The Love Doctor
Knock.
Knock knock.
Knock knock knock?
A few minutes early for my weekly tea with Twilight, I arrived at the castle. Greeted only by silence, I opened my saddlebag to materialize my Bearer key, unlocking the door and stepping in. I scanned the corridor and adjacent rooms for any sign of a particular purple mare, but the castle was lifeless.
How strange. Twilight always greeted me at the door, but I do suppose she was an occupied mare, and perhaps the occasion slipped her mind.
As a friend, as a lady, of course I would understand such a tiny hiccup.
Typically we took tea in the kitchen, thus there I headed. Yet within the kitchen, there was neither a brewing kettle nor Twilight Sparkle. Of course, the kitchen is the one castle room with perpetual life. I cast a warm smile and hollered, “Good morning, Spike!”
Spike looked up at me from his Supermare comic book, which he held in one claw, the other clutching a spoonful of mushy brownish oat concoction. “Ohirarrie.” He gulped, putting down the spoon, and repeated. “Oh, hi, Rarity! How are you? Looking for the best cereal collection in Ponyville?”
“I’m doing quite well, although I’m afraid I didn’t come for cereal, no.”
Spike shook his head, mixing disappointment with amusement. “Nobody ever does.” He shrugged. “Anything I can help you with?”
“I’m looking for Twilight. We were scheduled to meet for tea this morning?”
“Hmm,” Spike stared off. “I think she’s in the library?” He shrugged, picking up his utensil and spooned in more of… whatever that was he was eating. “Gooluh!”
“Thank you, Spike.” I flashed a smile then turned around, resuming my quest for friendship! For Twilight! For… other things, not that there were other things, of course, because I was – no, because I am – a lady.
Ahem. I entered the library, and I did find her, sitting in a corner immersed in a book in the shadow of an ink and paper cave. I trotted in with audible footsteps, but she responded to no sign of life.
“Helloooo!” I sung. No response. I coughed. “Hello?” Nada. “Equestria to Twilight Sparkle?”
Silence. I trotted next to her and waved my hoof in front of her vision, interrupting her reading. Finally, she looked up, blinking with her mouth hung open. A beat and she exclaimed, “Oh, Rarity! I’m so sorry; I wasn’t expecting you!” She drooped. “Uh, wait, what time is it?”
What time was it? The same time we met every week for tea. What kind of question was that? “9 a.m., darling.”
“9 a.m.” she repeated quickly under her breath, pained by confusion. “Oh! I’m so sorry, Rarity. There are no windows in here; I didn’t realize!”
Didn’t realize? Oh dear, the patient’s case of Twilightitis may have been more severe than initially diagnosed. “Twilight, may I ask you a question?” I paused. “And do answer me honestly.”
“Always!”
“Precisely when did you go to sleep?”
She just stared, opening and closing her mouth once, twice, thrice, no sounds leaving except for an exasperated sigh.
I hung my head low, chiding her like a mother. “Twilight, did you not sleep at all last night?”
Twilight turned her head to the corner of her desk, containing two enormous stacks of book, most of which with pink or black covers and flowery cursive lettering along the title spines. “I’ve been reading?” she mumbled with an uptilt, asking as much as reporting.
I confess, looking back, I may find this incident the slightest bit entertaining and perhaps the teensiest bit adorable. But in the moment, oh, how she shredded my heartstrings. I pressed my hoof against my temples, nonchalantly affirming, “So I gathered.”
Twilight turned back to face me. I felt myself losing consciousness to the depths of her vision. She sputtered out, “Okay, okay, okay! I know it looks bad, but I promise there is a perfectly reasonable explanation!”
“I’m listening.”
“You know how you told me when an opportunity for romance presents itself, the protagonists in your books would take it?”
Romance? Twilight, what did you go and do? “Yes, that is how the author advances the plot.” I stared off up to the brightly lit corner, noticing a lampshade hanging from above.
Twilight nodded swiftly. “Well, an opportunity presented itself, in a manner of speaking.”
“Oh?”
“You know Doctor Hooves? Brown-coat, stallion, hourglass cutie mark?”
