Truth in Lace
Humming a frenetically cheerful song, Pinkie navigated the busy Sugarcube Corner with a tray balanced on her back. She wove between ponies milling about, dodged a chair as one stood and then his hooves as he stretched, somehow not spilling a single sacred drop of coffee. Rarity admitted to herself quietly that she was of two minds about it. On one hand, it was rather terrifying to watch her bubbly friend carelessly throw herself into the press of bodies that marked the Sugarcube breakfast rush with a tray full of coffee and donuts balanced on her back. On the other hand, it was also rather thrilling. She decided to settle on being simply impressed.
Pinkie pulled into their corner and offloaded two mugs and a plate of beignets. She finished her silly song. “Heya! Order up.”
“Thank you, Pinkie,” Rarity said as Twilight reached groggily for her tea. “I say, how do you manage to be so dextrous?”
“Hard work, mostly!” Pinkie said, and shrugged. “You do something enough, it starts to get easier bit by bit until it's easy-peasy and you could do it in your sleep! Well, not actually in your sleep. You shouldn’t do most things you say you can do in your sleep in your sleep.”
“It wouldn’t really be you doing it. Technically, I mean,” Twilight said with a yawn. “I mean, you’re not conscious.”
Pinkie blinked. “Wait, what? What about sleepwalking?”
Rarity sighed. “Girls, please. I can feel a headache coming on if this goes on too much farther before I’m properly prepared. Pinkie, dear, did you bring cream?”
“Yup!” replied the busy mare as she fished a couple of creamer packets out of her apron. “There ya go! Sorry, I know you like the, uh. Whatchacallit. But I haven’t had a chance to get any!”
“The Amaretto? It’s alright,” Rarity said, having barely noticed anything that was said. She was already stirring her cup. “I’ve not been able to find any either. Seems I’ll be waiting on the next train in from Canterlot. It’s a hell of a time for it.”
She was still looking down into the coffee as Pinkie presumably bounced away with a “see you later!” and didn’t look up until Twilight cleared her throat.
Rarity glanced up, and then winced internally as she saw that concerned and questioning look on Twilight’s face. “Darling, I know what you’re about to say—”
“I highly doubt that,” Twilight said. “You look like you haven’t slept at all!”
“No, I am merely acting like I haven’t slept. I’ll have you know that I look immaculate, Twilight. I am very sure. I spent time making sure this morning.”
“So you wouldn’t bother anyone?”
“Of course,” she replied easily. Actually, it was because a lady traded in looks first, and Rarity refused to let down her aesthetic guard for a moment. And also, if she was being honest, to avoid that concerned Twilight face.
“Well, it’s alright, but I’m still concerned. So I was right. Something kept you awake.”
Rarity sipped at her coffee. She missed the almondy goodness, but it was still warm and caffeinated. She was glad that she had actually woken up for the alarm. Sunday breakfast with Twilight was always nice, and this was a much better way to recover from an all-nighter than staying in bed, groggy and half-awake, until after noon. “I kept myself awake. I was busy with something of vital importance, Twilight!”
“Vital enough to go without sleep?” Twilight asked. “Like what?” Rarity shot her a look, and Twilight flushed. “I’m not saying there isn’t a reason! I know I do it too.”
“Why, lace, of course. I’ve been teaching myself how to make lace on my own, without help.”
Rarity announced this with such glee and energy that Twilight grinned along blankly before her brain caught up with what was going on.
“Lace?” she asked. “What do you mean? Why would that take forever? Is that, uh, hard? Why are you looking at me like that?”
Rarity took another sip and sighed with more weariness than a single pony body should be able to bear. “Twilight, I love you, but that is the worst thing you have ever said. You’ve said a lot of silly things, so I need you to know how silly that was, for reference.”
“It’s not as if I’m ignorant,” Twilight said, and lifted one of the beignets. “I'm surprised you ordered these again, you always complain about the powdered sugar getting everywhere. I mean, I love them.”
“Yes, well, complaining is part of what makes life worth living. Also, I’m not sure I have enough energy to both conceal the bags under my eyes and care about a little powdered sugar. One or the other. A mare cannot serve two masters, Twilight.”
