I Dream of Pink
By Spice of Life
The rhythmic *whir-click* of the sewing machine put Rarity into a trance. It wasn't often she could afford to lose her concentration and allow her mind to wander while she worked, but while this was a large order the design was simple. Capes. Her client placed an order for a large number of capes and he was prepared to spend entirely too much on them. Just so he could say that he had them made by an up and coming fashion designer before she became truly famous. She shook her head to restore her concentration. She could make these capes in her sleep, but detested the idea of spending more time on them then necessary should she make mistakes.
Rarity laid the finished cape onto the pile. "Almost half-way done," she said to herself and sighed. The dull, mind-numbing nature of this was wearing on her. At the start, she had actually enjoyed being able to design something simple, something that didn't require the usual flare and detail she put into her work. However, she did not count on the sheer tediousness of actually making the capes. She had long ago started to wish the design she came up with were even simpler.
She mechanically put the next piece of fabric onto her machine and started on yet another cape. She yawned as the clicking of the machine threatened her waking state. She looked down at the cape she was working on. While the details of the design were from her, the color pattern was from her client. The capes were blue with green edges and had a stylized griffin head on the center done in pink lace. Such an odd combination of colors; none of them really complimented each other. But, she had done what she could with the odd commission and made it into something that looked fantastic. Well good anyway... Actually the more she thought about it the less happy she was with the design, but the customer had loved it and it was too late to change it now.
She barely registered as she started on the griffin. She wondered why the client wanted it to be pink. Not that she had anything against pink, in fact she rather liked pink, she rather liked pink a lot. Thoughts of a certain pink party pony drifted though her mind. Despite her fatigue she smiled to herself. She had been quite surprised when Pinkie Pie had asked her out about two months ago. Initially she had politely refused. Pinkie proved to be rather persistent though and not in a creepy way. Had Pinkie used her odd habit of popping up in unexpected places to continue asking her out, then Rarity would have had to put a stop to it. Instead Pinkie had been subtle. Not subtle enough to prevent all of their friends from knowing exactly what Pinkie was doing, but much more calm and collected than any of them had expected Pinkie to be capable of.
When Pinkie would throw a party she would make a special cupcake for Rarity, usually with a sugar gem or even one of Rarity's dress designs drawn in frosting as a topper. Pinkie would also always try to be close to Rarity and had constantly been looking for excuses to throw her parties. Thinking back on it, it was sweet. At the time, though, it seemed a bit odd to have Pinkie throwing her parties every other day for a week. By the end of the week the only idea for a party Pinkie could come up with was that Rarity's name started with R. Rarity had been prepared to tell Pinkie to stop it that time, but the pink pony had created an impressively detailed figure of Rarity in her gala dress, made out of hard candy. It was the cake topper that day and Rarity had been so impressed she couldn't help but give in and allow Pinkie to take her out.
Rarity had expected the date to be like one of Pinkie's parties, with streamers and party games and general Pinkieness. Even with that expectation Rarity had put on her gala dress; after all, she was a lady and she had to look her best. She had been surprised when Pinkie came to pick her up and was also in her gala dress. Pinkie made for quite a sight in her best dress, a slightly awkward smile on her face, and a bouquet of roses in her hoof. That evening had turned out vastly different than Rarity expected. Pinkie had taken her to the most expensive restaurant in Ponyville and had even managed to sit still and act like a perfect lady the whole night. Well nearly... She tried to contain her Pinkieisms and mostly succeeded, but still somehow got the quartet playing a classical sounding variation on the Pony Pokie. She did managed to avoid dancing, but Rarity could see her fidgeting as she tried to keep still.
When Rarity had agreed to go on the date she was thinking it would be just a single date, and then Pinkie Pie would have gotten it out of her system. But after seeing the lengths Pinkie went and how hard she tried, all for her, Rarity began to understand how much she meant to the pink pony. That night had been the first time Pinkie had kissed her. It made Rarity weak in the knees and left Pinkie stumbling around, bumping into things as she left. After that kiss it hadn't taken very long for Rarity to begin to reciprocate Pinkie's feelings.
That had been the first of many nights out. It had also been one of the few where Pinkie was able to contain herself. Several had even ended in disasters similar to the night of the Grand Galloping Gala. It had taken great effort on Rarity's part to prevent them from being kicked out and banned. More than one of Rarity's hoofmade outfits were in the hooves of a restaurant owner to allow them to return. When Pinkie was on her best behavior, Rarity easily could imagine never wanting to leave her side. But Pinkie was Pinkie. Sometimes her Pinkie Pieness was endearing and cute but other times it became annoying and frustrating. In fact, that had been one of the reasons Rarity had taken this assignment; she needed a break from Pinkie Pie and this seemed like a good way to get away without hurting Pinkie's feelings. Although even when she did need some space she ended up missing the pink bundle of energy.
