The Part of You That Stays
Rarity fled to the walk-in closet so Sweetie Belle wouldn’t see her cry. That was where she found the acoustic guitar case propped in the corner. Were it not for the fact that she’d packed up and moved nearly everything else around it, she would have missed it entirely.
A lot of things were being moved today.
Rarity emerged from the closet with the case in tow. Sweetie was on the second floor, lugging one box after another from her bedroom to the top of the stairs. She didn’t notice Rarity, or if she did she was too angry to show it. They’d been screaming at each other all afternoon, and neither had the voice for another round.
Rarity sat in the middle of the empty showroom and took the instrument out of its case.
The strings were a little out of tune, and it was always earth ponies with their strange magic touch that got all the talent with musical instruments. But after a moment of tuning, a couple fragments of musical muscle memory came back to her.
A major, starting on the root, then up to the fifth, then six, stack more fifths, so F#, C#... what was it? G? No, G#. Yes, G# indeed.
A chord rang out. Rarity smiled. The sound sat strangely in this space. Without her usual bundles of fabric and displays to dampen the sound, the chords wandered around the room and congregated in the corners. It didn’t sound like home.
The thought nearly brought tears to her eyes, but at that moment Sweetie reappeared by the stairs, and she pressed the feelings down like clothes in an overstuffed box. If Sweetie saw her cry, the whole move would be jeopardized. She’d say, “See? See? You don’t want to move, either. You’re just doing this because you hate me!” And then the screaming would start anew.
Rarity played some more. A whisper of a melody note, something predictable but pleasant on the palette like good cheap wine, floated from her lips. If she could only remember it... another second and she’d have it.
The sound of a box being roughly placed on the ground made her open her eyes. She saw Sweetie Belle standing at the top of the stairs, gawking.
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing at the guitar.
Rarity swallowed the lump in her throat. Careful now, she thought, keep it together. “It’s a guitar.”
“Well, duh. What are you doing with it?”
“Playing it.”
Box forgotten, Sweetie scampered down the stairs. Rarity noticed her eyes were still red. Was it youth that made Sweetie project emotion the way she did? No, it was probably indignation. She wasn’t the one who’d agreed to this move, after all.
“I didn’t know you could play guitar,” Sweetie said. It was much of an olive branch as Rarity could hope for.
“I learned in college. I wanted to impress a colt, but he didn’t pan out, and neither did my career as a guitarist.” She strummed again. “Some failures yield rewards in unexpected ways, though.”
Sweetie stopped a few paces away from Rarity, eyes on the instrument. “It looks dusty.”
Rarity chuckled. “I don’t think it’s been out of its case in four or five years.” She strummed again, grasping for another chord. The high strings were a bit sharp, but not gratingly so. “Were you there for Twilight’s second Hearth’s Warming Eve party?”
“No, I was at the school social with Applebloom.”
“Ah, I see.” The social. That was a memory Sweetie had never shared with her. One of many, she supposed. “Well, we all had an awful lot of punch, and Applejack convinced me to play a couple songs. She knows I know ‘Applebucker’s Jubilee’, and every chance she gets, she asks me to play it.”
“Applebuck’s Jubilee… what’s it about?”
“Cider. And mares. It was written by a colt.”
“Oh.” Sweetie scrunched up her nose. “One of those songs.”
“Yes. But Applejack likes dancing to it, so…” Rarity fretted over the frets, plucked a sour note, corrected, and started a line that sounded like it was better suited for a banjo. One note at a time, E major, lots of trios, no, triads, those things with three notes. E, A, E, A, over and over, bumpkin-esque…
Over the chords, Rarity said, “This is the part where Applejack would belt something awful about ‘what applebucking season’s really about’. Dreadful.”
As she got into a rhythm, the old familiar sting of carefully-conditioned fur sliding over coiled metal strings returned. The faint pain kept her glued to the moment. Sweetie bobbed her head a little. The boxes were, for a moment, forgotten.
Rarity hit a wrong chord, and the song derailed. She let out a titter and a blithe, “Yee-haw,” and for the first time in several days she saw Sweetie smile. “Would you like to try?”
“No, that’s okay. Scootaloo has an electric guitar. I tried it once, but it hurts my forearms to reach the frets.”
“That it does.” Rarity went back to strumming the first chord she’d rediscovered. A major, stacked fifths, extensions, whatever the word was. She’d never learned the theory, only the chords. She liked this one, though. It resonated. “I suppose I’ll get rid of it tomorrow. Maybe the pillowcase and pawn shop will take it.”
Something shifted in Sweetie Belle’s face, and Rarity realized she’d made a terrible mistake. Sweetie’s smile collapsed into a frown. Her eyes turned down to the floor. All the vitriol of the past two weeks, the hate that had somehow been purged from the air by those notes, returned with a vengeance. But the war was back on now.