Between beignets, Twilight continued her explanation. “I know lace is expensive, for one. I also know that it's ornate, and so I assume it takes some degree of time and/or skill. But, I also know that it took a long time to make by hoof or by horn, and that was also before the Thaumic Renaissance.”
“What?”
Twilight wiped her chin. “The Thaumic… unicorns weren’t quite as knowledgeable about practical magic in the past. Some things weren’t considered proper to teach, some basic theory hadn’t been laid down yet. Politics and economics. It’s complicated. Whatever! If I get too into the weeds on how things changed in the 600s to the 900’s I’ll be here for an hour explaining the roundmanes and the Caballars! But, I do know that a lot of commercial textile work ended up done by automated processes. Earth pony machines or unicorn thaumic matrices, which I suppose are our machines.”
Rarity laid back in her seat and rolled her eyes. “Yes, I know what a stocking frame is.”
“Ah. Then…”
“I was doing it by hoof. Er, by horn.” Twilight blinked at her as she continued. “It’s so tedious! Agonizingly so, at points. Even your attention would falter, my love. Line after line, bobbin over bobbin, for hour on hour. I was cross-eyed by dinner, but I had blocked out the whole day.”
Twilight leaned in. “That sounds… well. Is it for work?”
“Mostly,” Rarity replied, making a noncommittal gesture. “Making my own will mean I have another income stream, for one. The lace-making machines make simple things, mostly. I can learn to out-design them with time. It would also mean I can work on my own designs eventually for commission work. Can you imagine what I could charge for offering lace of my own make?” She grinned and took a big bite of a beignet. “Think about it! Rarity Lace, a rarity indeed, made by horn and hoof, a unique design even! It reeks of prestige. I’m practically frothing thinking of the prestige of it. Money is in the cards, obviously, but more than bits comes the bragging rights of it. My industry is competitive, dear, but more than that it is a sort of general multi-party duel.”
“I think you mean a battle royale. I’m told that’s the term.”
“Ooh, is that Prench?” Rarity hummed. “Royale. What a nice word. Yes, that. Probably.”
“So, intricate designs… alright, I think I understand,” Twilight said. “And you succeeded?”
Rarity let out a decidedly unladylike grunt and settled back. “Not yet. But time will bear me out a victor. I have the basics down. It’s not up to my standards, sure, but it will be—I know I’ll be there. I’ve been working on this for months, Twilight. I started when I was younger, but the store was just getting off the ground, and I had finally managed to get a small clientele in order… There was simply no time. But now there is. The storefront in Canterlot is doing well, and they don’t need me to micromanage everything. Sweetie is working part time behind the counter, and I have enough time to truly hone this part of my craft.”
With a tired smile, she reached a hoof across the table. Twilight laid one of her own across it. “I’m exhausted,” Rarity admitted. “But I’m also elated. I’ve not been so excited for a project in so long, and this one doesn’t even have a set time to deliver. When I was a filly learning to use a sewing machine and how to read a pattern, I dreamed of being a maker of finest lace. It was elegant, intricate… My mother had a dress from her own fillyhood that I wore all the time. I spent so long trying to remake that lace pattern, and I could never make it work. But…”
Twilight smiled at her. “Then show me, when you’re done,” she said.
“Oh, I shall. You’ll love it, Twilight, I promise.”
*
Over tea, Rarity laid out her lace making attempts in order. She explained, in an almost unbroken stride, how such a one was early and crude, how such a one was better, how such a one had been abandoned and then returned to—for anyone besides Twilight it would have been far too much. But Twilight dutifully kept up, no matter how disorganized and rambling Rarity was in her efforts to explain what had been a private endeavor.
She had pulled out a dozen different examples. It had started out with just her most recent attempts, but then explaining how far she had come had required pulling out an abandoned project… and then on and on. Her earliest attempts were so obviously lumpy and uneven. Bobbins which had gotten snarled and out of order until, as she recounted sheepishly, she had thrown the whole assembly to the side and resolved not to try again. At least, in theory, as within a week she had gone back to the well.
From ambitious attempts she had scaled back to the basics. Focusing on working small, manageable patterns. A neat section of crossing lines, a boxy grid-like pattern. She showed Twilight how weeks of perfecting simple back-and-forth lines of stitching had grown outwards into webs that were so intricate and dense, but could be explained so easily in stages. These, too, were often muddled by missteps, but after she had devoted hours of time to the whole thing, it became easier to keep from tossing the pillow away and cursing at it.
