A crossover with Winsor McCay's Gertie the Dinosaur, considered by some wikipedia editors to be the first proper “character” brought to life by animation. McCay, a newspaper cartoonist, pioneered for the film several techniques that remain essential to animation today – including keyframes, registration marks, and animation loops. McCay's animations were variously successful, but as time went on he became increasingly disillusioned with the burgeoning industry, and in 1921 was forced by his editor to give up animation almost entirely. In 1934, he woke to discover his drawing hand completely paralysed, and was pronounced dead later that afternoon.
Celestia, she felt old, sometimes. There it was, right in that phrase: no one swore by Celestia these days, but it just felt far too strange to use her friend’s name like that. Trip on the stair: Twilight! See the centrepiece of Coco’s new line: Twilight, that looks stunning! See the price she’s asking for it: Sweet Twilight Sparkle. Mmn. Youth be damned, it simply didn’t work. Rarity was a stickler for such things.
It wasn’t change she had a problem with, no. Rarity liked change. She liked seeing all the little alterations the season brought with it, even putting in a few of her own, here and there. The gentle (or dramatic!) rise and fall of waistlines, hemlines, shoulder-straps. How much forehoof it was fashionable to cover, how low the brim of one’s hat should dip. Change was exciting! And yet...and yet, and yet, and yet...
Well, she had eyes, had she not! Any mare could see! Holding up the new designs of spring against the old of yesteryear, well! It was hardly competition! No time for silhouette, for carefully considered curves, for form, for volume: cheap and fast, that was the new name of the game they played – and if it had happened to pass through pony hooves on the way to getting made! why, it was practically worthless. Shapeless manufactured ponyester sacks. That was mean, some of them showed promise. But the general point remained.
“Perhaps I should write a piece about it,” mused Rarity, one evening. “There’s an open column invitation in my name with the Hoofette.”
“Oh, yes,” said Coco, cheerfully. “That’ll go down a treat. I can see it now. HEADLINE: Old Mare Yells At Clouds.” Rarity gasped. “Coco!”
“I mean, do you want to be?” said Coco, with a wry sort of smile. “Because darling, this is how it happens.”
“Hmh! So you think I’m getting old, do you.”
“Positively desiccated, you old nag.”
Rarity pouted. “Well! I suppose I’ll just give up and die now then, shall I? Quit while I’m ahead.”
“Better had,” agreed Coco. “Just be a darling and leave Rarity’s to moi, would you?”
They stared at each other for a whole two seconds before laughing.
“So you don’t agree,” said Rarity, later. “You’re perfectly content with the direction things are heading?”
Coco shrugged, took a delicate sip. “With everything? No, I wouldn’t say that. But I’m not sure ‘things’ are at all as bad as you make out. Fashion changes, darling. Get with the times.”
“Hush, you,” said Rarity, smiling. “Don’t give me me own advice. Haven’t you heard? I’m out of date, now.”
Well, it was all right for some, she thought, as she stood and stared and watched the models pass by. Dresses and hats and silk lingerie, stalking down the catwalk one by one, novelty fading, beauty gone. There was simply no art to it, any longer. Just more and more and more...
It was all that corporate interest. That’s what Twilight called it, anyway. She didn’t seem to like it any more than Rarity did, all this dealing with ponies who suddenly had a whole lot to say on the ways things should be done, and the gold to back it up as well. No class, perhaps, no taste – but bits, oh yes, as many bits as could be counted. Oil mares and stockponies and and businesscolts! Trendsetters without a trend to set. Rarity didn’t mean to sound like a snob, she hadn’t exactly been Equestria’s biggest fan of the old nobility (well...once upon a time, perhaps), but nowadays what passed for Canterlot’s elite was, quite plainly, crass. Blocks of colour, clashing fabric, textiles textureless, uncomfortable for no good reason. Dresses flat like great triangles. Hoofbands unadorned of solid gold. Pinstripe suits. Pinstripe. Why, maybe she would write that column after all.
“Darling,” said Rarity, more sharply than she would have liked, “you simply cannot be serious.”
“Serious?” the filly cried, “By Twilight, I am deadly serious! I’d like it all redone in yellow, thank you. Yellow suits are In, this season.”
“Are they,” said Rarity, just managing to keep the acid corroding her words entirely.
