Memories Revisited
Chapter 8
Memories Revisited
“Just one last seam... aaaand,” Rarity stood back from her creations. “Done!”
Each dress was a unique creation that had been stitched together from the vague ideas she had been presented with by her clients. She smiled and walked by each one.
There was a red dress decorated with shimmering silk flames and purple sequins. It fit so tightly over the dressing doll that it almost looked like a second skin. “I shall call you, ‘Burning Passion!’”
“And you,” she said aloud looking a creation that started orange but gentle rippled to blue. The dress itself bellowed and flowed out like waves on a beach. “Uhm... I shall call you ‘Sunrise on the Ocean!’”
She frowned at the next dress. “Oh, I do apologize to you so, for you aren’t my best work darling... but this was a rush order...” She caressed the mannequin that displayed a pleated dress of swirling yellows and green. “At least I can give you a decent name... hmmm... ‘Daybreak over the Forest!’”
She wasn’t pleased with her last dress, but it would wear over the client comfortably. The next dress, however, was a marvel even to her. She giggled as she ran a hoof over it. “Getting that strange colour just right was a feat in of itself. Not quite blue... not quite purple... a mystery... yes! A Velvet Mystery!”
The last dress was a flowing black and white checkerboard pattern of sorts. There were delicate frills and lace work along the borders. “And finally, ‘Stark Contrast!’” She smiled and looked proud of herself as she looked over her works one final time.
She pranced and giggled in delight. “Rarity, I must say that you have done it again! And with a few hours to spare!” She said glancing at the clock. Just then she heard a flickering of paper falling off her desk. Opal had just jumped from the desk and into the sunny window sill. As Rarity felt the dread of filling out all those papers, her ears drooped. “Hours that will most likely be spent doing the paperwork for these dresses,” she sighed.
Walking over to the desk, she picked up an inkwell and fountain pen to set to work on the stack of papers. Pausing, she fluttered her eyes at her fluffy cat who lay lavishly in the window, trying to take in the last few rays that the sun was offering before it would set. “Opal darling, you wouldn’t mind doing mommy’s paperwork for her while she takes a quick trip to the spa, wouldn’t you?”
Opal rolled her eyes and let out a slight huffed meow.
Rarity sighed. “That’s what I thought...” She placed the inkwell neatly next to her paperwork and pushed herself to try and do this part of the job. Conceptualizing, creating and making your ideas manifest was always a wonderful part of being a fashionista! The paperwork was just plain boring. Signing on dotted lines. Filling out drab sheet after drab sheet of uninteresting dull grey lines. Making sure that it met the specifications of what the customer wanted, keeping in mind each little detail that went into making the dress, even making note of what went into the dress itself! What materials were used, double checking to make sure that none of them were something that the pony who had ordered it was allergic to, there were after all horror stories about ponies who went into shock when dressmakers used less than quality materials in their dress making.
“Not that I would do such things,” Rarity commented out loud. She looked at her cat. “You know that! Right, my precious Opal-wople?” Opal only responded with a murffle and then a surprised meow as Rarity pulled her away from the warm window sill. “I put only the best and the highest of quality in all my dresses and wares!” She said, her sullen cat floating in tow with her as she walked around her shop. “And doesn’t it show?”
She hovered Opal above the final five dresses she had. Opal looked at them and then looked back at her crazy owner indifferently. She meowed. “Whaaat? No, of course I’m not just avoiding trying to do my paperwork! Why would you even think that?”
Rarity’s cat only rolled her eyes and attempted to get away. “I mean, really darling, why would I want to delay getting these dresses out for another day? They are absolutely fantastic!”
Opal rolled her eyes again.
“Oh please!” Rarity scoffed. “Just because Twilight wants me to teach that...” she trailed off trying to think of a proper word to describe Heartbreak. “Whatever-she-claims-to-be, tomorrow doesn’t mean that I would try to delay teaching her! I’ve been ordered by the Princess!”
Opal gave her owner a rather abysmal look as she hovered in midair facing her owner. Her eyes darted to the paperwork and then back to Rarity. The grouchy silence spoke volumes to Rarity.
“Fine, you’ve caught me. I am delaying my paperwork just so that I don’t have to deal with her come tomorrow.” Rarity set Opal down. The cat plopped her little rump on the floor and watched her owner pace. “Truth be told, I’ve been going out of my way to avoid her after the first night we met.”
