The One Time
As the sun set in the cold vista, Sweetie Belle unwound everything from her pasty white skin, skin that just oozed her big sister, Rarity. Her bed now took up her time as she rested upon the green quilts with nautilus prints. The setting sun provided a warmth for her to think about her daily growing body. In addition to her skin, she realized that some aspects were drifting from what she knew; her cuteness not really being one of them. Her pink and lavender hair fell over her eye. A knock came at the door. A few thuds and then a “Sweetie Belle” emanated from behind the door with a typical wooden wobble.
“How’s everything, Sweetie Belle?” Asked Rarity in her purple mane as she made herself in.
“Everything’s okay. I was just thinking about Button Mash today.”
“What?” Rarity asked having a seat on the bed.
“Yeah, he wanted to talk to me again.”
“Why?” said Rarity, “that’s great!”
“Yeah, but he’s such a…gamer.”
“A GAMER?!” Rarity said in surprise, “No sister of mine is going to be some pimply, dirty gamer’s wife. While you’re all alone in the house just trying to make him pizza rolls and feeding him gallons of soda, he’d just fondle around in his cheese-flavored man-cave with his other little friends and, ugh…waifus, or whatever those kids call those creepy-eyed girls.”
“But he’s a good guy,” Sweetie Belle laughed, “He at least gave me flowers one day and said that we could go to the dance together.”
“Yes, but haven’t you noticed anything recently?”
“Like what?”
“Like these things.” Rarity interjected pointing at her tank top, “They’re all like little hard apples poking out of your tank top.”
“Why would they matter?”
“Because, Sweetie Belle,” said Rarity as she cuddled her, “some guys are just really, really selfish. Some of them don’t really care about you as a person with a brain, they might only really care for those things in your shirt and this thing in your skirt. All I am saying is that you have to be really careful about it.”
Rarity eventually picked her up and tickled her wherever possible. The name, “Sweetie Belle,” did very little to keep her from imagining marshmallows as she held her in her arms by her lean midriff. Her nose then found itself into Sweetie’s hair and the faint scent of honey and jasmines intoxicated her into squealing and doting on her face, slightly reddened and leaky from her use of school-issue soap and expendable napkins.
“Rarity, what are you doing?” Sweetie Belle said with a giggle.
“You’re just so cute. I can’t just be so in love with my little sister, and refuse to have someone hurt her, that I just want to cuddle and squeeze her?” Rarity replied on a high.
“Yeah, but—“
“And you know it’s not good to use that nasty bathroom soap on your face. That’s why it feels like those icky pimples. For your own sake, if you want to be treated like a lady, you can’t do things like a tramp.”
“But I’ll never be a tramp.”
“I know you wouldn’t. I’m just saying that you have to be a lady to be treated like a lady. You have to take care of yourself.”
Saying what she said, Sweetie Belle broke away from Rarity’s embrace and fetched a card from her vitreous vanity, one with a joke she read to her:
WHY WOULD I CHEAT ON YOU? YOU’RE NOT JUST SOME GIRL.
HOW COULD I CHEAT ON YOU? YOU’RE NOT A GAME.
I LOVE YOU, SWEETIE BELLE! YOU’RE THE GREATEST TREASURE EVER!
Sweetie Belle chuckled along with the now understanding Rarity who held her by the waist on the bed again.
“Sweetie Belle,” Rarity called, “make sure that he treats you like the princess in that game that he likes.”
“I’ll make sure,” Sweetie Belle replied, “He does act really, really weird from time to time, but his parents say that he’s really an Aspie.”
“Why, what’s that?”
“I remember his dad said that it’s not supposed to be called that. He said it’s called Asper-something syndrome.”
“Is that what they call weird people now?”
“No, I think his dad said that it just means that he just thinks so differently that some things just don’t come naturally to him. Sometimes, he doesn’t like to look at people when he talks to people, or if someone shakes his hand, he’s being attacked. Then, he talks funny sometimes.”
“Like, how do you mean?”
“One time, I asked him about the price of a stuffed bear, and he actually answered ‘to be determined’ because it didn’t have a price tag. Who actually says that?”
“Well, he probably read that in a paper somewhere and—“
“What sometimes annoys me is that he tries to identify what toy it is and who made it.” Said Sweetie Belle with a pout. “One time, he went on about how Hocuspocus: The Get-Together was inspired by the false accusations people made to get them tried for witchcraft. Then, he makes these sounds like he registered something in a computer. He says that toy shopping for him is like catching an Aniplite. He feels like a wild Aniplite appeared and his buying it was like he caught it and registered new information about it.”
“I’ve noticed. Every time I call him, he says that he will not confirm or deny what he did, and then there was that one time that he explained all the inner-workings of the music from his video game—complete with information about the music theory, no less— and then that time when he tried to fight me because he thought that my telling him to go away was a sign that I challenged him to a battle. He felt like because I fell to the ground, he defeated me and didn’t have to listen to anything I said, and then he went on to say that he won and taunted me by laughing.”
“Yeah, he’s a bit strange and nobody really seems to like him.”
“Of course nobody likes him. He thinks that everything is a dream world to him and we’re all just characters in some bad knock-off game.”
“You have a point, but I guess that’s how he thinks, and he really does seem to like me. He likes to buy my lunch because he thinks I’m a princess to be served.”
“Well, I’m glad that he saw you as a friend. I’m sure that through all that, he sees a friend. I just want you to remind him that you’re more than a trophy or princess from that game with those two lowly electricians and the giant fairy weasel.”
“I will. I love you, Rarity” Sweetie Belle cried, hugging her around the head.
Rarity got up, still befuddled by the sensations of sisterly bonding, and stumbled towards the door. For some time, she was a bit disheartened that the Sweetie Belle she knew from the days she was reluctant to babysit during her days in middle school was now starting to actually bloom. Just Sweetie Belle’s name would now conjure up the ideas of how much she cared for her, even during the days when she made it feel like her existence was a violation of her free will.