“I read it in the New Canterlot. Frisk & Fashion no5. Yellow ponyester: In. Petticoats, Prench & Princesses: Out. See.” She spread the magazine upon the table, pointing to a narrow column crammed around the margins of four truly nightmarish illustrations. “Aunty Earl says so.” Aunty Earl, if they ever met, was going to be getting words.
“Quite,” said Rarity. “But...ah, how to put this... Ponies of your situation, darling, generally don’t abide by what is said in fashion magazines.” She tried a smile. “That’s why you come to us.” Ten years ago, that would have worked. They used to care more about looking the part. Now, the part had started looking like them.
“Rarity.” She held up her hoof. “I’m not interested in being your little fashion experiment. The outfits are all organised already. Tiffin’s in purple, Lapis is blue, Cloud Striker’s gone gold, and I am in yellow.” Celestia have mercy. “So just finish the suit like I asked, please. I pay you well enough.”
Contractual obligations. Hmh! Rarity would show them contractual obligations, all right. They wanted yellow? They’d be getting yellow. Let them swing, if they were so set on it. Rarity had tried – nopony could say Rarity hadn’t tried. She...
She looked down at the fabric in her hooves, and sighed. Yes, she’d tried. For all the good it had done her. Out of fashion, out of stock. Where had all the style gone? The gems, the frills, the glitter, the passion... Retired now, no doubt. Sat next to Celestia and Luna in some creaky old armchair watching the decades slide by. HEADLINE: Fashion Dead, Ponies Killed It. They were doing some interesting things in Yakyakistan, she heard. But here and now she was sitting and cutting yellow panels for a filly who wouldn’t know fashion if it hit her when crossing the road. Celestia, she felt tired.
The suit was a success. Yellow, ponyester, tacky. She was commissioned immediately for sixteen more.
R A R I T Y Equestria’s Great Designer AND G E R T I E
“Fashionista, darling, thank you,” said Rarity, “but I do appreciate the gesture.” She squinted. Everything seemed rather white. “And whomever this Gertie creature is, I’m not sure I see her around at all.”
GERTIE,–yes, her name is Gertie,--will come out of that cave.
“Well!” said Rarity, pleasantly, “That sounds splendid. If you could just point me in the direction of...?” But there was no need, for at that moment, lines began to weave their way through the world like thread, carefully assembling rocks and trees and in the distance, mountains – and, yes, a cave.
“Ah! Splendid,” said Rarity, again. There was a pause – no sign of Gertie. “I don’t suppose you can tell me anything about this creature,” she whispered, confidentially. “I’d prefer not to go in completely blind. ‘Gertie’ is a very strange name, after all; I’m not even sure what kind of creature she is.”
There was silence.
“Hmh!”
Come out Gertie, and make a pretty bow.
At last, the promised Gertie! An enormous head emerged slowly from the cave, looked about, retracted – a moment later, peeked out again. Coy.
“No need to be shy,” said Rarity, stepping forward. “Gertie, is it not? The pleasure’s mine, I assure you.”
She shrank away again, peeked out – and this time, the rest of her followed, a long, long neck, arched back, and a graceful, tapered tail. Beautiful scales – Rarity was sure they would have glittered, spun like diamonds, had the world been in colour.
Gertie waddled forward, scanning the ground for...well, Rarity wasn’t sure quite what, until Gertie bent down and swallowed a rock. Goodness! She must have been some type of draconic relation, with an appetite like that. Rather impressive, really. She’d have to ask Spike the next time she saw him.
“Forgive me,” said Rarity, with a bow, “if I say anything that might offend. I’ve never met a...you know, I’m not quite sure your species.”
Gertie is a Dinosaurus.
“I’ve never met a dinosaurus,” repeated Rarity, smoothly, “which I’m sure is my own loss, but! better to make up for lost time than lie around lamenting it, don’t you agree? Delighted to meet you. My name’s Rarity.”
The dinosaurus ambled along, towering high above her. Could Gertie even hear her? Perhaps she should try shouting. “Gertie, darling—” she began, but the dinosaurus ignored her again completely, eyeing a tree that stood almost head-height, before – to Rarity’s increasing astonishment – taking an enormous bite out the canopy. Well, this was a very strange dream indeed.
Aw, stop that! Be a good girl and bow to your audience.
Gertie finished off the tree, nodding absently, and finally dipped her head to bow; that long, long neck sweeping down almost to the ground, her large, round eyes meeting Rarity’s at last.
