shape she’s in by now.”


“Oh why oh why has my muse deserted me in my time of need?!” Rarity wailed as she shook a mannequin by the shoulders. It unsurprisingly did not answer her question. If it had, she would be certifiably insane. She almost wished she was just so she could have an answer, even if that answer was that her muse was hiding from her at the end of a rainbow hidden in Celestia’s plot.

She flopped backward into a pile of crumpled and discarded design sketches. The waste basket had long overflowed with her perceived failures, and she felt she didn’t have time to take it out to empty it, so the floor would have to do. She rolled back and forth in the balls of parchment as if they were the physical manifestation of her frustration and woe. “Oh, this is absolutely hopeless,” she whimpered, covering her face with her hooves.

“Is this the aftermath of one of those ‘sonic rainboom’ things I’ve heard about?”

Rarity shot upright to see Luna on the balcony, cautiously opening the door and pushing aside a cluster of paper balls. “L-Luna! Um, so sorry about the mess, I meant to clean it up after I was done, I swear!” She scrambled onto all fours and her horn flared to life, magically stuffing and packing down paper balls far beyond the point they were meant to. When her magic failed to force more in, she started stomping down on it with her hoof to a chorus of crinkles. “Confound it all!”

She felt a sudden weightlessness, and was lifted up into the air. She was brought face-to-face with Luna, whose crooked lips seemed torn between amusement at Rarity’s antics or concern for the exact same reason. “Rarity, I think you need to take a moment to calm down.”

“Calm down? Calm down?!” she cried, flailing her legs in the air so hard that she managed to turn herself upside down. “I put off Fleur’s wedding dress until I completely forgot about it, and the wedding is in a week!”

“A lot can get done in seven days,” Luna assured.

“You just don’t get it,” Rarity snapped. “It takes a week to just put a really high-quality, intricate wedding dress together, and I haven’t even settled on a design!”

“That I can see as being a problem,” Luna said, her eyes widening and her brow furrowing.

“I’ll never get it done in time!” Rarity sobbed, tears running down her forehead and onto the floor. “I’ll let Fleur down and completely ruin her special day!”

She closed her eyes tight and covered them with her hooves. She felt her plot and hind legs get set down on the floor, blood no longer rushing to her head, as a pair of legs and wings wrapped around her. “It’s going to be okay, Rarity,” Luna whispered. “It’s going to be okay.”

“No it’s not,” she sniffled, pushing her face into Luna’s soft, furred chest. “Fleur will be heartbroken, Fancy Pants will be disappointed in me, and I’ll be known as the mare that couldn’t put a dress together for the biggest celebrity wedding in the past fifty years. I’ll be ruined!” She gasped and her eyes snapped open. “Oh sweet Celestia, how will I support myself? Hay, how will I support Sweetie Belle?! Without commissions, I don’t have any income, and after this who in their right mind would want to associate with me?! I’ll have to move back in with my parents, or ask for a loan from Celestia, or-”

Her hysterics were cut off by a hoof placed gently but firmly on her lips. She looked up through her tears at Luna, who was looking down at her with a warm smile. “I said it’s going to be okay, and I shall make it so.”

“H-how?” Rarity asked through Luna’s hoof.

She removed her hoof from Rarity’s lips and trotted over to her drafting table. “I know more about fashion than you think.” She motioned for Rarity to take a seat next to her. “Tell me what ideas you’ve had so far.”

Rarity took a deep breath and wiped the tears away before shakily joining Luna’s side. “That’s just it; I’ve had pretty much none. I’ve just been trying out styles and themes and color schemes at random in desperation. The only real idea I’ve had is the use of lilies, since the symbol fleur de lis is a stylized lily, but such a simple idea does not a dress make, let alone a wedding dress. Besides, I feel like she’s expecting it, and…” She took another deep, rattling breath. “And I’m not really feeling all that confident that whatever I can come up with will be good enough for her.”

“She’s your friend; I think she’d appreciate the effort all the same,” Luna assured.

Rarity shook her head. “I know that. It’s that I’m not sure that I’ll be satisfied that it’s good enough for her, you know? That's why I put it off for so long; nothing felt good enough. Fancy Pants and Fleur have stuck by me even in my most embarrassing moments, and have had the spine to stand up to the other Canterlot elite even when I didn’t. They’re both really nice ponies who have been very good to me, and I owe them so much. What kind of dress could I possibly make that would be worthy of those kinds of friends? And if I’m having so many doubts about Fleur’s dress, I shudder to think about how crushed I’ll be when I have to design a dress for the wedding days of any of my best friends.”

Rarity suddenly felt Luna’s cheek against her own, eliciting a blush from the smaller mare. “Sometimes, Rarity, you just have to believe that your work is good enough,” Luna said softly. “Even if you don’t think it is. Even if others don’t think it is. As an artist, sometimes you have to just be satisfied that you followed your vision and gave the world the beauty you wanted it to see. Even if you don’t think they appreciate it enough–even if you know they don’t appreciate it enough–because sometimes, belief in yourself and your work is the only thing that can keep you sane.” She paused and added, almost unheard, “Believe me… I know that from experience.”

Rarity hung her head low for several seconds of deafening silence. She nuzzled Luna back and whispered, “Thank you, Luna. I think I needed to hear that.”

Luna smiled in return. “I only wish I’d heard it a long time ago.”

Rarity smiled sadly back before flipping her mess of a mane. “So, what are your thoughts?”

“I’m thinking Roaman,” Luna mused as she looked over Rarity’s madmare notes scrawled on the latest attempt at a design. “Are you familiar with their fashion customs?”

“Republic or Empire?” Rarity asked without skipping a beat.

“I was thinking Empire,” Luna said, sounding very impressed. “I remember an absolutely gorgeous wedding dress I saw at the wedding of the… tenth emperor, I think.” She picked up a quill and started drawing. Her style completely broke everything Rarity learned about constructing a diagram, but she could plainly see the picture come to life. “I think the elegant simplicity may suit Miss Lee.”

Rarity hummed and tapped her chin and pulled out another sheet of paper and quill, scribbling down a design of her own. “Now that I really think about it, what do you think about the Prench Baroque style? Fleur is of Prench ancestry, and the fleur de lis is most commonly associated with the country.”

“I don’t think the wide-brimmed hats and ruffled collars would suit a wedding,” Luna chuckled.

Rarity smiled and rolled her eyes. “I know that. I was thinking more the general aesthetic of ruffled and layered fabric to give the illusion of extravagance, since it makes the dress look like it’s made of a lot more cloth than it actually is.”

“I never really thought of it that way,” Luna admitted.

“Never let it be said I was ever quite conventional,” Rarity said with a cocky smirk. “But I do like the idea of the simple design of a Roaman style dress. It’s iconic, unexpected without being bizarre, and will save me a lot of time.”

“Shall we mix the Roaman style with the Baroque aesthetic and a lily motif?” Luna suggested.

“I was thinking exactly the same thing,” Rarity said excitedly, pulling out another sheet of paper and hurriedly scribbling the image of the design that was so sharp in her mind.

The two talked and schemed and brainstormed clear until Luna had to leave to turn darkness into dawn. By the time she left, the horde of discarded paper balls had increased by leaps and bounds, but each was less a different sting of failure and more a different experiment with a good friend. Bags hanging under her eyes, Rarity staggered over to her bed and fell in. With a big smile on her face and growing warmth in her heart, she allowed herself the peace of sleep, eager to get to Luna’s realm once more.