• Published 9th Aug 2012
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More Than Thirty Minute Ponies - Exuno

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#69 - Idle Hooves

“I can't believe it.”

Rarity paced across her inspiration room, gracefully stepping around the chaotic mess of cloth and tools on the floor.

“Not one order.”

The unicorn's mane was frazzled, her eyes darting from place to place, desperately trying to find something, anything she had missed. Forgotten.

“How is it that, I, the most acclaimed and successful seamstress in Ponyville, have not a single order? I simply can not believe it.”

Rarity halted, her haunches falling straight to the ground. A cerulean glow surrounded a nearby pair of scissors, and they hovered in front of her face.

“Was it something I made? That last gown for Fleur de Lis? I knew I shouldn't have added that last row of amethysts, they would never have matched her mane.”

The scissors snapped shut, reflecting the distraught sapphire eyes back into themselves.

“No, Rarity! You must not doubt your sense of design like that. Surely it was none of your work, they were all flawless.”

The scissors were tossed onto a stack of cloth, tearing through the valuable silk. Rarity leaped back to her hooves, forcefully trotting to the vanity placed against the wall. She lifted her forelegs, slamming them onto the desk, and glared at the mare in the mirror.

“Then it must be your fault,” she spat into the reflection. “Who did you offend at that last ball? Was it that offer to re-fit Fat Cat's suit?”

Things stood like that for a while: unicorn staring into unicorn, each dissecting the other, trying to find some imagined fault to explain the horrific predicament they were trapped in.

Until a knock came at the door.

Rarity’s concentration shattered, her gaze finally broke from herself. Her head fell into her hooves underneath, and she began to sob.

“Leave me alone! You don’t deserve to be in the presence of such a failure, who can’t even keep her own business, her own passion afloat!”

Another knock came to the door, followed by a loud, squeaky voice.

“Siiiis! You can’t stay in there forever! You don’t always have to be busy. I’m sure you’ll get a customer tomorrow.”

“Sweetie Belle, you don’t understand!” Rarity threw up a forehoof and called out the the ceiling, despite her sister being behind a door. “A mare like me is nothing without her work!”

“Well, what about your friends?”

One of Rarity’s eyes opened, and every muscle in her body tightened in a moment of hesitation. “Neigh, I say! Without my talents and success, I would simply be a burden upon them!”

The little voice cried back, “Then what about me, Rarity?”

The unicorn lifted herself off the table, turning to face the door, but then held herself back.

The voice continued. “I don’t care about any of your fame or money! I just want my big sister, who plays with me, and helps me look for my cutie mark, and makes beautiful dresses, and is always the kindest and most helpful pony I know! And if any of those frissy fancy ponies can’t appreciate that, then who needs them!”

Rarity could not still herself any longer. With a fierce bound, further disrupting the already disastrous mess, she opened the door and and leapt onto her sister, wrapping her in a tight embrace.

“Oh, Sweetie Belle, you are absolutely right! I have been such a fool! There is more to life than just my work, and it doesn’t matter why I’ve been ignored! I shall just press on, despite all of it!”


Just then, the two hugging sisters were interrupted by a knock at the front door.

“Excuse me,” a deep, masculine voice said, “I really need a tuxedo for tomorrow, and I was hoping you might be able to help, even though the sign says you’re closed.”

Rarity’s eye twitched.



Author's Notes: In my neverending quest to twist the spirit of things, the prompt – “Rarity Has a Day Off” – immediately made me wonder what things would be like if it weren't intentional. The image of Rarity pacing, wondering why she has nothing to do sprung to mind, and I wrote that. Half an hour later, I had about two hundred words, ten wasted minutes trying to find something else to name a fancy food pony because Foie gras is made of meat (and then I cut it, anyway!), and a brief idea of Sweetie Belle trying to talk some sense in her sister. I gave up for thirty minutes, and then decided to come back and finish it over the course of the next hour.

I think is ending is terrible, but then again I thought the same about Hypothetical's and people seemed to love that. It seemed boring to stop off before it, and I couldn't help but torture Rarity with the most mundane explanation for her problems.