“Charmed,” said Rarity, sticking out her hoof.
Gertie’s eyes went wide with shock; she pulled back, startled, stamping her feet in alarm.
“Now, now, there’s no need for all that,” said Rarity, as the ground started to shake. “There’s nothing to be afraid of, Gertie, see?” she stepped back: big, slow movements. “I’m a friend.”
Gertie was having none of it, thundering and gasping, rearing back on her hind legs to stand tall as any building, letting out great worried snorts.
Gertie, don’t hurt Rarity.
Hurt? Rarity eyed Gertie with new concern. Yes, she supposed it would certainly hurt to be on the receiving end of one of those tremendous feet...
Gertie’s head swung down, her mouth snapping at the air above Rarity’s head, and Rarity took another step back, more shakily.
“Hah... Now, darling, let’s not be hasty. I’m Rarity. Remember? Rarity: friend.”
Gertie swept in again, and Rarity felt the whisk of air upon her fur. Close!
“Ahem. Say it with me. Rarity: F-R-I-E-N-D-aah!” She yelped as Gertie nipped at the tip of her tail, and jumped away. “Oh, that is it! I get enough of this in the real world! Gertie, you are to calm down this instant, do you hear me?”
Gertie trumpeted, but held back.
“Good! Yes! Now, you are going to stop trying to bite me, or whatever it is you were trying to do, and we are going to sit down and have a very pleasant, civil conversation!”
The ground stopped trembling, and Rarity allowed herself a smile. Yes, Gertie was related to dragons, all right.
“I’m going to take a step closer, and you are going to stay calm, yes? Yes.” She stepped forward, and Gertie shook her head, but at least she wasn’t doing anything else. Rarity felt a thrill like she hadn’t felt in years – it was like being back, when she was younger, dragged off on some adventure or other with the girls. The rush that made you run like there was a dragon on your tail.
“See?” she said, a little breathlessly. “I’m sitting down. Rarity: friend. Why don’t you come and join me?”
Gertie snorted, and whistled, and slowly lowered herself to four legs, then to the ground. Her great head came to rest next to Rarity, eyes rolling round to stare at her.
Incredible. The power of determination.
“I do have my moments,” Rarity allowed. “I was the element of Generosity, after all.”
Are you comfortable, Gertie?
Gertie nodded, still watching Rarity. She smiled. “Of course she is. Gertie’s a good girl really, aren’t you?” She patted Gertie’s cheek, very gingerly. The dinosaurus gave an eager nod, and nearly bowled Rarity over as she went to nuzzle her.
I think she likes you.
“Clever dinosaurus!” Rarity patted Gertie again, and the creature’s tail swept round to pull her closer. “Aww! Oh, yes, I like you too, don’t worry.” Her hoof traced down Gertie’s cheek, exploring the hard pebbled texture of the creature’s hide. “You have lovely scales, do you know that? Quite marvellous. In the right lighting, I can only imagine...”
The magic of the moving image.
Luminous, alive, and sparkling. Sight to take your breath away. Rarity smiled, and kissed Gertie’s enormous head. Opalescent. Absently, she murmured, “I wonder how a dress would look on you.”
Lines, lines, production lines, and factories. Chop. Churn. Cut. Chomp. Sewsewsew, and then the stamp: et voilà! Factories and factorise; art reduced to an equation. Not all of it, oh no. Just enough for it to hurt.
“And this is...?”
“This is your Elusiva,” the stallion said. “In the silk and...”
“Yes,” she said, with a thin sort of smile. Elusivo. “Thank you.”
The saddest thing about it was that most ponies simply wouldn’t notice. She’d held out long enough for machines to advance so far that the untrained eye could hardly spot the difference. There it was, though: subtle; extant nonetheless. And the smell: beneath the perfume, yes, you could smell the oil on the thing. She would have preferred to keep it all hoofmade, but that was expensive, wasn’t the way the industry was headed, so here, she had this, instead. Rows of flawless little stitches, straight and flat and perfectly soulless.
“Do you see it?” asked Rarity, pushing the sad little hat across the table. Sweetie Belle picked it up with a frown. Mystified.
“Huh?”
“Let me take a look,” said Diamond Tiara, leaning over to pluck it out her partner’s hoof. She peered down at it critically, turning it this way and that. “Ah.”
