Sunlight filtered through purple curtains, tall and wide, and turned the final product into a beautiful lavender light that bounced off of a sleepy white unicorn. Rarity truly had the life of luxury, compared to what the rest of Ponyville experienced; Everything was of the highest quality in her entire abode, from the most lavish desk adorned with sketches to the smallest set of china in a high cupboard. The beauty of everything was magnified by the weak sunlight, but none of them could compare to the unicorn herself.
Usually Rarity went to bed with a pink sleeping mask and a pair of pure white pajamas, but the last night's events, which included staying up late to finish a dress for the Duchess of Hoofington, wore her out so much she had retired to her bed in her birthday suit. Even then, she was nothing short of gorgeous as her heavy eyelids slowly fluttered open.
"What a night, Opalescence!" she yawned loudly, stretching her hooves from under the sheet.
The feline, curled up under a bolt of fabric, meowed as she awoke.
"Indeed, my dear. Today should go quite smoothly, as I only need to readjust the elastic on the flank and I will be done!" Rarity grinned and edged her hooves out of the bed.
Opal meowed coldly, her tail whisking over the fabric.
"Somekitty's cranky today." She got her hooves on the floor, but for some reason the rest of her body wouldn't follow. Is something caught on my tail?
"Come on, mommy's got some work to do..." She yanked her body forward with a newfound strength, and with a dull crack, the unicorn fell from the bed, one hoof crushed below her chest and the other in front of her nose. A firecracker of agony exploded in her back, and she winced. For a fleeting moment, Rarity wondered just how idiotic she looked, and gave thanks to the fact that Opal was both asleep and unable to talk.
As she stood up, the sharp stab of pain in her back ebbed to a throbbing, numbing pain. "Now what was that?" she snapped, annoyed by this odd and sudden handicap. "Opal, did you have something to do with this?"
Opal popped her head from under the fabric. She stuck out her tongue, hissed, then sat down for a quick rest.
"If that's the way you'll act, so be it."
Rarity huffed and hurried out the room, leaving Opal to snore in peace. When the unicorn began to descend the stairs, Opal's furry head reappeared and surveyed her keeper's problem, which unlike Rarity she saw swiftly. If only Rarity had seen the single spot of crimson blood among a dozen downy, white feathers spread across her sheet.
The lazy feline didn't bother pestering the unicorn to take a second look at her bed; she simply yawned once more, and curled up under the protection of the fabric. Within a few seconds she was fast asleep.
Her steps echoed down the stairs. The final step neared- victory, and the kitchen, was close enough to taste.
She reached for it, a wide smile on her face...
...And missed.
The unicorn flew over the step, wind buffeting her mane, and with a cry she landed, for the second time that morning, on her face.
"Opal!" she squealed. Her tongue accidentally licked the floor mid-speech and she recoiled immediately. "Help me, Opal dear!" Her hooves flew about wildly in her attempts to get upright again, but a strange weight on her aching back held her to the ground- like a handsome Mexican stallion, who happened to be a wrestler, had put her in a headlock.
Opal didn't respond.
"The nerve of some creatures!" Rarity gave up her vain attempts, and with a sad mumble, relaxed herself. The carpet was beginning to feel quite comfortable, but she didn't realize that last time she had vacuumed was before Fluttershy came over for some evening tea two months ago. A single, dramatic tear rolled down an eye and was instantly soaked up by the vulgar carpeting.
"As much as I want to wallow in my own self-pity, I must move forward! Onward, body!" she cried valiantly.
Rarity arched her back and pushed. She felt the heavy weight slide a little, but it didn't allow enough room to be free of it and go on with her (hopefully) normal day. The fashionista snorted, something she normally looked down upon, then growled. "It isn't usually this difficult to stand up... Then again, I'm usually not this much of a ditz..."
She went through some quick ideas; Could she have rolled herself in the leftover fabric from the dress? No, that's just silly, she thought. Could the sleep deprivation affected her body so heavily? "I've stayed up longer," Rarity murmured.
She kicked the floor in frustration, then whimpered as she stubbed her hoof. Although she didn't put much force behind it, the ache in her hoof felt like being burned by a pan.
"Then what explanation is there?" Rarity began to hyperventilate, her eyes wide.
In Rarity's room, now sprawled across the desk, Opal purred as her fluffy tail whisked piles of sketches off the oak surface. Some fell into the nearby trashcan, some onto an uncapped marker Sweetie Belle had left out when she last visited. She left large clumps of thick fur in the niches of the wood, knowing well that Rarity would have an awfully hard time cleaning it out, and knowing that some of her owner's sketches, a select few that could get her famous among all classes of Canterlot, were being ruined by her doings.