“You sure love selling things, don’t you,” Sweetie said.
“Sweetie… I never play this old thing.”
“You’re playing it now.”
“It’s taking up space.”
“Doesn’t mean you should just trash it.”
“I’m not trashing it. Perhaps somepony else can play it the way it’s supposed to.”
Sweetie snorted.
Rarity held it out again, the strings quivering like a drawn-back bow. “Do you want it?”
“No. I just. Ugh.” Sweetie stamped her hoof. Her voice sounded so tired. “Nevermind. Sell it. I don’t care.”
“Sweetie, I know you’re tired, but don’t be like that--”
Sweetie turned around and took off up the stairs, her hoofalls echoing in the rafters, the sound tumbling around until it lost its levity and fell squarely atop Rarity’s forehead.
“Sweetie, come back.”
“I can’t. I have to finish packing. Lucky me. I’m moving to Canterlot.”
And with that, Sweetie Belle crested the staircase and let loose a vicious kick on the box she’d been carrying. Old clothes tumbled out and draped themselves over the steps like languid models posing for a camera. A moment later, her bedroom door slammed shut.
Rarity heard a new sound welling up from the silence that remained, something she had never heard before. It was a guitar string going still, an echo trailing off. It was the sound of the Carousel Boutique forgetting she had ever existed.
An hour passed. The light turned a dusty orange and crept up the bare walls. Without curtains on the windows, it poured into the space like water filling a vase.
Rarity put the guitar back in its case. She walked it over to the small stack of knick-knacks she planned on taking to the pillowcase and pawn shop tomorrow. But setting it in that pile felt so final. It scared her worse than signing the lease on the new two-story whitestone in Canterlot.
A house is just a house, she thought. Stop being stupid. It couldn’t forget her because it couldn’t remember her in the first place.
She put the guitar back in the closet. Neither here, nor there. She had one more evening with which to put off a decision.
Rarity wasn’t the kind of pony to give herself up to the whims of others’ emotions. But Sweetie’s anger was just as uniquely infectious as her joy. It didn’t help that the only thing left for dinner that evening was two bags of microwave-ready broccoli. That would have been enough to irk Rarity. On top of everything else, it set her simmering.
As she watched the sad little bags rotate through the microwave’s viewing window, she wondered if she had ever articulated to Sweetie Belle exactly how much this house meant to her. The house’s immaterial value tracked surprisingly close to the actual monetary value, though Rarity knew better than to causate the two. From an initial investment of 120,000 bits loaned to her by the bank, it had grown into the home base of a fashion empire that stretched from the heartland all the way to Canterlot, and to Manehattan and Fillydelphia too. She’d sold it at a tidy profit of 1.2 million bits. Mixed retail and residential was killing this year. Sweetie despised her for it.
The bags trapped steam inside and inflated as they cooked. They grew until the seams looked ready to burst.
Why couldn’t Sweetie just be happy for her? Better yet, why couldn’t Sweetie just be sad with her? Even as she thought it, Rarity knew is was asking too much of the poor filly. There wasn’t a sad bone in Sweetie Belle’s body. All that energy went straight from joy to incandescent rage. Still. Rarity wanted to hug her sister, weep with her. Mourn the loss of this place and the memories they’d made inside. Places stored memories as energy, in a way. And any move, no matter how positive, meant cutting one’s self off from that energy. Something would die in the move. Something of hers. Or some part of her. Or both. It made her want to scream.
The microwave went, ding! Rarity ripped the bags out. The plastic was molten hot, and she threw them across the kitchen, where they plopped sadly on the opposite counter.
Why couldn’t she just be sad? Instead they’d fought over stupid nonsense all month. And now Rarity was about to eat microwaved broccoli alone in an empty kitchen while her sister, the only thing in the world that mattered to her more than this place, vented her frustration on whatever was left of the cardboard packing boxes upstairs. Pathetic. Stupid. She wanted to move gracefully, to shed beautiful tears and close one door while opening another. But it was all botched, a graceless kick down a staircase.
The broccoli tasted like putty.
Rarity glanced at the stairs. She took in all of Sweetie’s summer statements lying in tangled clumps. If Rarity scolded her to clean them, it would mean another war. Her voice couldn’t take it. Her heart couldn’t take it. The last memories of this house were all going to be torture, and it was all her fault.
Her horn lit up. The clothes came to life, shook themselves out, refolded, and marched back into the box in orderly rows. One less war to fight tonight.
With the bulk of the heavy lifting completed in the days prior, there was nothing substantial for Rarity to do but watch the clocks spin. She found herself sitting in the middle of the empty showroom again, casting glances at the closet.
It’s still in there, she thought.