“Mmn.”
“What?” Sweetie stared between the two of them. “Something only ponies with glasses can see?”
Diamond Tiara giggled, showed her, and passed it back. “It’s good, though,” she said, as Rarity filed it away again. “I’d buy it.”
That was not exactly what was bothering Rarity. At least, she reassured herself, the ribbons would still be added by hoof. That, she’d insisted upon, made absolutely clear, had underlined, so it really should not have come as any sort of surprise when Blazing Saddles pulled her into his office one morning to tell her that was going mechanical, too. Well, she’d get it written into contract, next time. Then they couldn’t go back on it, or...or...
Was it her? Was she simply asking too much? Everypony else seemed to be adjusting well. Coco, why, she was doing wonderfully! Less of an adjustment, more of an embrace, welcoming this newly senseless fashion with open hooves and fresh-made biscuits. Right this way, no, that’s all right, you can keep your horseshoes on, come on in, take a seat – please, wherever you want, I was just warming it up for you – oh! you like it? family heirloom yes; yes, of course it’s yours if you’d like it, feel free to ask for anything, what’s mine is yours, yes, anything at all. She wanted to be happy for her friend, she really did. Wanted to admire how well her old pupil had made her mark on this new world, had taken it in her stride and sewn a vision all her own. She didn’t like that every show of Coco’s she attended now drained away just a little more of the respect she’d once had for the mare. Goodness knew what Coco thought of her designs. Old, she didn’t doubt. Outdated, out of touch: archaic. No, she wasn’t being fair. That wasn’t Coco, just her own secret cruelty rising as it liked to do at night, fed by the reviews she knew she shouldn’t read, few at first, but growing larger. Dinosaurus.
And it wasn’t like she was completely behind the times. There were things – not many, no, but some – she still enjoyed, in every season. Change was good, it really was. Just most of what was changing wasn’t changing for the better. Like this: new management, new CEO, new owner of whatever company her company’s company’s company reported to. Orders from on high: Less focus on the catwalks, more focus on the everycreature. Well, Rarity wasn’t totally against the idea, not exactly, not in theory – but in practise what it meant was a whole lot less haute couture, and a whole lot more Manehattan stores. Less originality, more production management. Less time at her sewing station, more time at her office.
“Aha, but less is more, Rarity!” the mare had said, with satisfaction. Rarity hadn’t found the will to argue further.
Restrictions bred creativity, but this wasn’t restriction, this was...why, yes, this was constriction. Like a snake, like some enormous python (with apologies to Fluttershy’s new python, Mr. Cuddles) winding itself around your body, squeezing tighter, tighter, until you couldn’t breathe, couldn’t shout, couldn’t even find it in yourself to argue, any longer.
HEADLINE: Department Store Announces 20 New Locations.
HEADLINE: Rarity’s Boutique Pivots To Tinned Pasta.
Page thirteen, bottom corner: Rarity, An Obituary.
She laughed, at that. All she needed now was a tub of ice cream and her old chaise longue and why, she’d be in paradise. Couldn’t eat ice cream like that now, though, not at her age. Sick for days. Time is money. Have to clock in, now. Where had it begun? Might she have avoided it, if she’d swatted the mosquito away those years ago? No, on reflection, probably not – if not this company, then another, surely. At least here, she told herself, she was paid well enough. Do a job you like, you’ll never work a day in your life.
“Applejack, darling, how go things at the farm?”
“Weather’s sour,” said Applejack. “I keep tellin Rainbow to get up there and sort things out, but she keeps sayin it’s against the rules. Ha! You ever heard Rainbow Dash to care about the rules? Something about hard-workin weatherponies not needing any of our nonsense, but far as I make it, they ain’t comin out here much anyway. See em, what, three times a year? Hay, I doubt they’d even notice.” She sighed. “Can’t complain too much, though.” From beneath the wide brim of an old friend, a wry smile. “Why, you thinkin of changing careers?”
Rarity arranged her saucer, notepad, pen upon the table. “Maybe,” she said, “you never know.”
No, not really. She loved the work. But it was nice to imagine, sometimes...
The thing that stopped her, though, the cage that sprung up every time she thought about escaping – well, aside from the name, the love of the craft, the ponies that relied on her, the ones she actually liked, aside from all that – was the thought that really, without it, what did she have left? What was Rarity without her Boutique? What else could she even do?
