the half without a stone
The glassy surface of the barrier was as smooth as a gravestone's slate, and Rarity's failure was carved in it as clear as any epitaph. It was the very substance of that black threshold. It was an impenetrable wall, wrought of irreversible mistakes. She didn't have the stomach to beat herself against it any longer, because she could no longer stand to touch it. This was acceptance, she decided.
The stages of grief were a little like the zodiac. Each was just vague enough a concept that it could be farriered onto practically any attempt to cope. That bloodstain, there, that wouldn't come out of the wood. Was that denial at her own impotence? Anger at what she'd done? Bargaining with the barrier with flesh as payment? Even as romantic as she'd once been, she'd never had a taste for astrology.
The stages of grief were a little like the zodiac, Pinkie had said. They go around and around. Rarity was stepping off the carousel. She hadn't even touched the barrier on this, her final visit; she only sat and stared. Applejack and Fluttershy were just outside the entrance, waiting, but the train to Hollow Shades wouldn't wait. This wasn't a vigil, it was a funeral. But not for the mare whose prison this obsidian gravestone marked.
Twilight Sparkle was not dead, after all. She was displaced in time.
In another thousand years, somepony would find her, and they would certainly free her. They wouldn't be swept up in foalish excitement at meeting a Princess, they wouldn't be impatient at chiseling her shell away, they wouldn't plunge her deeper into her own guilt until she drowned in it. Maybe Twilight would remember Rarity, mistakes softened by centuries, and that would grease the wheels for her true savior. She would walk in the sun again and feel it on her coat as she sorely deserved.
Rarity was not dead. She was displaced in time.
In another thousand years, Twilight would walk free, and her heart would awaken. It beat in her chest, still, but feelings phased through it as surely as tantrum-propelled books had phased through Twilight. She could still influence the world, in little ways, as the Princess did with her levitation. She was, after all, laying plans to free Princess Luna from her own prison, and she loved the foals who visited the Dreamland. But her heart quit beating for herself alone the moment she stepped into that hollow tree, years ago.
Unlike Twilight, Rarity did not have the luxury of time. Her body would not survive the journey her heart longed to make. So, a funeral. Not for Twilight, not for Rarity, but for the heart they shared.
The fabric of her cloak hung heavy. She would shed it here, and with it her feelings on the scars across her cutie mark: shame at her own stupidity, pride at her own bravery. It was no longer a reminder or a trophy of what she would do for Twilight. All those feelings had soaked into the cloak that hid something she saw as too ugly and too beautiful for the world. She took it in her teeth and pulled it to the floor, then used her magic to fold it up. Three diamonds stared back at her.
Would she do it again? Of course she lay awake most nights, thinking about what she would do differently with another chance, how she would approach that conversation or avoid it altogether. Based on how the day had gone, those plans would stray into fears of what Twilight was going through now beyond that barrier, or fantasies of another barrel pressed against hers, rising and falling in concert with her own breath.
But there was nothing special about wanting to do things over. She'd had the same feeling about any number of unsatisfying commissions, after all. So the more pertinent question was... If she had the chance to do it all again, and have it go exactly the same way, would she? Or would she resurrect her own heart, unmaking it into the pale thing it had been before she met Twilight Sparkle?
She stared down at the diamonds, the symbol of the mare she'd been, the mare she'd given up the moment she struck out into the Everfree in the grasp of the curse. She closed her eyes and felt the ghost of that searing pain across her flank. Months of tear-soaked pillowcases arrayed outwards in her memory. She offered all this and more up to the scales of her heart, placed it on the plate opposite to love. It did not tip.
Rarity dipped her quill in an owl-shaped inkpot and wrote. Then, she gave the barrier one final stare. She could not see through its surface any more than she could pass through stone, so she turned away and left the library. Behind her, the epitaph of her heart lay pinned to her cloak:
For you, a thousand times over.
It was funny for a mare like Rarity who used words like 'gloomy' and 'dreary' as insults to end up settling down in Hollow Shades. Or, at least, she could imagine it might be, to somepony who only knew her as a smattering of sentences, a friend of a friend of a friend or somesuch. Maybe it even would be to herself, someday, when the mare she was today was as unfamiliar to her as a passing acquaintance.
Hollow Shades was comfortable. Its darkness was cozy, and it made Rarity think of the way Fluttershy described calming animals down with a blanket over their cage. Sometimes their mind needs time to catch up with their body. She hadn't expressed the same sentiment when Pinkie asked Rarity about moving to Hollow Shades, but she had the same look in her eye. Concern. Not pity; never pity.