Something seemed off. Rarity shook her head to clear it of her reminiscing and examined the cape she had been working on. Instead of the outline of a griffin head there was a very detailed stitching of Pinkie Pie's smiling face. Rarity couldn't help but smile back at the pink pony on the cape even though it meant having to make another one. It really was an impressive picture, every little detail of Pinkie's face was there, her puffy pink hair, her big blue eyes, her cute button nose, her plump cheeks and her big happy smile. Rarity had even managed to match the darker pink of Pinkie's mane by layering the lace more heavily. "It is a remarkable likeness," she said. "I do believe this would make a fantastic gift for Pinkie and I could use a break." She started working on a few finishing touches to the cape.
She still wasn't sure if she really loved Pinkie. After the fiasco with Prince Blueblood she would rather take things slower and make sure the feeling was truly there instead of building up another elaborate fantasy that could come crashing down. After a few moments she had finished up her impromptu gift. Her horn glowed and the cape lifted off the sewing machine and floated behind her as she left the room and exited Carousel Boutique.
A short time later, Rarity arrived at Sugarcube Corner. She pushed open the door with her hoof after folding up the cape and hiding it behind her with her magic. The store was empty, but that wasn't too surprising since the lunch rush was over. Rarity heard movement in kitchen and quietly walked to the doorway to see Pinkie icing a triple layered cake. Rarity cleared her throat and Pinkie's eyes lit up as she saw Rarity. Pinkie dropped the pastry bag and hopped over to Rarity, giving her a big hug.
"Oh Rarity, I thought you would be working all day on your order, I mean I know you're the best fashionista around and capes should be easy for you but he wanted so many and you said that the colors he liked were strange and wondered if you had enough materials for them all but then I looked and it looked like you had enough but then I thommmhphmmm" Rarity held her hoof over Pinkie's mouth until she finally stopped trying to talk.
"I am still not finished, darling, but I needed to take a break. Plus I have a gift for you." She moved the folded cape from behind her and presented it to Pinkie.
Pinkie poked the bundle with her hoof "Ohhhh, what is it?" She said just as Rarity unfolded the cape before her eyes. Pinkie's jaw dropped and her eyes lit up even more. "Oh Rarity, it's so pretty, its meeeeee!" She squealed and leapt forward, the cape getting wrapped around her face as she hugged Rarity tightly again, pressing her face against Rarity's as she tried to kiss her though the cape.
Rarity giggled demurely and her horn glowed as she lifted the cape off the smiling pink pony, only to be met with a barrage of Pinkie kisses. "I'm glad you like it darling."
"Like it? I loooooooove it. Ohh ohhh ohhh, we should have a party for it, a Pinkie cape party! Wouldn't that just be fantastic, we can have balloons and streamers and music and games and everypony can get a cape too." Pinkie bounced up and down as she worked out all the details in her head.
Rarity groaned and rolled her eyes "Daaarling please." She stood up on her hind legs and wrapped her forelegs around Pinkie, then gave her a soft kiss on the lips. Pinkie stood there with her own legs wrapped around Rarity, in a speechless stupor. Rarity tried to keep her kisses for special occasions so whenever she kissed Pinkie it would leave her in a slightly stunned state. She smiled at her pink special somepony. "How about instead of all that, I go back and finish this order. Tonight we can go to the hill overlooking Ponyville and watch the sunset together?"
Pinkie shook off her stunned state and fell into a giggling fit. "Hahahehehehe, ok Rarity, I guess the Cakes would be mad if I forgot about baking to throw another party."
"I shall see you this evening darling," Rarity said as she reluctantly broke the embrace. She gave Pinkie a peck on the cheek before leaving Sugarcube Corner. As Rarity walked back to Carousel Boutique she thought to herself. She still wasn't sure if she loved Pinkie. Well, she wasn't sure if she were willing to admit it quite yet but she was sure that no matter how annoying the pink pony could be, she wanted her to be in her life for all time.
Please go on.
Not bad at all. Some of the sentences are worded a bit awkwardly, but overall you stayed in character and pulled me in.
Well, that was adorable.
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1250430
Can you point those out to me?
Very sweet. (Which is what we're hoping for in something like this, right?)
1250416
I'm thinking about doing a sequel or this same story but from Pinkie's perspective. I think either could work.
1250882
Pretty much, one reason I wrote this was because I got tired of some of the tropes that show up allot in romance on here. Like going from attraction to love instantly.
I found myself d'awwwing frequently while reading this one. Nice work
Very nice!
Now thats an odd pairing, can't say that I have seen it before.
Cute story, I liked it , only complaint being that its a tad short.
Have a thumb and a happy Pinkie.
Very cute and sweet.
Just a disclaimer, I've not read the sequel to this yet, though I do intend to. It may be that a great deal of what I say doesn't apply, however I'll just put it down and let you decide that for yourself.
Before I get into any of these critiques, I'd like to say that the world you've created is compelling, interesting and engaging. This is mostly because of the great set up you've got with Rarity and the events leading up to present. The story is cute, the narrative is fun and easy to follow and I found it overall to be incredibly enjoyable. Please don't take the critiques following as detracting from this, its a nice piece and I found it very enjoyable to read.