GERTIE loves music. Play some for her and she’ll dance.
Music filled the air, sonorous and glorious and all the other words that Rarity would use if she knew them. But this was dreamland: the music sumptuary, aneldic, pressonious. Rarity clapped along cheerfully as the great dinosaurus reared up upon her hind legs and began to move, shaking out her shoulders, sliding back and forth in movements shockingly fluid for such a large creature.
The life of the party.
Indisputably! So compelled was she, in fact, by the music, by the dancing dinosaurus, that Rarity too found herself up on her hooves, rolling along to the music that reached down into her heart and tugged her along by its rhythm. Gertie trumpeted approvingly, tried her best to match herself to Rarity, the major to the minor, and before they drifted out of sync, fell about with gales of laughter as they had not laughed in years, there was a moment, precious moment, where they were united: moved as one: two stars in orbit round each other.
“Darling,” said Rarity, when they were quite recovered, “that was transformystic. Quite transformystic.”
Gertie scratched her head with the tip of her tail, embarrassed.
“You know, you would have looked quite fine in clothes,” said Rarity, with just a hint of regret, this time.
Gertie shook her head emphatically as she could manage – which for a creature so large, was really quite emphatically indeed. Rarity giggled, and stuck her tongue out. “It’s true! You would have! Quite lovely, in fact.”
Gertie mimed biting the air just above her, and Rarity let out a squeal. “All right, all right! I’ll drop it.”
Dinosauruses do not need clothes.
“Neither do ponies,” replied Rarity. “But look, we do it anyway!” And she stood to show off her dress, smooth damask flowed like water in an enormous and voluminous train. Studded with as more gemstones than could be counted, in all the shades of the rainbow, and all the shades beyond that she could dream, as well. Glittering, magnificent, extravagant. At least seven layers of petticoats.
Hmph.
“I’m sure you’d also look fantasmic in a suit, darling,” said Rarity, kindly. “A disembodied voice to turn heads at any party.”
She leaned back against the crook of Gertie’s neck, watching the rise and fall of the dinosaurus’s belly to her left, like a great jewelled balloon in the sparkling noonday sun. She wished, for a moment, that others were here. She was sure Fluttershy would have been captivated entirely by Gertie’s person, trying to give belly-rubs to a creature as big as her house. Twilight, certainly, would have enjoyed the quiet, she seemed more stressed than Rarity, most days. Pinkie Pie would just have loved to be there. Ah, well. The much more gentle rise and fall of Gertie’s neck behind her beat a gentle rhythm, breathing a soft melody into the lines of the landscape itself.
“Are you a dreamer, darling?” asked Rarity.
Dreamer? Yes, one might say that I was. I...dream.
“I’m glad,” Rarity said. “I mean, I suppose everypony dreams, really. But there are those that dream, and there are dreamers. I don’t know where this...” she gestured to encompass Gertie, the whole dreamland, the universe, “comes from. But I’m not sure that I could do without it.”
No. I’m not sure I could, either. Although...
Time passed: how much, in this timeless place, ponies could not tell. Rarity waited.
Is it worth it, do you think?
“Of course. As I say, darling, without dreaming—”
The other part, rather. Is the dreaming worth the cost of waking up again?
“I...” Rarity frowned. The waking world seemed so far away, in here, a land of memory and half-forgotten places. But this was the memory, was it not? “I’m not sure I know.”
Memories of each other.
Of a future life and past death. Of unicorns and dresses and enormous dinosauruses.
As she sleeps, she dreams of other days. Let us see what Gertie sees.
And the rocks and mountains, trees and lakeside faded to reveal the dinosaurus memory: a host of huge, long-necked creatures standing on the rocks of some much older and more primal land, lost to all except the future children. Twenty, thirty, fifty creatures watching in a circle one much smaller dinosaurus: Gertie, there could be no doubt, a younger, shorter, leaner Gertie, a Gertie in the prime of youth and joy and heedless life: a dancing dinosaurus. A music filled the air she did not recognise, and yet somehow she thought she knew – familiar, pleasant, like the smell of Mrs Cake’s warm pastry oven in an instant transporting her to the bakery on Mane Street, her mother buying her a cupcake because she’d fallen over. Not the knee that hurt, no, the muddy dress! but she kept that to herself as the cake floated along beside her. Gradually, she realised the tune was coming from the other dinosauruses, their collective song a friendly note that pulled the hoofstrings jauntily.