It wasn't dark like night, or bright like day. It was in-between, like the inside of Rarity's mind.
The seamstress's ears flicked with restless energy as she swept her gaze around the clearing. It was a little bigger than her boutique back home, and had been offered by Elder Moonshine as a site for their proposal. Her two partners in that work were also inspecting the space. Incantation sat under a tree nearby, folded in on herself. Pinkie bounced around the perimeter, gathering up loose twigs with her mouth and sweeping leaves away with her tail.
She walked over to Incantation and sat next to her. "You're worried," she stated. Incantation was wearing one of her favorite forms, a cardinal-red pegasus with a bass clef cutie mark, but she was scarcely recognizable. Method acting was one of those changeling crafts she'd never held much interest in, so she kept her boisterous personality in whatever coat she garbed herself in. To see her so withdrawn shook Rarity, even knowing the reason.
Ink's eyes flicked to hers, then back to the clearing, tracing Pinkie's circumnavigation. "Dreamland's gonna go great, boss. Pinkie's got plenty of experience with foals, and she says you're great with 'em too. You're both really passionate, she's got optimism and you've got vision. And when we've really got our roots down, then I can—"
"Incantation," Rarity said, soft. "We talked about this."
Her ears drooped, and she shuffled her hooves together. "I'll mess everything up for you if they know. Who would trust a monster with their foals?"
"You're not a monster." It was a sentence that had lost its softness over the past few months, going from a comfort to a cutting edge against the fear that grew in Ink like weeds, coming back no matter how many times Rarity and Pinkie scythed it away. She closed her eyes, inhaled, then spoke. "Remember what Cadance said? Once you're settled in... It will be too late. We want to convince them of your honesty, and we can't start that with deception."
Incantation clearly would've shrunken into herself even further if she could. She settled for looking away from Rarity, ears folded against her head like she could block the words out.
Rarity leaned against her, letting the vibration of her voice through the changeling's body serve as the comfort her words couldn't give. "I'll never stop you from shapeshifting, ever. I know the foals will love it, too. But when we break ground here and start construction... You have to announce it to the town." She sighed, a weary whisper indistinguishable from the breeze in the trees. "I'm sorry. We'll be supporting you."
"I know, boss." Sometimes, it was like that. Sometimes that sardonic yet fond little word was instead a sharp little reminder that they weren't truly three equals embarking on a project together. Incantation's ambassadorship couldn't be spurned, even if her actual job as entertainer/caretaker/assistant could be.
In the shade, Rarity's necklace glowed, lighting her coat up pink. It was always there in the dark, that luminescence at the edge of her vision. Never quite forgotten. She held it in a hoof, lifted it, let it drop again, feeling the tug of the string at her neck. It bounced against her hollow chest, and the resonation of the cavern where her heart should be rang in her head.
As Pinkie Pie had final say on the design of Princess Celestia's Bakery (save for the architect's stubborn insistence on that load-bearing wall), so did Rarity have the Royal Dressing Room. That was the agreement, at least, yet here Pinkie stood, watching every line she put to paper of her ideal floorplan. Well, 'stood' was never quite an adequate descriptor for Pinkie. Right now, she was rearranging the colored pencils strewn around Rarity's workspace, dissatisfied with her previous rainbow ordering. But still, her eyes kept darting over, apparently unable to wait.
"Finished!" Rarity declared, holding the plan aloft in her aura with glittering eyes. "Truly, this will be a dressing room fit for a princess!"
"Lemme see!" Pinkie said, after spitting out a rose-colored pencil that was apparently between electric blue and lime green in whatever ranking she was arranging.
Proudly, Rarity floated the sketch over to Pinkie, prepared for the overflowing enthusiasm that had kept her buoyed through Dreamland's difficult conception. Instead, the silence she was met with wilted her immediately. "... Is it no good?" she wondered, ears drooping.
Pinkie's wince came into view as the paper fluttered to the floor. "No no no!" she said, forelegs frantically attempting to wave away Rarity's doldrums. "It's great! I love it! It's just a little..." Her voice dropped to an uncharacteristic quiet. "Familiar."
Rarity looked down, curious what had inspired such a reaction. It had landed face-up, and with a bird's eye view it did look familiar. More than familiar; it was an exact copy of Carousel Boutique's workspace, right down to the arrangement of the ponnequins she'd worked into the sketch for scale.
Her haunches fell to the carpet with a thump. "I... I'm not sure how I didn't see it," she laughed, feeling silly and utterly mortified. "But, there are only so many ways one can arrange a workspace, correct? What's the problem with the tried and true?"