I nodded. “I’ve seen him around Ponyville, though I’m afraid I’ve never met him.”
She blushed. “Well, he, uh, he asked me out.”
Princess Twilight Sparkle? Asked out? By a stallion?
What an… unexpected turn of events. Not that it is unexpected that somepony would have feelings for Twilight, of course, and I suppose there really is nothing unexpected about somepony acting on said feelings, and I suppose that yes, if anyone were to ask out a given lady like Twilight, it would have to be a stallion, so there is nothing unexpected, for this is exactly how a lady is supposed to interact with a stallion. And a stallion with a lady. And. Um.
So no, I do not have a problem with this absolutely typical situation whatsoever. There is no part of me that minds in the slightest bit that a stallion is taking interest in my clo– in one of my closest friends.
I am one-hundred percent okay with this. I am a lady, and she is my friend, and I must be there for her to guide her and lov– support her as she finds love. With a stallion. Because that is what mares do. Date stallions.
Ladies dating stallions, to be a real lady. So I’ve told myself since grade school, the first days of my fillyhood when I resolved I must become a lady.
I confess Twilight has had more success in this endeavour, and I don’t believe she was even trying. Of course, she did have the advantage of birth. And, I suppose, a stallion asking her out.
That would help my case, wouldn’t it? Shame it didn’t work out with Blueblood; as intolerable as the brute was – what a mockery of stallionhood! – his presence by side would have reinforced my ladyhood.
Twilight’s would be detrimental.
Not that I would ever consider consider the detriment of me dating Twilight, because that is exactly what it is. A detriment. A detriment that I have no interest in. Since I have no interest in dating my platonic friend. Twilight.
See? Settled!
I beamed, relegating to my ladylike duties. “Ah! Tell me everything about this stallion.” I squinted, eyebrows aggressive but lips enjoying every bit of drama. “And do not leave out any details!”
Twilight giggled. “I don’t know! We were in the marketplace chatting. He asked me what I’ve been up to, and I started explaining Equestrian political structure, compared with the neighboring kingdoms.” Talking politics to her date: classy, if unorthodox. “Though I admit he wasn’t the courtroom type.”
“No. Really?” I exclaimed, bringing my hoof to my chest, closing my eyes with a jaded frown. “Colour me surprised! How could a perfectly good stallion not absolutely adore comparative contemporary political science?”
Twilight laughed. “I wish I knew! Well, as soon as he realized he was more of a science type, I obviously delved into my research on chaotic loop theory.”
I racked my brain. Chaos, loops, I had definitely heard those words before, though not memorably together. I did recall her showing me some fancy research apparatus she built. “Is that the big machine you have in the basement? The one that keeps making those crash noises?”
Twilight blushed, looking away. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Umm..”
“And if there was such a machine” – I felt the floor rumble as she spoke, a crash no doubt echoing from beneath us – “which there is not, do not tell Princess Celestia.”
I nodded blankly. “Okay.”
Twilight snapped back into reality, coughing. “So I was talking to Doctor Hooves about the parts of my research that don’t involve proscribed magic – which is to say, all of it!” She smiled like a proud foal showing her parents her A on her spelling test.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah! And he then told me about his research on something he’s calling ‘linear algebra’, which is super interesting stuff. It turns out there’s this idea where…”
I have to be honest. I have no idea whatsoever what she was babbling on about. I don’t know what a linear is or why it would be algebra. But I did enjoy her presence, and if the cadence of her speech was an indication, she enjoyed having a friend to throw words at.
She had a friendly warmth then, trailing on about science and mathemagics. There I was, the scientist, observing her in her natural state.
I lost track of time spent with her lecture passing through one ear and leaving from the other, and no doubt she lost track of time lecturing. But at some point, it must have come to close. C’est la vie.
“–and that’s how time travel was discovered!”
…Sometimes it isn’t worth it to question. “That sounds wonderful, Twilight.”