Gertie danced, and danced, and reared up high, and danced, and swung from side to side, and danced, and jumped, and shook the ground, and danced and sprung from foot to foot, and danced, and was completely happy, and in that moment, free.
The life of the party.
“Yes,” said Rarity, softly. “Herself. The same as waking.”
Dinner was served in dishes that looked like they cost more than the waiters were paid. No, Rarity thought, idly examining the underside etching, definitely cost more than the waiters were paid. But it was nice, she couldn’t deny that. Deeply nice. Courses came leisurely and delicate, full of wonderful subtle flavours that lingered on the palate just long enough to not outstay their welcome before another dish was served. Delicious, truly, from soup to sausage. And if she leaned back and lost herself in conversation with Fluttershy, why, she could almost forget the rest of the room even existed. She wasn’t sure she wanted to. It was, after all, so very nice.
The letter had been in machine-typed cursive on a thick, creamy paper that smelled vaguely of rose petals and wine. It had made its way immediately to the top of her in-box, which these days was somewhat less impressive than it might have been previously, and she had deliberated over it for a full six hours before sending her reply. This was theirs: the elegant ballroom hall, the aniseed croutons, the underpaid waiters. Exquisite, elaborate, electrified. Some ponies might take her dissatisfaction with the night, slight as it was, as proof the organisers hadn’t tried hard enough; every ornament spoke to the contrary. Some ponies might take her dissatisfaction as proof of how difficult she was to please, the famous Rarity’s famous bad temper: she hoped her conversation, her smiles, refuted that. In truth it lay somewhere in the middle: they had tried to please her, and failed. She had tried to be pleased, and failed at that, also. Still, it was a nice enough evening, considering. And then the speeches started.
Ting-ting-ting went the glass, elegant ring around the room, and Coco Pommel stood up to, “...say a few words. Thank you. What a crowd, huh? Wow. Darling, I hope I get something this big when my turn comes, because...wow.” Scattered laughter. Rarity smiled. “I can’t think of anycreature who deserves it more, though,” she continued. “Wait, hold on, it’s coming, what about...no, no. No one! There’s no one.
“Few ponies have given more to fashion than Rarity has. Given their life, in fact! Twilight Sparkle, so many designs! Has anycreature else created so many seasons of world-changing stuff? I don’t think so – or else, if they have, they’re here in this room, bowing down to you! I don’t want to get all dramatic and weepy about this, but hey, for a while there, you taught me everything I knew! Nopony, nopony could have been more supportive of my early career. Decades of world. Changing. Stuff. Just reading it makes me feel old! Look, I know there’s examples all over the walls, and a pretty little list on the leaflet, but if you’ll indulge me, I’d just like to read out a couple of the best.
“All right, so, let’s start with number one. What does it say here...oh, right, saved Equestria. Number two, saved Equestria, number three, saved Equestria...Equestria...Equestria...saved...yup, saved Equestria... I think we get the picture. But, not content with saving Equestria however-many times, Rarity casually decided to spend an afternoon revolutionising the fashion industry! Who here remembers that little yellow number, huh? Bang! Instantly iconic. One mare wears it to some who-cares party, and suddenly it’s everywhere. Couldn’t escape the things if we wanted to. All right, just one more...let’s see...
“We all knew what it was going to be, right? Hello? El Elusivo? I think my stocks went down 13% the day that came out.
“All right, I lied! Best thing, hooves down, the Boutique. Turning a hallowed hall of fashion into a business empire? That takes vision. The market agrees! The things are everywhere, now. Can’t walk down the street without tripping over three of them.” Laughter. But here her voice was genuine, emotion on her tongue. “That’s what I call a legacy. And every time I pass it, or eat my breakfast off one of those plates, well, I think to myself – here’s to you, Rarity!” She raised her glass. “To Rarity!”
“To Rarity!” It echoed round the room, and round the room again, building, building, until scattered by dessert. Rarity looked down at the stack of doubtlessly flawless mini éclairs, and felt vaguely sick.
“Rarity?” asked Fluttershy, softly.
“I’m all right.”
“I’ll call a waiter over, I’m sure we can leave without too much fuss. I’ll say you’re not feeling well, or...”