Pinkie placed a hoof on Rarity's back and rubbed in circles. The pressure was a little too hard, but it grounded her in its discomfort. "You know what the problem is," she said, with the same steady confidence she said everything.
Rarity exhaled. Not a sigh, as it made no sound, but it contained all the same resignation. "I know." She breathed in, fast, like the force of it could gather her scattered wits, then thrust a hoof skyward. "I shall try again! I shall design an atelier befitting Princess Luna's glory!"
Pinkie's eyes crinkled with a smile at Rarity's dramatic declaration, something her old self would fling out and follow through on. Neither mare troubled the other with an acknowledgement of how hollow it sounded.
She'd positioned the alcove in the floorplan just so. It was always in the corner of her eye as she worked at her machine. To see the daylight, of course, to track the sun in the sky, so she wouldn't wake up with patterns imprinted on her face like she often used to, somewhere else. Now, her eyes could keep the time, and when the sun set, she would trot down the stairs and join her friends for tea.
She did not design the room this way so she could see the little loveseat that sat below the window. She did not angle said loveseat so that if a pony were to sit there and read and listen to her work, she could tilt her head and meet Rarity's eyes. She did not size it for two, one a little taller than the other. She did not drape it in lavender accents that were found nowhere else in the room in order to complement somepony's colors. Her friends did not comment on any of these things she hadn't done, because they were good friends.
Every time Pinkie bounded into the room and looked around, her gaze caught on the space just below the window like a hoof on a loose thread. But it always roved onward after a moment, sweeping across the many in-progress projects in the Royal Dressing Room. In their brainstorming sessions, Pinkie would sit on the spare stool, lay on the modeling stage, even sprawl across two ponnequins draped in half-finished dresses. Not once had she sat on the loveseat, even in the afternoon when the sun had warmed its cushions so that it was near-impossible to pull yourself from before night fell.
The clock ticked. The bedroom was dark. The night sky was overcast. The curtains fluttered. The clock ticked. The blankets chafed. The unicorn stared upward. The clock ticked. The mattress sagged. The clock ticked. The building settled. The clock ticked. The clock ticked. The clock ticked.
Rarity shoved her blankets off. She half-dragged them to the door. She opened it. She eased herself into the hallway. Behind her, the clock ticked. She shut the door, gently, and padded down the carpeted stair in silence. The foyer's walls stretched wide in the dark. Shadows hung the statues of Princess Luna with unfamiliar shapes. Without the laughter of foals, the building she called home felt like an Ursa's den.
She shut the door of Dreamland behind her and walked from the path into the trees. In Hollow Shades, the forest and the town were indistinguishable, and the paths were more a habit than a need. Rarity preferred the direct route, and the grass tickling her hooves. The canopy held her close everywhere but for a few gaps like the wide roads of the market, and she was glad for it, because the night sky bare felt too tall, even smothered in clouds as it was. Despite that, she was drawn to one such gap. She'd been headed for it since she left Lullaby's Dreamland, even if she wasn't thinking about it.
Hollow Shades was always a little active at night, some ponies trotting along the paths in high spirits, others in pairs with a sedate gait, close enough for their hooves to tangle as their tails did. She averted her eyes from all equally, because she did not care to be bothered.
If only she had her cloak. She'd thought about replacing it, as she was a little out of place here without one. But that would defeat the purpose of her act, and she couldn't stand for that; besides, Rarity was always one to buck trends, and a fashion tradition was just a particularly stale trend. She would simply keep her head held high and continue walking forward, as she always did. And so, like that, she arrived.
Not at her destination proper. She stood in the trees just beyond, looking out at the train station, a low bulk squatting in shadow. Trains didn't come this late, but it was still draped in a feeling. It was like passing by somepony's bedroom while they slept, knowing that a presence was on the other side of the door, but having no evidence. The station held potential. It was a loose strand, connecting Hollow Shades to Ponyville, taut every night at seven and every morning at ten.
She near-closed her eyelids, only allowing a sliver of light in, enough to see the dull glow of her necklace. She thought of Twilight, and felt the intensity of it hot on her chest. Her heart called out, the distance from here to Ponyville scrunching up like fabric. Twilight would pick up. She would say she's fine, now, and she forgives Rarity. She would fix it all. She'd join Rarity in her mind, and weep for her broken heart, and help her put it back together. She would feel her lips kiss her hoof, and ask her to come home, and feel her lips kiss her lips.