She didn't care.
The feline meowed softly, the papers beneath her bum in the perfect position. None could poke her during a slumber, and the cold, cruel wood was far away from her skin.
"Opal!" came Rarity's desperate cry. The pony had already called thrice, each time a little more forlorn.
Opalescence decided it could wait. What was more important than a nap?
Rarity sniffed, saddened at her situation. Nopony could hear her, nor help. She was utterly alone, held to the floor by an unknown weight for that might as well be a Mexican wrestler stallion.
To add on to her conundrum, it was as if the weight had attached itself to her- she felt new nerves that had never been there before across her aching back, crisscrossing over already existing ones. As much as it pained her to think a Mexican wrestler was attached, perhaps permanently, to her, she couldn't bring herself to do anything about it.
But alas, she was so bored.
"Perhaps it just takes a little more effort." Rarity felt her confidence rise and she channeled all her remaining energy into moving the tumor on her back. It took some straining and sweating (To which Rarity almost yelped), but soon she was finally upright and taking small steps towards the dress on the far side of the boutique.
"Let's put this behind us, and get to work!" Rarity exclaimed, already looking for her trusty glasses.
Suddenly a strong gust of wind whipped her face and she felt her hooves slip from under her, and before the poor unicorn could realize what was happening she was flying across Carousel Boutique, her mane flailing limply, and the door rapidly approaching.
"TELL SWEETIE I LOVE HER!" Rarity shrieked as she made contact. Surprisingly the door crushed as she touched it, leaving a large threshold for her to propel through and into the open.
And away she went, pushed towards an unseen destination by an unseen wrestler attached to her back.
Chapter 2: Twilight Knows Best- Occasionally
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Rarity gasped for breath as her head slammed through the hard wood of Twilight's door, splinters lodged in her bedridden mane. She felt the vague sensation of something being lodged on her horn, but there were more important things- for example, she thought, why she had just flown into her friend's home. I don't even have an invitation, she mused, how unlady-like to barge into dear Twilight Sparkle's home!
Before she had the chance to apologize for the mess she had created, Rarity lifted her head and saw that she was not the only one who had caused some minor damage. All of her companions made an appearance in the library- Rainbow Dash's head was stuck between two fallen bookshelves, only Fluttershy's hooves were seen under a pile of scrolls (Most likely thanks to the cyan pegasus), and Pinkie Pie and Applejack were hung dejectedly over fallen chairs, their manes in such disarray that Rarity felt a strong urge to take a thick brush to them.
Twilight, as always, was deep in a leather-bound book as she stepped carefully down from the grand stairway, her horn aglow. "So interesting..." she mumbled as she turned the page.
As soon as the unicorn reached the final step, her neck immediately arched and her eyes scanned her demolished living quarters. "Well, it's good to know your conditions haven't changed drastically. Now, onto a few more tests-" Her lavender eyes caught sight of Rarity's lithe body, and she dropped the book in an instant. When the sound reached Rarity's ears, she snapped to attention only to find that Twilight Sparkle was gone.
"Twilight, dear?" she asked the empty space, her voice frantic. "Where-"
Twilight materialized at her side, a pair of crimson glasses perched on her nose and a measuring tape wrapped around one hoof. "Oh my, Rarity..." she gasped, unraveling the measuring tape and cracking it like a whip. "These... These are gorgeous! I thought I had seen it all when Rainbow Dash arrived."
At the sound of her name, the cyan mare snorted from underneath a few encyclopedias. Her wings, seemingly large for her age, fluttered loudly as she drifted back into unconsciousness.
"What do you mean?" Rarity snapped, visibly tensing. "What are you talking about, Twilight Sparkle?"
Twilight chuckled, levitating the tape to an unknown area of Rarity's body. She summoned the discarded book for the staircase to her side, along with a fresh quill, and began to jot down notes furiously. "I'd expect you of all ponies to realize it first, Rarity. You know, with all your mirrors and all."
Rarity huffed, an unseen motion sending her friend hurling towards the opposite wall. "Twilight, just spit it out." she said roughly. "Tell me why Rainbow Dash and company are sewn across your home!"
The lavender unicorn snorted, a cloud of dust emerging from her nostrils. After straightening her measuring tape to perfection, she got to her hooves and, to Rarity's surprise, trotted briskly in the opposite direction.
"Hello?" the fashionable mare gawked. "Is it that I'm invisible?"