The silence grew louder. The walls were forgetting her. That was the goal: to put this place behind her. Wasn’t it?
She went back into the closet and emerged a moment later with the acoustic guitar case.
A major, starting on the root, then up to the fifth, then six, stack more fifths, F#, C#, G#...
The melody came back to her then. She breathed in and let it come out in a hum. The silence abated. Music took its place.
How long she played, she couldn’t tell. When she opened her eyes, she found Sweetie Belle standing at the top of the stairs, red-eyed and puffy-faced and tired.
At being discovered, Sweetie slumped down the staircase and sat down at the bottom step. Rarity put the guitar aside and joined her.
“You sound really nice,” Sweetie said.
“Thank you. Do you want some dinner?”
“Not if it’s more microwaved broccoli.”
Sweetie tucked her knees into her chest. Rarity could tell she wanted to cuddle up, but the last lingering bit of anger prevented her from closing the distance. That was fine. Rarity could be patient.
“I don’t wanna go,” Sweetie said.
“I know, my dear, I know.”
Rarity tried to put her arm around her. She squirmed away. “No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do.”
Sweetie gave a defeated sigh and surrendered to her sister’s embrace. “This stinks.”
“I hate how hard this is on you. I’m sorry.”
“You’re not really sorry. If you were, we'd stay.”
Rarity thought this would be the perfect moment to open up to Sweetie and confide in her all the awful thoughts that had plagued her mind this past month. But right as she opened her mouth, the words got tangled. “Sweetheart, I--it’s--”
“Stop it. You’re not sorry.” She sniffled. “I’m gonna hate Canterlot.”
“You’re not going to hate it.” Rarity could see Sweetie shutting down. She was halfway there herself. She tried a second time to collect her thoughts. “Did I ever tell you why I moved to Ponyville?”
“The country inspired you,” Sweetie said in a derisive tone.
“Yes. But I also went because I was broke.” Her sister looked up at her with bloodshot, inquisitive eyes. “All I ever wanted was a whitestone in Canterlot’s fashion district. That was my dream. But those houses are expensive, and at the time I was a nopony. Reputationally speaking.” She tossed her mane. “By living here all these years, I saved up enough to afford the move. And with my career being where it is, it’s sustainable.”
“So this place was just convenient.”
The words stabbed her heart. Tears welled in her eyes. Only years of practiced social control kept them from trickling down her cheeks. “I love Ponyville. I love it and my friends and I love you more than you’ll ever know.”
Sweetie frowned. “We made so many memories in this house. If we leave, we’re gonna forget.”
Oh no, Rarity thought, and the threat of tears redoubled. Don’t you dare...
“We’re gonna forget, and then all those memories won’t matter.” Sweetie looked up. “Do I even matter to you?”
Rarity broke.
They sat there for a long time, Rarity sobbing and squeezing Sweetie, Sweetie holding on for dear life. She seemed confused by all the crying. She was confused, Rarity thought. You built a wall. You didn’t let her in. Now the truth came out, and Sweetie wasn’t prepared for it. But catharsis could never properly be prepared for. Only accepted if and when it came. Sweetie must have known this, even if she couldn’t articulate it. The way she held onto Rarity felt like some kind of understanding. It was a start, at least.
The tears finally abated. Rarity collected herself and said between sniffles, “Everything we did in this house meant the world to me. Good and bad. Even if we forget, they made me who I am. And they made you the best sister I could ever have.”
The look of confusion melted away from Sweetie’s face. She buried her head in Rarity’s chest. “Love you too.”
Rarity picked herself up off the stairs. Sweetie kept her forearms locked tight around her neck. Rarity hoisted her onto her back and carried her upstairs, just like they used to do when they were younger.
Both of their bed frames had already been collapsed and packed, but a single extra large air mattress remained on the floor of Rarity’s bedroom. There was room enough for both of them. They’d need their sleep. Tomorrow was the big day.
Just before dawn, the two Belle sisters packed the last of their things and deposited whatever was leftover into the donations bin outside the pillowcase and pawn shop. When the movers arrived promptly at 8:30am, they found the two mares seated on the front stoop, watching the sun come up.
Sweetie Belle wanted to ride in the front carriage, as one of the pullers had a theater-related cutie mark and dozens of entertaining (and safe) stories of her time singing in Broadway musicals.
Rarity took the box on the second carriage. She was fine with these arrangements. They both needed a little time to themselves.
Just as they were about to kick off, Rarity’s eyes went wide. “Wait!” she called to the team. “Almost forgot...”
She dashed back into the empty boutique, to the closet in the back, and pulled out the acoustic guitar case.
She paused at the door, taking in the empty boutique for the final time. The lights were all out. The dawn chorus hadn’t quite reached the windows yet. Inside was pale and dark. Outside, the sunrise waited.
Rarity shut the door.