Third Knight
“TWILIGHT, OPEN UP!”
“Gah!” Twilight, who had been lying in bed, yelped and flailed and fell off to the other side, out of Rarity's view. A few seconds later, she peeked out from behind the bed. “Er, Rarity! Hi! Good morning?”
She was wearing some sort of metal helmet on her head, and that was all the confirmation Rarity needed. “Open this window right now!” she yelled, pounding on the glass for emphasis.
“How are you even up there? This is the second floor!”
“Just open it!”
“Okay, okay!”
Twilight crawled over the bed, her limbs swinging like a dog wearing booties on an icy sidewalk, and she managed to stumble her way to the window. Once she pulled it open, Rarity stepped through the window and off her magical diamond, which she dismissed with a wave of her hand. It had been about the size of a skimboard, and she'd surfed it all the way here from her own home.
It had been about five minutes since she'd woken up. She had not calmed down one bit. “What,” she seethed, “did you do.”
“Me? What? No....” Twilight laughed nervously, backing up toward the bed as Rarity stalked toward her. “Why would you even think it was me in your dream?”
There was a beat. Twilight slapped herself in the face, saving Rarity the trouble. “I just said that, didn't I.”
“Twilight.” Rarity pointed her finger at the helmet on Twilight's head. It had lights and screws and dials sticking out of it, and generally looked like it had been cobbled together in a very clean junkyard. “Tell me what that is.”
“It's a... totally normal nightcap?” Twilight winced as Rarity's glare intensified. “All right! I built a thing to help you with your nightmares!”
Rarity stopped advancing. She took a step back, and crossed her arms. “Keep going.”
“I mean you were just having such a bad time and you're my friend and friends are supposed to help each other and I figured that this was how I could help you this time so I made this thing, it's called the Helm, it was really hard at first but I did some research on Equestrian dream magic and—”
“I don't care about the how, Twilight.” Rarity's foot was tapping. Her arms pressed against one another so hard that they seemed about to snap off. “I want to know why you thought this was an okay thing to do.”
“Because you need help, Rarity!” Twilight threw her arms up. “You need help and if you're not going to give it to yourself, someone else has to do it for you!”
“Twilight.” Rarity gritted her teeth. “Do you recall our earlier conversation about dreams? The one where you said that having the power to look into people's minds would be, oh, what was your word choice? Horrifying?”
Twilight pulled off the Helm, not meeting Rarity's glare, and dropped it on the bed. “Sunset does it,” she muttered.
“To villains, Twilight! And sometimes other people, when they give permission! Something which you did not get!” Rarity pointed her finger again. “You can't just go... go barging into the most private parts of people's lives like that!”
Twilight's expression turned sour. “What, like you barging into my bedroom?”
“Twilight?”
Twilight stiffened. “Yes?” she squeaked.
Rarity rubbed her forehead. She took a deep breath, counted to five, and let it out. “I appreciate,” she said through gritted teeth, “your desire to be helpful. But never, ever intrude into my or anyone else's dreams without express permission. Are we clear?”
She nodded.
Rarity flashed a smile. Her lips felt so tight that it was almost painful. “Perfect. Have a lovely day, darling.”
With that she walked past Twilight, opened her bedroom door, and walked out.
“And then she opened up her helmet,” Rarity fumed, “and it was Twilight! Twilight Sparkle, living rent-free inside my own head! Asking me if she was helping, as if she wasn't doing the most invasive possible thing!”
She sat on the bleachers outside school, burning through a lunch break because she had too much anger in her stomach to make room for any food. Fluttershy sat next to her, and her only contributions to the conversation—more of a monologue, really—had been nods and quiet “mm-hm”s. Right now, that suited Rarity just fine: Fluttershy was an excellent listener.
“And then, and then! I woke up and went to her house and she tried to deny she'd done anything!” Rarity's hands were telling at least half the story: she gesticulated, she shook her fists, she waved this way and that. “And when I got the truth out of her? She tried to say she was helping me! The unmitigated gall!”
“Mm-hm,” Fluttershy said.
Rarity slammed both hands down on the bleachers. “And it's not as if I don't appreciate some friendly support, no one could accuse moi of disliking friendly support! And it was a very nice idea of hers! But to just—just barge into my brain without so much as a by your leave!”
Fluttershy nodded.
“And I just—she just—URGH!” Rarity finally slumped forward. At long last, the ember of rage that had been fueling her since the morning had burned down to ash. She took deep breaths, and didn't bother to count them.
“Sunset looks into people's minds,” Fluttershy said, very quietly.
“You'll note, darling, that Sunset does it when we're trying to save the world from certain doom. Or if not the world, at least significantly populated metropolitan areas!”