Still Twilight Sparkle didn't turn around. Her lithe back swayed cheerfully from the cluttered closet she had stuck her head into. She hummed a little tune to herself as she searched- perhaps too eagerly, it seemed.
"Twilight Sparkle!" Rarity boomed, narrowing her beautiful eyes until they were only aquamarine slits against her white fur. A strong wind picked up in the background, fluttering various books and leaflets around the room, but Rarity was so consumed in getting her friend's attention that she didn't notice whatsoever. "I ask- no, I command that you show your face!"
Twilight's clumsy shuffling was instantly silenced, and Rarity blushed nervously as the last echos of her voice disappeared and the odd wind stopped. It didn't sound that loud in my head, she thought cheekily. Her heart sank as the lavender unicorn made soft beeping noises and backed out of the closet, a large object in her magical grasp. Her eyes were hidden as she shut the door with a swift buck to the wood- the unicorn payed no mind to the sound of boxes and valuables falling from the impact.
The nearly unnoticeable sound of her hooves clopping on the hard floor seemed magnified by the quaint silence brought on by the two mares. Rarity thought her friend's normally short walk from one end of the library to the other would never end.
Finally, Twilight Sparkle pulled the object out from behind her back with a disturbing grin. "Take a look, Rarity." she murmured from behind what looked like a simple mirror, albeit a little dusty and cracked. "I'm sure you'll be... Surprised, to say the least."
Through the occasional dent in the glass, Rarity squinted at the reflection in the mirror- she tried to ignore her horrid, bedridden mane and greasy tail as much as possible. Her horn certainly seemed longer, the ridges in it deeper and wider by a slight margin, but that was all that she could see that differed from the last time she had looked in a mirror. "Twilight, dear, did you smack your head on that bookshelf back there?" she asked slowly, scanning her horn again just to make sure she didn't miss a hole or chip that was missing.
The studious unicorn giggled, and Rarity couldn't help but notice a few stands of her usually luxurious, finely combed hair standing at attention. Her eyes dilated slightly. "Look a little closer, R-rarity..." Twilight stammered, her voice steadily rising. "Take a good look."
"Twilight, I didn't see anything out of the ordinary last time I looked in this mirror and I'll bet you three bits there won't be anything new." she snorted. She flipped a portion of unruly mane from her eyes, watching it flutter momentarily in midair before collapsing in an ungraceful heap on her shoulder. To please the frantic unicorn, who's gaze seemed to widen by the minute, Rarity gazed back into the mirror and took a good look at herself, letting her keen eye for details run wild.
"Well," she began, "my horn seems to have grown slightly overnight, and my hideous mane- sweet Celestia, just look at that knot!- looks as if it has taken on a sort of... How would one describe it...?" She paused, prodding her chin as if the action would bring forth the word she wanted. "Flow-y appearence, I guess. Have I grown taller as well?"
Rarity snorted and bopped Twilight on the head, relishing her new height. It was only a few inches difference, but enough to make the lavender unicorn enraged. "You're missing the point!" she cried, a large patch of hair from her tail taking flight. "Turn around!"
"Twilight Sparkle!" Rarity chastised sharply, her white face blushing horribly. "I don't care what state of mind you're currently in, but I will not allow you to see my plot!" She spat her last word out as if it was a foul-tasting meal.
"That's not what I want to see!" the other mare countered, her voice high-pitched and eyes wide. "In fact, I already see it! It's you that needs to!"
"You're not making the slightest bit of sense, Twi-"
A sudden burst of pink light opened Rarity's eyes wide, and she gasped loudly as her hooves left the ground and her shaky body was deposited in the opposite direction. She shook off a page from a discarded cookbook and reluctantly swerved her seemingly mountainous head to see the damaged mirror.
"See anything... New?"
Rarity narrowed her eyes, searching the perimeter for anything unusual. Her mouth opened wide in a huge gasp, and she turned to Twilight with such understanding the other unicorn thought she might weep as well.
"Twilight, oh thank you for showing me this..." She fought the rising lump in her throat while thinking of the perfect adjective. "...This horrible, horrible thing!"
Twilight beamed, her yellowed teeth shining in the sunlight. "I'm glad you've come to reason, Rarity." she said happily, turning to face the rest of her unruly friends- all in the exact same positions as earlier, minus Rainbow Dash who's leg now hung suggestively over one of Twilight's cloppier novels. "Now, we can get to-"
"My plot is huge!" Rarity wailed, the simple action of talking wiggling her (Gigantic) hindquarters. Her backside nearly blocked out the entire mirror in a thick block of white.