Twilight winced sympathetically as she explained how late nights and burdened eyes had ruined hours of work as she completely lost the plot. She offered condolences and groaned in comisseration as Rarity recounted how, a week ago, she had found herself just… staring down at a pattern. She held it in her magic, now free of the lacepillow.
“You can see where I just… stopped. Right there.” She pointed. “See where the pattern breaks? This line was supposed to cross with the other and it just doesn’t. Somehow, brain foggy, I just repeated the same motion thrice in a row.” She sighed. “Every little defeat is merely a lesson learned, however. That’s been my motto through all this.”
Rarity paused to make a second round of tea and for the first time since Twilight had walked in her home with a gift of muffins and a kiss.
“I’m being a bit… much,” she grumbled at herself as she bent over the kettle. “Oh, Rarity, it’s not wrong to be passionate. You’ve always been passionate. It’s why Twilight loves you. She’s said so many times. Confidence!”
Rarity heard something and glanced over her shoulder to find Twilight engrossed in one of her patterns, one of the new ones. Rarity suppressed a snort as her silly, nerdy lover levitated her notepad over and scribbled furiously. “Notes, Twilight, really?” she said to no one in particular, and smiled.
Rarity waited and thought. She turned back to the kettle, and the old mare’s tale about watched pots bounced around her skull. True, she had been a bit rambly, a bit overboard with excitement, but hadn’t that been the entire allure of their relationship? Two passionate mares with a tendency to hyperfixate on projects rambling at each other? It had worked rather well.
The kettle screamed as the water inside hit the boiling point and Rarity swiftly moved it off the heat. Behind her, Twilight called. “Thank you, in advance!”
“No problem,” Rarity answered automatically, already pouring. “Twilight, love, I actually have a question. To let you talk for a chance. How do earth ponies do this? I just realized that I’ve never actually watched? I mean, I know mechanically how pouring works. Not that part.”
“The heat, then,” Twilight said, smiling brightly up at her as Rarity returned.
“Yes, the heat.”
Twilight flipped to a new page and scribbled a quick sketch before turning it towards Rarity. It looked for all the world like a kind of mechanical arm.
“Well, there are several ways for Earth ponies to manipulate hot objects. This is a newer one I find rather fascinating. We’ve had mouth-operated claws for years, but somepony figured out how to automate one! Or, well, not automate. Connect it to your desires. It sits on a harness on the earth pony’s back, and they can think at it. It moves! I almost want to get one shipped from Canterlot so I can observe how it works.”
“Hm. Would it be rude to use one? I mean, if it’s meant for an earth pony. And also, I know that there are hoof mittens for moving things that way. Is there some way to do that for the mouth?”
“Yes, but I’m told it’s not very comfortable. And I don’t know, Rares. That’s not a bad question. I’d have to ask an earth pony. Maybe Pinkie, next time we’re having brunch at the Corner,” she added with a grin. “Pinkie would also be up for any experiments we might want to run.”
Rarity chuckled. “You know… the last time you did that…”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “Yes, I know. And I drove myself crazy, and in the end we decided to let the whole Pinkie Sense rest. But! I’ve matured a lot. I’m sure it will be fine!”
“I’m sure,” Rarity agreed with a hum. “I noticed the notetaking, also.”
Twilight flushed. “It’s a reasonable thing to do! Notes are how I learn.”
Rarity booped her nose with a hoof, and delighted in the scrunchy face. “Love, I’m teasing. I never said it was bad! It is an endearing quality. What have you learned?”
“I’ve never really looked at lace before,” Twilight replied, flipping through her notes and showing Rarity her sketches of designs from the table. “Sure, I’ve seen it. I’ve worn dresses with lace collars and stuff.”
“We don’t pay attention to so many things,” Rarity offered. “”They just… they’re there, aren’t they? Small glories. But we move too fast for them, or our eyes are so focused on something else.”
Twilight gave her an odd look. But Rarity continued.
“I worry about it sometimes. I worry what I might be missing out on.”
“You’re… unhappy?”