“She used it on that mugger once,” Fluttershy said, very quietly. “He was just stealing some stuff.”
“Not,” Rarity continued, “when we're trying to save Rarity, from a problem that everyone but me seems to think I have!” She sighed. “I just... I don't get why everyone's trying to foist help upon me. Yes, there's the occasional sleep trouble, but I'm handling it. I promise I'm handling it.”
She looked over at Fluttershy, and asked, “Do you think I'm handling it, Fluttershy?”
Fluttershy didn't speak for several seconds, instead choosing to look away and nervously flex her fingers. Rarity let her: she knew Fluttershy found these sorts of confrontational questions stressful. “Um,” she began. “I... think that I'm not sure.”
Rarity waited.
“I mean,” Fluttershy continued, hands bunched up in her skirt, “if I tried to handle your workload, I'd probably... explode, or something. So you're definitely handling it better than I would. You're probably handling it better than a lot of people would.” She looked up at Rarity, smiling a little, and Rarity echoed the smile back.
“But,” Fluttershy continued, “now that I think about it, it does feel like you've been... not at your best this past month. Sorry,” she added, flinching as if Rarity had offered some rebuke: Rarity knew she would never retaliate like that, but she also knew that Fluttershy was wired differently than herself. Fluttershy mustered up the courage to keep going: “And it makes me think that maybe there's some things no one should try to handle. At least, no one should try to handle it alone.”
Rarity frowned, thinking for a moment. “I suppose I did have to miss band practice yesterday.” She sighed, blowing some hair out of her face. “I'll admit it now: I understand where Twilight was coming from.”
“Oh, that's good!” Fluttershy dared to smile a little.
“I'm still very angry at her.”
“Oh, that's... okay.” The smile wilted.
Rarity leaned in for a quick one-armed hug. “Thanks for listening, Fluttershy. And don't worry about me: I've already got other ideas for how to deal with the nightmares—sleep troubles.” Rarity smiled. “I just need to learn about something called Imagery Rehearsal Therapy, and—”
Rarity and Fluttershy's phones shrilled out a noise simultaneously. It sounded like an emergency alert, which was because that was exactly what it was—only it wasn't from any government agency. Rarity stiffened at the noise.
Fluttershy was faster: she pulled out her phone and tapped it on. “Equestrian magic emergency by the... dam north of town. Sunset is there. She says it's urgent.”
“Oh, they're all urgent.” With a noise between a grumble and a groan, Rarity stood up and stretched her arms. “Let's just hope it's nothing overly serious.”
The Canterlot City Dam was the most important structure in the city or its suburbs, if you didn't count the statue with the interdimensional portal—and if you did count the portal, the vote would probably go to a tiebreaker. It wasn't just that the dam's hydroelectric generator provided enough energy for well over half the city's electrical needs: the dam held back its river from draining through the valley where Canterlot City had been established.
In short, the dam was the reason that Canterlot City existed. Therefore, if the dam were to not-so-hypothetically be destroyed, it would be the reason for Canterlot City to stop existing.
And thus, to Rarity's immense lip-curling displeasure, the raging floodwaters surging toward her qualified as “overly serious”.
“Who is this fellow, anyway?” Applejack stood on the dam with the rest of them. “And what does he have against our darn?”
The other girls looked at her. “I meant dam. Consarned self-censoring.”
Sunset shivered a little, looking sopping wet. “I dunno, he just showed up on one of Twilight's magic-detectors and I went snooping.” She held the detector up, and like a compass it pointed straight up the river, toward the flood. “I got to read his mind a little—something about how humans are perverting nature's course and he's trying to correct it?—and then I got washed away.”
The seven of them looked at the flood from their vantage point at the top of the dam. The waters were surging, heaving, coming closer and closer all the time, and Rarity could see demonic faces in it as it approached: that probably had something to do with whatever Equestrian Tchotchke of Doom had caused this, right?
By her estimate, they had less than thirty seconds. A less seasoned group of heroes might have looked scared, or even determined.
Mostly they just looked annoyed. “I'd better not miss soccer practice for this,” Rainbow Dash said with a yawn.
“I had better not miss my appointment with....” Rarity caught herself. “My appointment.” She looked along the line of her friends, down at Twilight, who had ended up at the other end.
“All right. All right.” Sunset closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Obviously we don't let the water get over the dam. So that means Rarity and Twilight, you're on containment. Fluttershy, get whatever animals are around to go somewhere safe. Applejack...” She shrugged. “Kick some trees down, try to block it? Everyone else, we need to get to the top of the river and stop this dude.”
“All right.” Twilight chuckled a little nervously. “Go go pony rangers, right?”
The seven closed their eyes, and a brilliant light shone, and they transformed.
And they got to work.