Opal attempted to slink back to the window sill. However Rarity’s blue aura just dragged her back. “And it isn’t for the reasons that everypony thinks! No! I could have let the whole, ‘marshmallow,’ comment slide! I even attempted a mild joke with her saddlebags to show that there weren’t any hard feelings!” She sighed a bit. “Normally, I would have...” Her hoof gently touched the cat’s chin. “But everypony seems to forget all the events that happened that night, Opal.”
Rarity looked up with a distant gaze out the window. The sunlight was turning a beautiful orange. “There was the assault, yes. My poor head was bruised for a few days after that. Had to cover the mark with a line of hats." As the light danced on tents around her shop, a chill went through her. A memory of what happened just before that blow to the head. "I fear even I forgot a few things about that night myself. Things I didn’t want to believe, after all, nopony could be that cruel...” Her voice trailed off as what was a passing memory forced itself to breach the surface of her mind.
~There she was with Pinkie Pie, comforting Fluttershy. Heartbreak had just got done giving a scathing speech to her about wanting her to go away, lest she do something awful. They managed to calm her down, and then they heard Applejack and Rainbow Dash arrive down stairs.~
“Pinkie and Fluttershy went down first to greet them, and I was about to join them, when I heard a horrible, terrible, shrill scream through the door.” Rarity’s eyes went wide and tears threatened to escape. “No small feat with all things considered, but I raced to the door and tried to pound it down, but to no avail...Then I tried to use my magic, but even that too failed! I didn’t think anything of it at the time.”
Rarity picked up Opal and held her close. Normally Opal would have tried to run away, claw, bite, or something! But not this time. Her Rarity was distressed about something. She slumped, accepting her fate for the moment. “I could hear voices...through the door. One was Heart-” She stopped herself. “H.B.’s, the other, I couldn’t make out! So I pressed my ear against the door and listened before the others could arrive.”
Rarity searched her mind for the scattered details, it was so hard to focus on those moments for some reason!
“It was a young filly’s voice. She sounded... happy. Oh so-” Rarity swallowed and felt ill as the twisted ultra sweet voice retraced its steps through her ears. “-happy. But the things that were coming from her mouth...”
~“-So, I’m sorry Heartbreak, but it looks like I won’t be able to play with you anymore.” There was the sound of hooves clattering to the ground.
And then H.B. screaming. “My Name Isn’t Heartbreak!”
The only response was an all too happy, all too cheerful and bubbly. “Bye Heartbreak. Have a nice life... Heartbreak.”~
Rarity found herself unable to hold back any further. “Oh Opal!” The cat squeaked a little as she pulled her closely. “And then after Applejack kicked down the door, I came rushing in repeating that name! It isn’t any wonder that she reacted the way she did... she must think that I am just horrible!”
Rarity loosened her grip on her beloved Opal and she jumped down. “I’m so sorry for unloading all this on you, my sweet Opal,” She looked down, “I would normally tell these things to Fluttershy or even Twilight, but... I can’t bring myself to! They’re all too involved in it!” Opal tried to make her way to the window, only to be blocked by a purple wall of hair that moved right along with her movements. Rarity now sat down looking out her shop window.
“There’s so much conflict here, so many things that are tattered and strewn about that I hardly know where to start with her!” Rarity said tossing her hoof to the side while looking out the window. “She’s like an ensemble that’s been ripped to shreds, washed improperly and then left to the ravages of the sun!” Opal jumped up on the table next to Rarity trying to seek out any stray sunbeams. The last sunbeams of the day faded as soon as she saw them. Fading, fading until sadly, they were no more.
Rarity frowned and humphed. “And we’re the ones who are expected to put it all back together without any idea what the whole piece looked like before it was wrung through!” She sighed as the stars started to come into view.
Opal blinked and looked off to the side. She knew that her Rarity would get stressed out about little tiny details from time to time, but this was something far different. She put her paws on the unicorns’ chest and meowed at her before nuzzling at her chin. She pounced down onto the pile of papers and drawings on the table. Rarity smiled, such a simple action said so much.
“Oh Opal Sweetie, you always know what to say to make me feel better when it’s important.” Rarity walked over to the table. “Tomorrow is a brand new day and a chance to start anew. I just wish I knew what to do to make her feel better...” She looked at the sketches of the hundreds of different dresses that she had been working on for the past month. Then a spark went off in her mind. “Oh! Idea!”