Rarity snapped out of her reverie and gave Twilight a good look. Her marefriend sat uncomfortably on one of Rarity’s plush couches, shifting her weight from side to side. She looked anywhere but at Rarity.
“Not at all,” Rarity said. “I’m simply being thoughtful, Twilight. Haven’t you ever regretted missing out on something because there simply wasn’t enough time?”
“‘S why I always schedule everything,” Twilight admitted, barely audible.
Rarity moved to sit beside Twilight and nuzzled her. “Love, it’s alright. I’m not unhappy. Don’t catastrophize.”
Twilight nodded and took a breath. “Sorry! I’m trying to be better about doing that.”
“And you’ve done a wonderful job of it,” Rarity assured. “But you can understand where I’m coming from, yes? About not missing anything. Life is just… more filled these days. Do you remember when we first met? I remember it. Your hair…” she made a face, and Twilight laughed. “Well, after that. The rest of those days. I feel like we had so much more time then. The store was manageable and local, our friends were both close by and replete with leisure time. We saw each other more.”
“We still see each other all the time.”
“True,” Rarity said, and hummed. “But you do know what I mean. Regardless, we had more time, and I feel like I spent so much of it unwisely. Not unhappily, but unwisely. Not always wisely. Whichever way sounds better.”
She stood and shook out her legs. “And there it is, the bad circulation. Twilight, I’m going to stretch my legs a moment until I can feel all of them again. Would you mind?”
“Not at all,” Twilight said with a smile, as Rarity trotted out of the room and back into the kitchen. Her eyes drifted down to the designs on the table.
*
Twilight burst into her office around four the next day, trailed by a baffled Sweetie Belle. Rarity was at her desk, reading over a sales report through red-rimmed reading glasses when her lover and little sister filled her quiet space with loud conversation and hoof-waving.
“I tried to stop her ‘cause I know you’re really busy and you said not to bother you when you’re doing reports and—”
“Rarity! Rarity you have to see! It’s very important!” Twilight said.
Rarity took stock of Twilight while her brain tried to catch up to the situation at hoof. Disheveled mane, saddlebags, wide eyes, … she knew that look. It was Twilight’s own brand of late night passion project-working. She looked back down at the report in front of her, and then took a deep breath.
“It’s alright, Sweetie,” she said. She smiled at Twilight. “I was about to take a break anyway. It’s, what, eleven?”
“Ten past noon,” Twilight said.
“Right, that. Sounds about time for me to break for lunch. I’d say you could go back to the counter, but it’s honestly time for you to grab a bite too.” She turned back to her desk and began rooting through her drawers. “Did you have afternoon plans?”
“Just getting shakes with the girls.”
“Excellent. Here. Tell Applebloom and Scootaloo I said hello,” she said as she slid over a few bits in her magic’s grip. “And make sure you turn the sign on the door!”
With a quick thank-you-good-bye, Sweetie was out of her mane and she could give Twilight her full attention.
“Did I, uh, come at a bad time?” Twilight said, looking a bit more frazzled than she had before.
Rarity shook her head. “Not at all. I was going to be getting lunch anyhow, and it’s a slow day. Now! I know that look. You’ve been working on something, haven’t you? I can tell. You have the look.”
“I have a look?”
Rarity laughed. “Love, you have many looks. This one is, for instance, the All Night Special. It’s the look that says, ‘I spent all night working on something super important and forgot to eat breakfast and also probably dinner, but trust me it was so worth it’. Am I wrong?”
Twilight flushed. “I mean. That’s not the most accurate description. I ate dinner! I even cooked.”
Rarity raised an eyebrow.
“I made sandwiches,” Twilight corrected.
“That is good to hear. Thank you for looking after yourself,” Rarity said smoothly, and then dropped the act to grin openly, teasingly. “I suspect I have Spike to thank for that, hm?”
Twilight sputtered and then drew herself up. “Well! Well, I’ll have you know it was a very important project. It was also a project for your benefit, so hmph! If you tease me, perhaps I’ll just not show you.”
Rarity rose, crossed her office, and kissed Twilight. “Now that’s better. We shall teach you to play the flirtatious game yet. I’m excited to see what you’ve done. I’d say it can wait until we’ve eaten, but I have a feeling if I suggest that you’ll implode. Or catch on fire.”
