Thirty Minute Ponies: Silly, Sad, and Sweet

by Stereo_Sub

A Mare's Best Friend (Prompt 89)

Prompt: A Pony’s Gotta Do What A Pony’s Gotta Do

Rarity trotted slowly through the heap of blackened wood, burnt fabric, and grayish ash that was all that remained of The Carousel Boutique. She reached the edge, giving a stray scrap of siding a half-hearted kick, and sighed.

“Why...” All her hopes, her ambitions, her dreams... everything she had wanted, dashed against the metaphorical cliffs in a matter of minutes. She wasn’t Rarity now, not anymore. She was nothing, worse than nothing. The magical blaze had consumed everything, even her vault of special top-secret designs. All that remained now were her and the ashes.

“Rarity... oh, Celestia...” Twilight whispered, walking up behind her friend and putting a comforting hoof around her shoulder. “I... we can fix this, somehow, I promise...”

The white unicorn shook her head. “No, Twilight. You can’t fix this. I can’t fix this. Celestia can’t fix this!” She jabbed a hoof at the ruins. “And even if we did, what’s stopping them from coming back tomorrow? Or in a week from now?”

The attack had been quick and brutal. A dozen winged figures, clad in black and wielding torches and hammers, had descended upon the Boutique in the dead of night, smashing windows, ransacking drawers, and otherwise wreaking havoc. When they failed to find whatever it was they had come for, they had thrown the torches back inside and let the ravenous flames consume whatever was left. Rarity still remembered the horrible, gut-wrenching feeling as she had watched them fly away with the house burning below.

“I... I guess...” Twilight stammered, trying and failing to find a way to reassure her friend. “But, the one thing I still don’t understand is... why?” She gave an angry sigh. “It just doesn’t make sense! You’re a dressmaker! You don’t have any volatile experiments, or rare animals, or dangerous contraptions, and they obviously didn’t want designs, considering, well, this,” Twilight said, gesturing at the ash littering the ground. “I just don’t see why anypony would make the effort to perform such blatant-” She broke off as a sudden glimmer of light from the ash-filled heap in front of her caught her eye. “Er... Rarity?”

“What?” the unicorn replied bitterly “If you’re asking me, save your breath. I haven’t the faintest why anyone would want to destroy my life, but-”

“No,” said Twilight, gingerly stepping over a blackened wooden spar to get a closer look. “Rarity, what’s that?” She pointed at a nearby patch of ground, where the faintest gleam of blueish light could be seen underneath a blanket of rubble.

“I... I’m not sure,” said Rarity, shifting away a section of the debris with her telekinesis. “Nothing else shiny enough to be valuable survived...” With Twilight’s help, they had soon moved most of the rubble away from the glimmer. Working jointly, they picked up the last burnt beam and threw it behind them, then gasped softly as the shimmering object revealed itself.

“Oh...” said Twilight, awestruck.

“Oh my.” Rarity was similarly shocked.

There, lying proud amidst the rubble, was a gleaming, two-hooved greatsword, with a blade made of tempered blue steel and inscribed with intricate runes. Set in its hilt was a gigantic diamond, the largest Rarity ever seen.. From the amount of dirt covering it, it looked like it had been buried at some point, but it defiantly refused to attract any grime or ash, and came cleanly away from the ground as the white unicorn lifted it reverently.

“Ah... it... appears that the Gemheart family... may have had some history I was unaware of...” whispered Rarity, levitating the sword and giving it an experimental swing. Huge though it may have been, the blade felt light and fluid in her magical grasp, like she had been meant to hold it all along. She turned to Twilight and gave a small, dangerous smile.

“You do know what this means, Twilight dear, don’t you?”

“Uh... that you’ve just discovered a very important and probably volatile magical artifact that you really should put down and deliver to Princess Celestia as soon as possible?” the unicorn offered meekly. Rarity laughed, though there was no mirth in the sound.

“Oh, I’m afraid not. You see...” she pointed out at the smoking remains of the Boutique. “By destroying my life’s work, those creatures also destroyed my purpose. My calling, as it were. Without that, one is barely a pony. More of a shell, really.” She swung the sword again in a wide arc, spinning in a graceful circle as the blue steel thrummed through the air. “But now, with this, I have a purpose once more. And when one find’s one purpose, one must follow it, or risk living their life unfulfilled. As dear Applejack would put it, ‘a pony’s gotta do what a pony’s gotta do’.” Rarity swung once more, then spun the sword around midair and dropped it to her side in, had she known what it was, would’ve been a perfect Ruby Stance parade rest position.

“Well, what is your purpose?” asked Twilight, dreading the answer.

The dangerous smile returned, and for just a moment, Twilight could’ve sworn she saw a hint of fire in her old friend’s eyes. “Why, isn’t it obvious, my dear?” Rarity pointed the greatsword out to the sky, where she knew, somewhere, the ponies that had destroyed her life lay waiting to strike again.

“Revenge.”