Opal watched a wide smile burst over her Rarity’s face. It was good that she was happy, that meant she could finally go back upstairs and curl up in her nice warm little bed without any worry that the pony would be fretting about causing her to lose a good night’s worth of sleep.
“Alright, Rarity! After we do half of this paper work now, we’ll go about putting that little idea of yours into play and finish the rest of the paper work in the morning.” Rarity picked up the pen and dipped it into the inkwell. She began filling out the paperwork. “Oh, she’ll be surprised with what I have planned, that’s for sure!”
==============================================================
I didn’t sleep well last night. I was having some seriously fucked up dreams all night. It started out innocent enough, that’s for sure. I was walking into the library and saw Creampuff and a few random kids asking me to read to them. It was actually pretty nice, for a while. But then they started to divide like amoebas and kept trying to get me to read books. The books started to open up and from them spilled out more books. Higher and higher they got until they blotted out any light.
Good job brain. I wanted to sleep on the idea of whether or not I liked reading and you had to go and pull some shit like that? Yeah. Not cool. Keep that shit up and I just might read to the little ones just to spite you.
I pushed my way out of the crowd of youngsters and books, only to find myself in a room full of mirrors. Tall mirrors, short mirrors, mirrors that warped and distorted my image. Looking into each of them I saw what could be considered alternate versions of myself. Taller, shorter, longer, a different coat colour. As I kept walking the changes becoming more and more radical, in one mirror there was even a male version of my pony self looking back at me.
He was taller and had a short mane and tail. We both tapped the mirror and bobbed our heads in time. From there we made faces at each other and then laughed. But the laughter turned into a crowd of laughter. It was too much, too strange and too loud! I covered my ears and started to run away from the noise. Once it died down, I kept on looking at mirrors. At first, there wasn’t anything wrong, but then I saw something in my branding.
Small red streaks that went across the heart horizontally. I walked close to the mirror to get a closer look and as I did so, the streaks became more like eyes... little red eyes... They snapped open and I jumped back in fright.
“Only a reflection,” I told myself. But that’s when I heard a hissing sound. Looking behind me I saw tendrils of sharp blackness coming out of my flanks. I screamed as I watched them strike out into my surroundings. From there I could hear the cries of ponies all around me.
The voices were different, but the message contained was the same. “My friends and family are gone! Where are they! Nopony loves me! Where are my parents? Why are you doing this!? Why did you leave me?!”
There was a... warmth that started to come from the tendrils. It felt like it was being drawn out from somewhere else. The feeling sickened me.
“Stop it! Stop it! STOP IT!!” I screamed. Manifesting hands, I grabbed the sharp lines of black and pulled them with all my might.
But then things took a serious turn for the weird. The blackness wrapped itself around my arms to form a pair of black gloves and retracted to wrap around me. It felt like it was burning, choking and pain. The only saving grace was that it was quick. When I reopened my eyes I saw that I was wearing a black dress. A black dress that writhed and squirmed around me. It looked like it was made of sharp claw-like stripes that kept moving.
Naturally I tried to rip it off me, but my hands had been replaced with hooves again. I tried to rip it off with my mouth but to no avail. The dress started to get tighter around me, squeezing me.
I heard a soft laughter from behind a mirror. Celestia stepped out from behind it, glowing and burning like a piece of the sun. “Now I have you my pretty... Hold still, this will only hurt for a long time.”
That’s about the time I woke up in a cold sweat and breathing hard. Looking up, I saw that it was ten o’clock. That’s pretty much where I am presently. Lying in bed glaring at the time and trying to shake off an adrenaline rush from a really fucked up nightmare.
“Fffffe-e-et. Three hours till I have to, ‘play nice,’ with Rarity,” I mutter out loud. “Come on, H.B. it’s not going to be that bad! Get up, do your morning routine and get some coffee in you before Twilight comes up here! Things will be alright, you’ll see!” I roll my eyes at the strangely optimistic voice in my head and attempt to pull myself out of the blankets that have wrapped themselves around me in my sleep. “Yeah, sure whateee-!”
Fumbling, I tumble out of bed and smack against the floor. “Thank you, Universe... Glad to see that you ‘love,’ me too.”
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That dream took a dark turn.
2396647 And this is why H.B. Don't Talk About Her Dreams.
kinda having mixed feelings about rarity......