“Probably. But you should sit down to see!”
Rarity, shaking her head, sat down and composed herself like a perfect Canterlonian aesthete at some old fashioned salon. “I await your newest opus, my Lady.”
Twilight giggled. “I wish I’d brought my lab coat or something. Okay! So. I was thinking really hard about how you were working on your lacework. You wanted to get better at it so you can include lacework in your commission work, right?”
“Well, yes. That’s not the main reason—”
“So,” Twilight went on, already lost again in her excitement. “I went home and said to myself, ‘Twilight, you know what it’s like to butt your head into something until you find out there’s an easy, elegant solution that’s eluded you. I know you didn’t want to just use lace making machinery which confused me, but after some research I understand because a lot of books I had in the library noted that machinery hasn’t quite reached the level of complexity yet, though by the way—sidebar—it's definitely on its way, we’ll probably have the bugs in that worked out in a decade. But once I understood that I asked myself, how can I help Rarity?”
Rarity raised an eyebrow. “And what did you conclude?”
Twilight clapped her hooves together and then her horn lit… and something flew over to Rarity and she caught it in her own levitation by instinct.
It was lace. More than that, it was one of the exact patterns she had tried before, the one she’d found in an old photo. The very first, awful and lumpy attempt she’d made a few months ago. But this was perfect, the way she’d imagined it would be when her work was done. Intricate, criss-crossing lines of linen spider-webbing into elegant flowers that curled as if pressed by a spring breeze. She let the lace sit on her hooves and simply watched it. It was beautiful. Perfect.
“H-how? How does this exist?”
Twilight cocked her head to the side. “Well, first, you—”
“No, sorry, I mean. How did you make this? Did you make this?”
“Oh! Well, technically no, but functionally yes.” Rarity gawked at her until Twilight continued. “I spent all night working on a spell matrix with reference to my own research into the craft and my sketches of your patterns. It was actually pretty difficult! And, of course, it's just a prototype. It would be hard to replicate the matrix without a lot of work as is, but once it's finished…”
“You… I’m sorry, Twilight, my brain is hitting a wall here. Could you explain that slower, and with shorter words?”
Twilight nodded. She began to pace from one end of the small, crowded office to another, narrowly avoiding pushing her nose into one of several different towers of fabric bolts. “Okay! Well, it’s a spell that I don’t need to actively maintain. It has energy of its own, and an internally consistent logic, and once supplied with energy it goes until it runs out following the instructions I made for it—in this case, it turns linen into lace. It’s automated, I guess you could say.”
Rarity stared at her, and then down at the perfect, perfect lace, and then back at Twilight.
“I… Why did you do this, again?” she asked.
Twilight's expression fell, almost imperceptibly. Whatever reaction she had expected from Rarity, this clearly was not it. "Well, you were saying that your lace isn't up to snuff yet, and you looked so tired, so I thought this would help. Don't you like it?"
“I think it looks lovely,” Rarity said carefully, slowly, as if picking each word from a hot plate. “I think it looks nearly perfect, even. If I had this attached to an order I would be ecstatic in the champagne sort of way over how the society people would chatter. But… I’m not sure how to answer this question of ‘do I like it' because I can’t quite get there.”
What had been an imperceptible drop before - a straining of the smile, a nervous shudder - had progressed. Twilight looked as though one of her favorite novels had been pulled from its spot on the shelf, desecrated, and then misfiled for good measure. "Rarity, I'm sorry, I didn't mean - I mean I did mean - I mean... What does that mean, even, 'I can't quite get there'? I thought you wanted lace for your commissions, and this will make lace cleanly, efficiently, and effortlessly! Is it that bad? I went out of my way to make sure this would replicate every pattern down to the smallest detail I could find!" Her voice cracked slightly. "I used a magnifying glass!"
Rarity threw her hooves up, trying to slow Twilight down. “Dear, I’m sorry! My choice of words is poor. Please, can you come sit. I’ll try and explain myself. I have a chair right here. Give me a chance to think through how I feel?”