The lavender unicorn, giggling psychotically, leaped over the other mare and glanced at the reflection. Finding she wasn't lying at all (In reality, it was a hilarious understatement- Rarity's behind left space only for a wisp of curly indigo hair on the very edge of the mirror), Twilight Sparkle let out an animal-like roar and squared her shoulders, eyes cryptic.
"That's it!" she cried out, a brilliant raspberry aura forming around her horn. "If you're too thick-headed to notice new additions to your body, then I'll show you myself!"
Once again the utterly bemused mare was airborne, and almost immediately she felt a magical grasp tickle the two appendages on her flanks. As much as she struggled, the sheer power of Twilight's raw force and want to show her what she didn't find could not be matched. The two body parts were jerked from Rarity's sides with a soft pop, then unfurled until Twilight was content. "You have wings, Rarity!" she yelled up to her frantically. "You're an alicorn!"
"Alicorn!"
Twilight's voice echoed throughout her destroyed home. Rarity, still as puzzled as could be, glanced to her side in hopes that everything was a lucid dream- or better still, that Twilight Sparkle was overreacting as always.
This was not the case. Two perfectly preened, snow white wings, each the length of a pair of ponies glistened in the dusty sunlight. Rarity blinked once, utterly stunned at their beauty. She flexed one out of curiousity- it reached upwards, the multiple feathers fluttering gleefully, before relaxing once more. Her excitement matched if not skyrocketed past that of a foal's when they discover a carefully wrapped gift.
"Why..." Rarity's words were swept away as she felt first the feeling of weightlessness, then the dirty floor against her cheek. She only had to listen to the unicorn to hear why she had fallen.
"I can't believe this! You're an alicorn! Not me!" Twilight raged, cantering across the library angrily. Her horn glowed a soft shade of purple, and she raced over to the unconscious form of Applejack. Twilight yanked the blanket off of Applejack's motionless body, revealing two orange wings against her sides. The unicorn mare's eyes seemed to get even wider as she levitated the farm mare's head upwards and pointed out the tall spiral that blossomed on her forehead.
"There's more!" she cried out, sending out a spell that raised every pony in the dismantled library into the warm air. Rarity let out a polite, lady-like gasp at the state of her companions (Minus Twilight Sparkle, who was still fuming below) - they all had acquired either a pair of beautiful wings, a sharp horn, or in two cases both. Their bodies looked as if they were rolled out into a longer shape to occupy their new appendages, and the unicorn-turned-alicorn could faintly see what looked like a longer, thicker muzzle on all of them. They looked luminous, powerful, a spectacle to see with the sunlight bouncing off their features.
Everything came crashing back to the ground with a small pop of magic. The blast was enough to wake Rainbow Dash, who sat upright and surveyed the scene with heavily fatigued eyes.
"Wha..." she murmured, rubbing her aching temples. “What happened? Why-"
She didn't get to finish her thought, as Twilight knocked the mare upside the head with a skillet that had fallen. The metal gave a deep groan as it hit Rainbow's hard head, and in return the Columbian blue pony whinnied and fell to her knees.
"Sweet Celestia in a picnic basket!" Rainbow Dash yelped as she lost consciousness.
When Rarity shot Twilight a disapproving stare, the psychotic unicorn shrugged and dropped her weapon. "She mustn’t know about this!" she hissed. "Could you even comprehend what she’d do if she found out that her friends (Minus me) are all-powerful alicorns? She’d try to make you all into a league of extraordinary superheroes! You’d be hunted down by the police, accused of witchcraft and most likely be exiled! What do you think Celestia would say about that?”
"She'd probably say 'Wow, the Royal Cellars are making the brew mighty strong this year!'" Rarity said.
Twilight screeched and threw herself into a nearby telescope lens, her hooves fumbling awkwardly with the various knobs. The seemingly ancient instrument creaked and squeaked as it zoomed in on a patch of bright sky.
"On top of this," the unicorn began, motioning to the rest of the Elements of Harmony, "Something must be wrong with the Princesses! Oh, I hope they’re safe…" She sounded as if she was getting choked up at the thought of Celestia in danger.
"What makes you think that?" Rarity asked, trotting up to the telescope. Her slender legs wobbled under her body and threatened to collapse. One hoof slid on Fluttershy's mane (The sleeping pony squealed and promptly pulled her hair towards herself), and the white-coated mare toppled onto the dusty telescope, missing the all-important knobs by a few hairs.
"The moon and the sun are in a stalemate," Twilight Sparkle explained, thrusting the telescope's lens towards her, "see how the sun is rising from the East, and the moon from the West?"