“Oh no,” said Rarity, not even trying to control her tone, the acid only thing keeping her veins alive, “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
More desserts, more speakers. The various ways she’d set the stage for modern fashion, welcomed in the new guard, a passing of the torch. Sometimes some ponies had the grace to mention her old designs, the frills, the gemstones – mostly, it was speech after speech about her ponyester fabrics, her production lines, her Celestia-damned yellow summer-suits. Do they not remember? Rarity wondered, or did they simply never care? One speaker, who Rarity recognised distantly from some gala or other she’d attended years ago, had actually sourced one of the horrible things, and wore it proudly on stage like a bright yellow pimple.
Fluttershy, eventually, stopped intervening, opting to sit back and radiate concern, instead. Rarity felt a brief flash of pity. Perhaps, for her sake, they should leave. Well. One more speech couldn’t hurt, could it?
Finally, it was time for Rarity to take the stage. To thunderous applause and flashing lights and music she really didn’t care for at all.
“Hello,” she said, delicately, stepping up to the edge. “I hope everypony is enjoying themselves.”
They were, they were, they were.
“I’ll keep this short.” Oh, but why, but why, but why. Here’s why: “I have sat here all night in increasing astonishment at all your praise. Unwarranted, all of it. No, thank you, allow me to finish. Unwarranted. I have dedicated my life to this world, it is true. And as I stand up here, looking down at you all tonight...” She took a breath. Fluttershy cringed. “All I can wonder is why. I have watched this industry, over the past thirty years, become exactly that: an industry. Ruled by metal and machines and the ponies who punch numbers in them. Fashion is an art, darlings. That is how I conceived it. But as I see, what you ponies have done with it, is making it into a trade. Not an art, but a trade. Bad Luck!”
Silence. She stepped away into silence.
Winsor McCay, the Famous Cartoonist of the N.Y. Herald, and His Moving Comics
Rarity wrapped the creature’s face in as wide a hug as she could manage. She almost got round her whole cheek. Gertie rumbled in a friendly manner, and raised her head, and Rarity hung on for a second, two, before falling back on her rear. Gertie shook her head amusedly. Rarity grinned. “I feel alive!” she explained. “Alive as I have not felt, I suspect, for a long, long time.”
Does this have to do with dreaming?
“Dreaming!” said Rarity. “Why, yes, I suppose in a way it does.”
You are being unusually mysterious.
“Hah! I’m allowed to be, am I not? Let me say just this, then: I have decided to give up something I’ve been holding on to for far too long, and I feel about twenty years younger.” Gertie lowered her head quizzically, nosing at her flank. Rarity rubbed her neck in just the spot she knew the dinosaurus loved to scratch. “Gertie knows what I’m talking about, don’t you, girl?”
Give up?
The voice sounded, for perhaps the first time, almost alarmed.
“Why, yes. All right, if you must know...” And as she rattled through an explanation of events, all leading up to her little dinnertime announcement, the feeling began to creep over her that the voice knew a lot of it already.
“So,” she finished, “I’m stepping away. Giving it up! No more dresses, suits, soirées, no more fancy jackets and gemstones! Farewell to fashion! Good-bye!”
I see.
“You know,” said Rarity, “I think – no offence to this place, of course, it’s really rather lovely – I’m actually looking forward to waking up! Dreading it, of course,” she added quickly, “but, really...looking forward to it, as well.”
There was a silence. Gertie idly scratched her chin.
Gertie will now show that she isn’t afraid of me and take me for a ride.
Rarity frowned. “What—”
Gertie vanished. To where, exactly, Rarity wasn’t sure. To some other space, she gathered, some world beyond the boundaries of this one. To waking-world, perhaps, or a world further yet. All was silent, all was still – without Gertie in it, she noticed, suddenly, nothing in this world moved at all. And then...
Stepping back in from wherever she had disappeared to, life returned. Slow-bobbing neck, great ponderous feet, a graceful, agile tail. Something small and black and very thin was standing on her back, waving a whip in a rather distracted manner. “Hello!” came the voice, very distantly, that Rarity recognised. She stared. “Delighted to meet you at last,” he said, as they came closer.
Years of careful repetition kicked in automatically. “The pleasure’s all mine!” she managed. “I...hmh, forgive me. I can’t make you out very well up there, and I’m just now realising I have absolutely no idea what to call you!”