They had done this many times before, phrasing in careful words what they could not in impromptu ones. Arguments were born out of words you hadn’t thought of more often the ones that had been considered, they both knew it. It had been a few months into their relationship when Twilight, her eyes teary after a silly fight over nothing, declared that she needed help to think through how she felt—and the words had stuck with them.
"Okay," Twilight acquiesced, doing her best to suppress her rapidly souring, anxious expression. Even with her best efforts it was clear how wounded she felt, and the body language she adopted as she sat down read less as "future princess of the realm" and more as "disappointed puppy."
Rarity took a deep breath, anxiously shifting her weight from side to side before just beginning. “When I spoke to you, I think that maybe, just maybe, I may have communicated the wrong idea. I wanted to learn how to make lace. I wanted to learn a skill.”
Twilight blinked slowly. "But... you seemed so excited about using the lace for the boutique. I thought with how you talked about it that you were working yourself so hard because you needed to do it soon." She lost some of the wounded posture, and her expression shifted from shocked betrayal to confusion. "I just assumed, since it was for a business thing-"
Rarity hummed. “Yes, I guess I didn’t not want to use it in business. I admit, I was thinking of bits and prestige.” She paused and sighed. “I did talk about it quite a bit. But that wasn’t the deep motivation.”
"Oh." Twilight said. She looked not at Rarity, or the lace she’d made, but at the floor. Rarity knew this behavior—she was lost in thought. "So... so you got into this as a hobby? Like my color-by-numbers books?"
Rarity bristled, but only a little. “No, not like your… You can be passionate about something for the process, Twilight. Like… like, I don’t know, weren’t you excited about the Running of the Leaves for something similar?”
"I was!" Twilight brightened up almost instantly. "I read so many books about it and I got really excited. I even did some muscle training in secret! I didn't expect to win, but I was really excited to show everypony what... I... oh." Her expression shifted again, and her cheeks reddened slightly with embarrassment. "That's what.. That's what you were doing with the lace, then, huh?"
Rarity nodded, and smiled softly. “Yes. Something a little like that.”
Twilight buried her face in her hooves. "And I came in here so excited that I'd solved a huge problem for you, and instead I showed you up by taking something you worked really hard on and making it into a magic trick. I'm really sorry, Rarity. If somepony had told me that I could cast a spell on myself to win the Running of the Leaves without effort, I would have been a little bit upset at them too."
Rarity reached out and wrapped her lover in a warm hug. “It’s alright, it’s alright! There’s no lasting harm done here. You’ve not kept me from my efforts, after all. And honestly, I’m touched you wanted to help,” she added, lifting Twilight’s chin.
Twilight breathed a sigh of relief and leaned in to nuzzle Rarity, running her head beneath her girlfriend's muzzle. "I love you so much, and I'm so glad you aren't mad. Next time you tell me you want to add something to the boutique, I'll ask first." She paused. "...On one condition, though."
Rarity laughed and kissed her. “And what would that be?”
"No more all-nighters!" Twilight admonished. "You looked like you were going to fall asleep into your beignets, and trust me, that much powdered sugar in your mane is not fun. So no more of those before Sunday dates." She paused for a moment, then thought better of it. "Actually, no more of those without inviting me over first. I wouldn't mind trying to keep you company and help you work, and I'm sure some of the books I have back in the library would be perfect for this!"
“Fine, fine…” she said, and then paused, and a sly grin spread across her face. “Except, aren’t you the one who does that the most?”
"Yes, but I have an entire lifetime of really bad library science research habits to break," Twilight teased. "But I'd be happy to invite you over next time I go on a forty-eight hour bender into researching a complex dodecahedral-pattern quantum brainwave spell!"
“I think… I think that might be a good way to make sure I get to sleep at a reasonable hour,” Rarity said, and Twilight managed to keep her mock-dismay straight for only so long before they both burst into laughter.
"I am serious, though. About wanting you to invite me over next time, I mean," Twilight clarified once the two had managed to calm themselves down. "I want to see what it looks like when you work on a pattern manually. I know you don't want to use the automated spell for your boutique, but maybe I can work on a version that's good for teaching, in case someone needs a demonstration and there isn't someone handy to show them."
“I could see that. A project for both of us might be just the thing.” She kissed Twilight on the nose, eliciting a giggle. “It would be nice to work together for a change.”