Rarity thrust out her hands, and a lattice of her strongest diamonds flared into existence. They extended from the top of the dam, up another fifty feet at least, and then turned at right angles at the end of the dam to create a sort of giant basin to hold the water. It was just in time: the flood slammed into her shields as soon as she'd raised them.
Rarity found herself jolted back by the force, but she gritted her teeth and held it. Sure, this was probably more magic than she'd ever expended at once before, but what was life without a challenge here and there? She could handle this, as long as she wasn't overly distracted—
“So I wanted to talk about this morning,” Twilight said.
Rarity blinked.
“I've been thinking, and on the one hand, you're totally right.” Twilight was twiddling her thumbs, floating unsteadily between Rarity and the flood barrier. A flood barrier which was starting to groan. “I messed up. I shouldn't have gone into your head without your permission and I wanted to apologize for that.”
“Really,” Rarity grunted.
“Yeah. So....” Twilight sighed. “I'm sorry.”
The floodwaters filled more of Rarity's diamond basin. At a glance, she only had about twenty feet of height left before it overtopped. “Remember!” she heard Sunset yelling from the distance, almost inaudible above the torrent. “We just need to talk him down! The Equestrian magic probably picked up on some sort of emotional issue—”
“Of course it's an emotional issue!” Rainbow's shout was much easier to hear. “It's always an emotional issue! We get it!”
Twilight laughed nervously and scratched the back of her head. “But... I kept thinking, and I wondered if it wasn't just the privacy thing you were worried about.” The wall behind her started to buckle. “And I really don't think it is, Rarity.”
A little leak sprung in the wall, spraying a jet of water out onto the top of the dam. The swirling, sneering faces in the flood seemed to laugh in approval, whereas Twilight yelped and plugged it with an index finger.
“Not the time, darling,” Rarity said, feeling the sweat gather on her brow.
“No, it is the time.” Twilight's expression was fierce, and absolutely none of her attention was focused on the city-ending catastrophe building up behind her. “Rarity, I know you want to achieve your dreams yourself, but so many people around you are trying to help you, and you're just putting up a lot of barriers.”
“Noticed, have you?” Rarity's teeth were gritted. She worried they might shatter.
The wall buckled a little more, and another leak sprung. “But you don't have to!” Twilight continued, stretching to plug the other hole with her other index finger. “You don't have to put yourself through all this pressure, Rarity, and we could help you with it if you'd just let down your walls!”
“I really can't do that.”
“Yes you can!” Twilight's eyes shone with passion, and the flood surged above her head, ready to escape its containment. “I know it's scary, but I promise it'll be okay! We're all here for you, Rarity, and with all of your friends together—”
“I mean literally, Twilight!” Rarity shook her hands at the nearly-overtopped barrier. “Now are you going to help me stop this thing or not!?”
Twilight looked up over her head, and blanched. “Oh! Right!” She yanked her fingers from their holes, flew away from the wall a few feet, and thrust her hands out like Rarity had done. “Hah!” A wave of purple force burst from her hands, passing through Rarity's barrier to smash into the flood, pushing it back.
The flood was fierce. The magic faces in the water snarled, and even more water came in. Rarity screamed, Twilight screamed, the flood screamed. The whitewater surface reached over the top of the barrier, only for Twilight's magic to shove it back.
Rarity and Twilight looked at each other, closed their eyes, and pushed. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—”
Rarity shoved open the door of Vice-Principal Luna's office and gasped, “Sorry! Bit of a dam emergency.”
“Language,” Luna said. She didn't look up from the papers on her desk: the words seemed to come automatically.
“No, I mean it was actually a—” Rarity groaned. “Nevermind.” She walked over to the room's other chair and sat down with a splat. They'd obviously saved the day, and some sort of important lesson had probably been learned, but Rarity's superhero outfit had gotten drenched in the process, and the water had been transferred to her civvies when she transformed back. How was that fair?
Luna looked up for the first time and frowned. “You have some....” She motioned at her own hair.
Rarity mirrored the motion, and found an empty bird's nest in her bangs; she growled and tossed it aside. “Thanks,” she muttered, slouching deeper into the seat.
“All right.” Luna nodded, and swept the papers on her desk to the side. “Before we begin, I just want to emphasize this one last time: if you ever want any help with reducing your course load, or any counseling on anything else going on in your life, my door is always open. I don't want to see you putting yourself through too much pressure.”
“Oh, but haven't you heard, darling?” Rarity managed to crack a smile. “Pressure is what makes diamonds.”
Luna stared levelly. “You can't bury all your problems beneath witty repartee, Rarity. But I did say ‘one last time’, so....” She reached down and pulled out a book from under her desk: Facing Your Nightmares. “Let's begin.”