2396692 Yay!
Rarity's going to make a dress in an effort to start things over with Heartbreak, and I'm sure we can all imagine how well that's going to go down.
Bet Rarity going to make the dress from her nightmare. Also I love these stories they just keep getting better though I keep getting the feeling that Celestia is cheating or is going to cheat somehow.
Oh so we are having that then?
Rarity may actually be in a position to properly understand H.B. more then any of the others and all this animosity and bungling about is going to be all the more tragic for it.
alas
She has not failed with a friendship report yet.
So this should turn out good in the end
You're killing me with the Luna tag. I'm starting to wonder if Luna is going to be a major character in future stories and how involved she will be in this one.
2396940
Hmm... Rumored 9 Books total...
1 Intro Book
6 Mane6 Books
1 ?????? Book
and
1 Final Resolution Book...
Luna needs more screen time.
2396697
Also Rarity is secretly hiding a festering guilt?
This was unexpected...
2396742
"Bet Rarity going to make the dress from her nightmare"
Oh dear lord.
That'd just be evil!
Huzzah! Another good chapter. I await more. If the same quality can be delivered sooner, I will be happy.
2397478 The most evil part would be that it wasn't even Rarity's intention. Also, nice icon.
Sorry about the dark dreams. Might've let one or two slip by me in the last few days. Can't keep track of em all when I gotta chase down the Nightmare.
Yep. This is going to get really good here in the next two or three chapters. Really awkward...but really damn good. I can TASTE it.
2397420 13+ books. I swear. I keep reminding everypony of this..
2398573
Even better, had old info indicating 9.
13 pearls 13 books I'm guessing.
Is a Luna centric book planned?
Or just the denizens of Ponyville?
(If it is pearl based, I don't remember one being in the Intro Book...)
Yes update!!!
2398573 Wow thirteen books that's a lot of writing!
2398612 There are 11 pearls/marbles. But there are going to be 13+ books. One is going to be a two parter I think.
At least Rarity realizes she effectively heard HB's equivalent to Discord breaking her... kinda.
*reads the chapter and reaches the part with the mark*
*blinks and looks back to the doodle I linked to you that I made*
*reads the chapter again*
*lets out a squeee and hugs Heartbreak*
I think there should be "of" instead of "or".
I was wondering, with all the dreams, are some of them per chance sent by the princess? And assuming they are not are they at least seen by her?
In other words: Does the Princess of the night know about the dreams?
2399814 Hmmmm Those are good questions. Interesting how the Luna tag is there! Maybe there shall be answers!
2399814 That wasn't meant to be snarky or the like. But. Answers will come.
2399846
Don't worry.
Even though this was my first comment in FimFiction ever I read all previous stories including all the comments and knew that you will answer these questions in-story sooner or later. But now, with this answer, chances are good the answers are coming in this story, the 4th, and not in a later one, like the 10th or so.
hmm...i was wondering...
Rarity heared the voice of one of the nine... and she knows that she was one of her exes. So, Rarity could come to the conclusion that HB likes girls? which is theoretical no wrong...
that could become very very awkward
2400032 Thank you for bringing that up. How's them drawings coming?
2400110
but i will have some finished soon
could be going better... designing dresses is definitely not my special talent
2400201 Where's Rarity when you need her? Haha
2400110
he, well when hb was a male human he had a boyfriend
2402165 JUST ONE.
2402503
but yes.
lol i said A not some
HB has a nightmare....
fc02.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2013/084/7/8/my_little_heartbreak_has_a_nightmare_by_arthurjeremypearson-d5zajpk.jpg
"Keep that up, Brain, And I might read to them to spite you."
If I had a dream like that I might end up interpreting it as, "Starting to read to them more will open up a very large door of opportunities and days in which I read to them" so with that in mind, It's sounding almost like starting to read to spite the mind is like a cycle of composting. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2267504/The-sealed-bottle-garden-thriving-40-years-fresh-air-water.html
And I mean that it will not stop unless altered by an external source.
Calling it. Rarity's going to surprise her with a beautiful black dress.
Seems to me like Heartbreak needs the help of Click Clock to regulate her nightmares.
I'm not sure if anyone has asked before me but....why isn't Luna helping H.B with her nightmares?
8558337
Glad you asked! For that answer, you ought to keep reading!
Was Rarity affected by the Fae magic? Or did she forgetting the rest of what she heard before the door was broken down?