She clapped her hooves. “It is! I don’t know what happened exactly; we just really got along, you know?” I nodded, well-aware of the feeling. From real life, totally, definitely not novels. “He asked me if I wanted to get coffee with him sometime, and I wondered if it meant he was asking me out, but maybe he just meant that as a request for further communication scientist-to-scientist.”
I smiled, though a knot was tying itself within me. “Do go on,” I begged.
“Well, I asked him, and he said, yes, he would like to go on a date with me!”
I would have exclaimed, but I lacked the force within me. “That sounds lovely, dear.”
Twilight beamed, sincere it seemed. “It felt really nice! So as a scientist, I knew what I needed to do.”
“Oh?” Oh my. “What’s that?”
“Research!” she shouted.
“Oh my.”
“‘Oh my’ is right, Rarity!” She panted. “As I see it, Doctor Hooves presented me with a wonderful educational opportunity. There is so much about romance I don’t know, and there was only one way I could find out.”
“Putting yourself out there and dating a pony, even knowing it may or may not work out?” I ventured a guess. Maybe if I followed my own advice… I shouldn’t venture there.
“What? No.” Twilight snorted. “No, I wanted to follow your advice, Rarity. You’ve always told me that your strategy for learning romance has been reading romance novels–”
“–I’m not sure that’s a strategy I would endorse, darling–”
“–so I took your strategy to the logical limit!” She turned her body and outstretched a hoof to point to a colossal pile of books in the corner of the room, of which the two stacks on Twilight’s desk were apparently only a tiny subset. With pride, she elaborated, “Those stacks contain the entire deduplicated collection of romance novels within the Ponyville Library system, from both the Royal and Everfree branches, as well as assorted psychology collections tagged in the library database as love, romance, or relationships”
I blinked.
“Oh! I also borrowed some books on an interlibrary loan from the Canterlot system. Normally, it might be frowned upon to borrow that many books at once, but nopony asks questions to a princess.” She fanned out her wings. “And after all, this is an emergency.” She fanned back in her wings, bearing a blush, and mumbled, “Of a sort.”
I blinked again.
“So! The books from Canterlot should be arriving tomorrow.” Her eyes drooped, highlighting a pair of gloomy dark circles. “Uh, today,” she frowned.
I blinked thrice, scanning over the hundreds of novels and nonfiction, her piles containing everything from Greyscale Quill’s classics Guardaespaldas and La Princesa to Flaming Dress’s Dichos Tavianos, works with dozens of titles I recognized and hundreds more I did not. “Wow.” I ogled. “Certainly puts my adolescence to shame.”
“Ha!” She beamed ear to ear. “I’ve been reading nonstop since last night. I’m making good progress, but there’s so much to do!” She giggled. “Oh, and I almost forgot the most important part!”
“Yes?”
She bounced up into the air, spreading out all four hooves. In her magic she held up a journal with random pages torn out; illegible Equestrian cursive sprawled out across the pages remaining. “Notetaking!”
Notetaking, indeed. I hesitated. “Uh, Twilight?”
“Yeah?!”
“I’m worried about you,” I said solemnly.
She deflated, my words pins popping into her nerd balloon. She drooped back into her chair, released the notebook from her magic, and sagged, the adrenaline rush crashing and sleep deprivation kicking in. Frowning, she muttered, “I hoped it’s what you would have told me to do.”
I bit my lip. “I admit much of my romantic knowledge is not from personal experience, and much of the second-hand knowledge is from romance novels–”
“–See!–”
“–But that is no excuse for going thirty hours without sleep!” I barked. “I love you, Twilight, and that means I care about you, okay?”
She grinned adorably, and it became harder to scold her when I could be indulging her. “Aw, I love you, too, Rarity!” Her grin turned devilish. “So seriously, could you help me figure out how to prepare for my date with Dr. Hooves now?”
I closed my eyes for a moment to breath in and out. A lady never lets her own emotions overtake her responsibilities as a friend. “I care about you, and that means I care that you have enough sleep to function, okay?” A smile upon my lips I tried on for size, but it didn’t fit; I allowed myself to mirror her deflation.
She huffed. “You’re not my Mom, Rarity!”