"Isn't that how it is supposed to be, Twilight dear?" Rarity said, bemused.
"Maybe it'll be easier if you see for yourself." the frantic pony insisted, swinging Rarity into the air again. The fabulous seamstress was used to this by now, and reclined into her friend's hold as both of them climbed the steep stairs to the rooftop.
By the time they arrived, Twilight was huffing and puffing as if she had just ran a marathon. She set Rarity down, then fell to the ground with a groan. Her long tongue rolled out gracefully across the floor.
"That can't be healthy," Rarity mumbled under her breath.
"You're..." The unicorn wheezed loudly, "Pretty... heavy for a... immortal goddess..."
At first Rarity was ready to spit out a few insults that would be brand new to any nearby foal, but her gaze suddenly softened and she flipped her mane so fabulously that all the little fillies in the world wept. "Immortal goddess?" she cooed, savoring the thought. "You flatter me, Twilight."
"Presumably." Twilight huffed, getting on her hooves. Although she swayed like a leaf in late fall, she trotted towards her companion with a fierce energy. "You could just have wings and a horn, but not any other abilities of an alicorn."
"Party pooper." Rarity snarled.
The unicorn had shifted a few things out of the middle of the porch, leaving a large space for the two of them. "Oh my, you can see the entire sky from here!" the alicorn swooned.
"That's the point." Twilight's breathing became deep and heavy, and her actions became as frantic as ever. She pointed towards the vast sky, eyes filled with dread. And as Rarity looked at what was beyond her friend's hoof, she felt a shiver run down her spine.
On the starboard side of the world the sun was in the air, as was its duty. It shone down on Canterlot, and a few stray yet strong rays were already upon Ponyville's streets. On the port side, the elegant yet cryptic moon stood guard over Vanhoover and Galloping Gorge, the white light visible even from her seat on Twilight's deck. Each end of Equestria and beyond was blanketed in a different type of day, with the dawn and the dusk meeting in the very center-which happened to be Ponyville itself- in an ominous twilight.
"See?" came the lavender mare's voice. It sounded like she was a world away, and a bemused Rarity turned to face her. "Not only are the sun and the moon in such close vicinity of one another, they're not even in orbit!"
"That's a good thing, correct?" Rarity guessed.
"Of course not!" she snapped. "Having two celestial bodies together at the same time is peculiar enough, but if they aren’t moving, that means the Princesses are not controlling them."
"...And?"
"It adds up, Rarity." Twilight's deep purple eyes took on a milky haze, and she stared into the catastrophe that was the sky. "If the universe adds five new alicorns... It has to get rid of a few to make room."
Rarity didn't respond. Her mouth was agape, the wheels turning in her head ever so slowly. Without thinking her wings fluttered against her sides, and she felt mortified at the idea that her ruler's majestic pair had been taken away and deposited to her. Could all of this be because of her, a humble dressmaker from humble Ponyville?
"You do know what this means, correct?" Twilight whispered solemnly.
"I have no idea."
The unicorn's horn became engulfed in a faint magenta glow, and she met Rarity's concerned gaze. "You must find Princess Luna, duel her, and find out how to reverse this. Violently."
The white alicorn's face was completely blank. She blinked, and then pouted. "Why me?" she whined, stomping her hooves. "And why Luna?"
"For one thing, it seems like Luna would be more likely to do something as utterly silly as taking away her and Celestia's wings and horn. Not to mention, you're the only pony that didn't go bonkers when you found out that, whoop-de-doo, you're an alicorn. Be strong, Rarity." With that, she released a cloud of magenta mist upon Rarity, sighing happily as it swallowed the other pony in a quick inhale.
"Your logic is faulty!" Rarity called as she and the cloud took to the sky, their course set towards Canterlot.
"I know!" Twilight Sparkle yelled back, waving a hoof from her rooftop as she watched her dear friend glide away from Ponyville on a magical entity.
Now far away from the safety of the ground and the warm embrace of Twilight Sparkle's library, Rarity took a deep breath and fought her tears away- not tears of horror, nor sadness. She cried because she was confused of many things, and one of them was which emotion to feel. She had never flown outside of the Best Young Flier competition, and in that event she learned only how to fly up and down, not how to slow down or turn... Or land, for that matter.
"Well," she huffed, optimistic, "some say the best way to learn is to do, yes?"
She cautiously flapped her wings, and with the combined strength of the motion and Twilight's magic she blasted forward, pounding the oddly warm air. She grinned slightly, and began a steep incline as she sailed over Ponyville.
"For Twilight!" she cried out, folding her wings against her flanks and bracing for a wild ride.