All right. To begin, there's a litany of very minor grammatical errors that I honestly had not noticed until my second read through. I'll list a few examples of common errors , however a good proofreader with a fine tooth comb would be needed. Like I said, the scanning on my first read didn't even notice these, but as I look more closely I see more and more.
"Almost half way done"; 'mind numbing nature of this' Should be halfway and mind-numbing.
There's actually quite a few instances of this where there's a missing hyphen or separated words that should be compound. A spell checker obviously wouldn't pick up on this, so the only option is to literally read through and find them all.
'The dull mind numbing nature of this was wearing on her.' should be dull, mind-numbing as it is missing the comma.
Likewise ' At the start she had actually enjoyed being" should be At the start, she.
You've used a lot of appositives and introductory clauses to make and emphasize points, so the missing commas become more important as the clauses pile up. Ramming two clauses together without a comma leaves the brain without a clear place to stop. It's less important here but it also appears elsewhere
This leads to sentences like this 'When Pinkie would throw a party she would make a special cupcake for Rarity, usually with a sugar gem on top or even one of Rarity's dress designs on top, drawn with frosting.' There should be a comma after 'throw a party' which means there are 4 separate ideas/clauses occurring here. It's not quite a run on sentence and not grammatically incorrect, but having that many ideas in one sentence feels disjointed and all over the place, it may be something to keep an eye on.
There are other minor issues ("I'm glad you like it darling" is missing a period. "hehe, ok Rarity, I guess the Cakes" is not capitalized at start. "More than one of Rarity's hoofmade outfits was" should be were as you're talking about plural. "not that she had anything about pink" should be against pink) but none of these really get in the way of the reading of it, and I'd like to talk a little about the flow here.
Something was bothering me on my first read through of this, and it took quite a while for me to put my finger on it. The flashback/memory/straight exposition section of Rarity recalling the relationship up to now ends up being too telling rather than showing because we're simply being given an account of what happened in terms of events. Fortunately, there are tidbits of Rarity's reactions to what happened interspersed throughout to keep us from feeling like the author is just trying to shove information at us to get us up to speed. Even still, it feels very much like a "Here's a run down of what's happened so the present makes sense" kind of section.
The one exception to this was the description of the first date. That is the feel that the description of the parties, being asked to go out, and everything preceding and following should have had. In the description of the first date we're given Rarity's view on specific things that happened. The way they were dressed, the expectations, how Pinkie could hardly keep herself still. We need more of that type of exploration to make the rest of the exposition feel like we're seeing the story, not being told "this happened, then this happened, and now you know how we got together."
One thing that you might wish to explore is putting in dialogue into the memories. I say this because the dialogue at the end sounded very nice and very in character. I feel kinda lost thinking about how Pinkie Pie would have asked Rarity out, and what she would say. Since you have both their voices down so well, I think that would be something that could really benefit from some speech. Again, what's needed is something that isn't generalized. A conversation, a set of specific circumstances surrounding these events, all of this would help the impact of that exposition. Right now it feels like an author talking at its readers, rather than a viewer looking into a character's memories.
I hope I didn't turn you off too hard with the grammar issues at start, and I also hope that my suggestions are clear enough to be understood. And, as always, feel free to disagree with my opinions, as they are simply my opinions. I do hope you'll at least taken them under consideration however, because I do think they merit that.
Now, on to read the sequel. Err..... ::checks the time:: perhaps tomorrow.
Best of luck.
-Duskrider
1351929
If I ever do a 3rd part to the series then Ill think about changing up the grammar. As it stands now, if I go back Ill be too tempted to change a few things in it then Ill have to change some stuff in the second part also since there are a few lil pieces that are bugging me.
I didn't intend for it to sound leading, although since the perspective is all from Rarity it kind of makes sense. Shes essentially telling the story, just indirectly. When I wrote this I wasn't that comfortable doing dialog from such well established characters. The sequel has much more speech in it.
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I would enjoy more/
So I saw you disparaging yourself on KitsuneRisu's 'Collide' and had to wander over to take a look myself, and thus judge you harshly.
Well.
I see little to be harsh about.
You captured the character very well, particularly how I would see Pinkie, if she were trying to act less Pinkie. A few tiny grammar errors, but whatever; those are nothing. It is the story I was here for, and it was an unexpectedly good one that ended with fuzzy feels, which I always approve of. Well done.
On to chapter 2!
A worthy beginning; cute and even a bit romantic. Let's see how this plays out, eh?
1351929
I love your critical thinking, but I think you meant "There *are actually quite a few instances of this." It says "There's," yet "instances" is obviously plural. On a related note, you forgot the spacing before that paragraph and the period at the end of a later one.
Client: "These look great, Rarity! I just love the griffin heads on these...wait, back up a second...that's not a griffin; that's your friend Pinkamina Pie, right? What's her face doing on this?"
Rarity: "Uh...I'm dreadfully sorry, sir, I must have lost focus while making that one. I must apologise for my error..."
Pinkie: *Popping out of Rarity's kitchen* "Surprise! I'm her marefriend! She must've been thinking about me! Can I keep it?"
...Yeah, not an author at all, despite how much I love reading. I just can't correctly characterise, uh, characters.