It was time to sleep.
Rarity sat on the end of her bed, took a deep breath, and focused on what she'd been told about Imagery Rehearsal Therapy. The key was to imagine the nightmare, take its ending, and devise a better ending—one that wasn't nearly so stressful or frightening. After enough rehearsal, walking herself through the reimagined scenario over and over again, it would seep into her dreams and rewrite them, and she'd be able to sleep better again.
She stared down at the notebook in her hands. Every nightmare she could remember having over the past month had been jotted down in here, and she'd thrown together a better ending for each one with Vice-Principal Luna. For the rest of the day, she'd spent every spare moment—not that she had a surplus of those—going over the scenarios in her head, over and over again. By now, she had them memorized.
Surely, surely, this would be enough?
A buzzing from her phone caught her attention, followed a few seconds later by another. She put down the notebook, leaned back onto her bed, and grabbed her phone from the nightstand to read the texts.
There were two, and they were both from Twilight. The first was a picture: it was Twilight taking a nervous-looking selfie in her bedroom. Behind her was the Helm from that morning, and it was in some sort of translucent plastic box with a lock on it.
The second text had actual, well, text: Just letting you know, no dream excursions tonight! :)
Rarity smiled, wiggling her shoulders from side to side as she made herself comfortable.
After a few seconds more, she saw a little text-incoming icon, and then a third text: Sorry again. Hope you're not mad.
With a little snort, Rarity composed her reply. Apology accepted. I'm not mad.
She imagined Twilight sighing in relief, and let out a little happy sigh herself. Her eyes stayed fixed on the screen, and before it could dim from inactivity, Twilight's response had arrived: Are you sure you'll be okay tonight?
Rarity sucked in a breath, rolled her eyes, and tried to figure out how to reply to that—but before she could, Twilight had continued. Sorry, I'm probably bugging you.
She pursed her lips. She'd expected to feel a little peeved, but now that she thought about it? No, darling, she typed, you aren't bothering me at all. After all, Twilight had promised not to use the Helm, so this was exactly the kind of friendly concern she could appreciate.
She hit send, and then kept typing: Thank you for being so thoughtful, in fact. I'm really
The sentence fragment hung on her phone. She was really what? Thankful, certainly. Touched? Probably. And yet neither of the words seemed to quite capture how she felt about Twilight right now, nor about the efforts—constant and repeated efforts, now that she thought about it—Twilight was going to, all for the sake of her own welfare.
Rarity laughed, or sighed; she wasn't sure which. What she was sure of was that it was late, and she was tired, and she literally did not have time to try to unravel her own feelings right now. So she typed, I'm really glad. Now I think we both need to get to bed, Twilight. Sweet dreams.
You too, was the quick response.
With a little smile, Rarity locked her phone, set it on her bedside table, and shut off the light.
The floodwaters roiled and raged. There were millions of gallons, billions of gallons, enough to drown the world, and all of them bearing down on her.
Rarity stood alone before them, a cocky smile on her face. She sucked in a breath, thrust out her palms, and yelled triumphantly.
And... fizzle. A ghost of a barrier flickered into visibility, and just as quickly flickered out. Rarity blinked, and she looked down at her geode. It was emitting a blinking red light, as if malfunctioning.
She thrust out her palms again, and yelled again triumphantly. And then she yelled uncertainly. And then she yelled pleadingly.
The flood was surging closer. Faces appeared in the water. They weren't demonic. They were familiar. “Because you need help, Rarity!” they cried. “You don't have to put yourself through all this pressure!”
Rarity looked down again, and the geode was gone. She wasn't even ponied up.
“Let down your walls!” cried the water faces. Well, Rarity thought grimly, she was certainly doing that.
The floodwaters smashed into her, and her mouth was smothered by the roiling surge before she could even scream. No one came to save her.
She awoke, drenched in sweat, to the dulcet tones of Satyr's Gymnopedie.
Immediately she clutched her head and moaned at the ache. Right now, dulcet tones sounded about as strident as a klaxon. Switching alarm tones hadn't helped at all.
And neither had the Imagery Rehearsal Therapy. She was back at square one.
“I can’t do this anymore,” Rarity groaned, letting her head sink back into the pillow. “I really, really can’t.”
And like it or not, that left one alternative.
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Time and place, Sparkle.
And the carbon that makes those diamonds comes from long-dead corpses.
Good to see Rarity admit she's bitten off more than she can chew. The question s what she's going to cut off of the mouthful.
9875828
As fun as Rarity's "pressure is what makes diamonds" line was, I'm a lot prouder of Luna's response.
The next chapter will definitely mark a shift in how Rarity manages her priorities, and some other shifts as well. Glad you're enjoying it!
:D