“Call me?” he asked. “Hold on...” He said something else that Rarity couldn’t quite make out, and Gertie’s huge eyes rolled round, but she nodded, and picked the gangly fellow off her back, depositing him clumsily on the ground. The thing picked itself up, shook a limb at Gertie, and turned back to her. “Hello, Rarity,” he said, again, and Rarity realised that the little pale ball at the very top was his head. “I’m Winsor,” he said, cheerfully. “Winsor McCay. I’m a human. And an animator! I draw pictures and make them come to life.”
“A...magician?” she asked.
“A dreamer,” he answered. “Come, let me tell you a story.”
Windor McCay was born in 1871 (he said, with a wink), and spent his life drawing pictures for various magazines. His real passion, though, was animation. He made ten films: ten inventions. “Gertie here, well, she was one of them.” All this was starting to sound like a bit too much for Rarity, especially the parts about bringing Gertie to life – sounding like the sort of Forbidden Knowledge Twilight was always running after – until he told her, eventually, that he stopped animating.
“You grew out of it?” Rarity asked.
“Worse,” he said, with a sad sort of smile. “It grew out of me. All that...corporate interest.”
“Oh, yes,” said Rarity, darkly. “Yes, we’re well acquainted.”
“No doubt,” he said, still smiling. “But here’s what happened next...” And he described to her how he gave it up: sold it, in fact, his ability to keep going, keep bringing his pictures to life.
“They paid me well for it,” he said, grimly. “I could hardly complain.”
One day, not much long after, he’d woken up, and been unable to draw entirely. “Paralysed. Completely. My right arm: gone. Couldn’t draw a thing.”
“Oh, no!” gasped Rarity. “What happened then?”
“Then?” he let out a chuckle dark and bitter as old coffee. “Why, then I died.”
“Oh.” He didn't look much like a ghost, thought Rarity, but she kept the opinion to herself. “I'm sorry.”
“Yes. I am, too,” he said, wryly. “It was a nice funeral, though. Well-attended.”
Rarity searched for something to say. She hadn't had a lot of experience with that sort of thing. “Ah. Well, at least you must have looked the part. It's a fine outfit. Very fine. I'm glad to see your species wears clothes!”
“Thank you!” he laughed. “Yes, we're almost as fond of them as you ponies.”
“Although, mmn.” Rarity bit her lip, considering. “If I could be allowed to make just one or two adjustments...”
He beamed. “Please! Adjust away. This is dreamland, after all.” He looked down a moment later at his new suit: a rich, dark purple, completely encrusted with gems. “Marvellous!”
“Mmn, yes, I think so, too. Rather good, actually, if I do say so myself.”
He smiled, and then reached down, taking her hoof very seriously. “Don’t let them win,” he told her. “It isn’t worth it.”
“Pardon?” Rarity asked. “I'm not sure what you...”
“Don’t give it to them. We dreamers need our dreams to keep on going.”
And he bent to kiss her hoof. “Good-bye. It’s been...transformystic.”
He let her go, and Gertie picked him up and placed him on her back, and she could see him waving, all the way up there. “Good-bye!” called Rarity, back to him. “It was lovely meeting you! I hope we can do this again soon, sometime!”
He laughed, and waved the whip, and for a moment, all was still. Rarity held her breath.
Good-bye!
She smiled, and ran up as Gertie stepped back into the world. “There you are, darling!”
Gertie trumpeted, swung her head down for a hug. Her scales were hard and very beautiful, and Rarity realised the great dinosaurus was crying, huge fat tears that ran down her cheeks and soaked the ground in puddles.
Rarity pulled back. “I'm not going to see you again, am I?”
Gertie's massive shoulders rose and fell, a shrug, in motion. No, thought Rarity, looking her over, perhaps not. No, maybe she wouldn't suit clothes, after all. Such dreams were better left to the animals that needed them: humans and ponies and griffons and yaks. I wonder what the weather's like there, this time of year? Cold, probably. She smiled, despite herself. Well. Perhaps she didn't need to give up on fashion entirely...
Music rose, and Gertie began to bob her head. Oh, all right. One last go.
And there the two of them danced, as the rhythm moved through the air and slowly all the lines began to come undone, rolling up like thread the mountains, the trees, the rocks, until there wasn't much left but she and Gertie, and then they began to unravel as well, leaving nothing but whiteness, a blank expanse of possibility. Everything froze.