I rolled my eyes. She had a point there, I suppose. “Touché. Okay, tell you what. Get some shut eye now, and I’ll come back later this afternoon to help you with your boyfriend.”
My dreamy commandment was lost as she repeated, “My… boyfriend?”
Though the words felt hollow to me, they were what lady Rarity lived for, were they not? I waggled my eyebrows, an empty gesture by an empty mare.
Twilight blushed, slowly raising herself from her chair. “I, uh, will get my pillow.”
“I don’t suppose you need to me read you a bedtime story?” I smirked.
“Rarity!”
“Or sing you a lullaby?” I cleared my throat. “Hush, Twi, quiet Twi…–”
“–Okay, okay, you win, I’m going to sleep!”
I smiled. “Good night, Twilight.”
“Good night, Rarity. Erm, morning.”
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Before I read this, I must know: How is Rarity not ladylike?
9880220
She makes her living with her hands... or hooves... or horn... whatever. The point is that she works, which is decidedly lower-class. Why, a seamstress can no more be a lady than a chamber maid can! Seriously, though, the canon, ahistorical explanation is that she does not herself follow the rules dictated in the above passages.
9880220
9880572
While what they said is indeed true in a class definiton, that's not what the story means by it. Unfortunately, the fact of the matter is that why Rarity isn't "ladylike" is kind of the whole point of the story, so answering you would probably mean spoilers galore. If you want to know sort of what you're getting into without TOO much involvement in the story, think about the event the author posted this story for, then read the prologue. The prologue is very short, and explains Rarity's thinking without getting into the actual plot. Along with reflecting on the event theme, that should give you what you're looking for without getting too deep.
An interesting setup you have here author, you have piqued my interest. Liked and tracked.
9881818
Thank you! And that is about 1/2 of what's going on ... the other half is implied here, but my lips are sealed :)
9881925
Ah, of course. One shouldn't jump to conclusions after all. Very well, consider my anticipation hightened further. Here's to tantalizing hints and the possibility of subversion of expectations.
Story looks good so far. The idea that Rarity has never dated anyone doesn't fit how I view the character, but I'll accept it for this fic, and it's important for the premise. Glad to see multiple fics with trans ponies in this RariTwi Bomb.
Twilight and Doctor Hooves is an old season one era fandom pairing that I was surprised to see again. It'll be interesting to see how that goes.
9883837
Well -- are there any canon pairings for Rarity? We see her crushing/pining on stallions (Blueblood, Simple Ways dude, Tom), but I don't believe she's ever explicitly been "in" a relationship, at least beyond a failed first date. Even in the finale, she and Twi are the ones left unpaired so this is totes canon compliant :grin:
9884110
It’s because twilight and rarity are secretly dating. Canon just doesn’t want to admit it.
9887147
Ah, in that case! I think you've come to the right fic :-)
9884110
Well, it's left purposely ambiguous on whether Fluttershy, AJ and Rainbow Dash are actually in relationships or not. I pretend Appledash isn't a thing because I just don't like them as a couple, but I feel that the intent was leaning more to couple them. Fluttershy and Discord actually I do believe is legitimately a "this can go either way" kind of thing.
Rarity's voice in here is soooo good!
9989747
Thank you!
9990054
Update?
10000805
It's coming..! I've been busy with IRL stuff, then Non* and Jinglemas. But this story should be the new focus (and I finally have time off now) unless I get distracted by more shiny one-shots
You smooth mofo.
10016425
😇
🎵When Rarity was in Egypt's land...
Let my waifu gooooo!🎵
See... cuz she's... in denial!
I’d like to imagine that while Rarity was confirming her inner feelings and trying to convince herself of things that it played out in real time. She just stands there with a number of conflicting followed by determined looks and ends shaking her hoof at the ceiling. Twilight meanwhile would have worried about this if she actually slept.
Also I’d like to think the crashing machine has gained sentience and has become aware of when it is spoken of.
10295015
I laughed so hard. :D
10481773
She bingeread the entirety of TEL overnight and is eagerly awaiting TEK updates.