She opened her eyes, fresh tears blurring the sight of the stupid, useless necklace. The clouds drew back, and the rails gleamed in the fresh moonlight, a thread glinting silver to the horizon. Somewhere in the trees, a nightjar called out. Wind rustled in the leaves. She quivered. Her legs sang with tension like guitar strings. The station waited. The moon shone. The clock ticked.
Rarity walked home.
Rarity's new heart was one of the most finely-woven in Equestria, as was expected of its sole owner. It was spun from the adoration of loving foals, the support of dear friends, and ambitions loftier than the moon. It was strong, beautiful, and as out of place in her chest as denim in a summer line. Still, as times and trends did change, so too would it be hers, someday.
In the meantime, she treated it with care. Gone were courage and bravery, in their place lay caution alone. She wasn't timid, by any means, but she walked in social situations with a light tread — she was playing the long game now, for Princess Luna's sake.
An abbreviated list of things she avoided to keep her heart safe:
1. Being alone with Princess Cadance. She had all the insight of Fluttershy and all the confidence of Applejack and all the incisive, biting questions of a concerned mother.
2. Hearts & Hooves Day. This one was difficult, but she managed it by taking on too many commissions, pulling three all-nighters, then sleeping the day right through.
3. Pinkie Pie's enthusiastic gushing on the third thing she'd do once her Princess was free. The top two spots, a hug and a cupcake, were uncontested, of course. The latest option for third, as she'd heard from Incantation (the edge was dulled when delivered secondhand in the changeling's flat affect), was a hot air balloon ride over Hollow Shades. She thought it a lovely idea.
4. Libraries.
5. The nameplates on the books she still hunted despite everything, including the difficulties posed by the previous item. A splash of water was enough to confirm they were what she was looking for, and if they weren't, she didn't much care for them anyway. They were never opened, and were not removed once they came to rest in the shelves around the alcove. She sat on the seat once a week, and hoped the ghost who lay there as she worked would fade with continued application of her lonesome presence.
Something inside her tore.
6. Lists.
All of this was temporary, of course. Not denial nor delusion, simply a map of the terrain. One does not walk on a mending leg, and she would not test a mending heart. Her old one had lain open and bleeding for months in Ponyville, and the hollow it left had ached for months more in her new home. Neither of those stages was healing, just the work that was needed before healing could begin. Now, she was getting better, and that took time.
A long time ago, Rarity learned how to take care of herself from her little sister. On bad days, Sweetie Belle was short-tempered, inconsiderate, and even cruel. The apple did not fall far from the other apple. She was frustrated, at first, about having to babysit, but the feeling faded as she recognized more and more of herself in her sister. As she learned, she was able to extend compassion and provide for Sweetie what she herself had needed on her worst days.
Eventually, she became able to do the same for herself. The part of Rarity that was Sweetie Belle's big sister was able to step outside of herself and see her efforts to lash out at others for what they were. She slowly chipped away at the one exclusion to her generosity. She had long excluded her own self from her mindset of patience, holding herself to different standards, and it was only her reflection in Sweetie Belle that taught her how to break that double standard. One could learn many things from foals.
She thought about this very hard as Rhinestone accidentally tugged at her scalp again in her braiding of Rarity's mane. Incantation, in the form of Luna, gave her a sympathetic wince. Rarity smiled back. If Her Royal Highness saw fit to give the seamstress a new manestyle, so be it. Some parents were concerned that the whole royal roleplay would be a mite... treasonous, but the presence of 'Denza' at the grand opening had dispelled that.
It was warming, really, the speed with which they'd become a staple of Hollow Shades; even tourists entrusted their foals to Lullaby's care. Small town kindness was no novelty to her, having grown up in Ponyville and extended it herself many a time, but it still surprised her how quickly something new could become routine. She knew all the foals' schedules, when she'd next see each one, and when she went to market she recognized most of the ponies there, by their foals' names if not their own.
Four months had passed, and routines were becoming comfortable. Applejack and Fluttershy visited alternately or together every few weeks, and the purpose had shifted slowly from check-ups to check-ins. The planning room hidden in the depths of Dreamland filled at a steady rate, and every month or so Rarity would get frustrated at the direction and pull down half the papers from the corkboard. They were always replaced with new, better ideas. It was much like thumbnailing dresses, a process of searching for the final design.
Incantation, too, was becoming a staple of the town. Secretly, the grown ponies were just as enthralled as their foals by her numerous forms, though much less trusting of her natural one. But she no longer needed to return to Heart's Hollow: the support of her friends, some even beyond the staff of Dreamland, was enough to sustain her. She still wasn't quite comfortable going to market in chitin, but the trips no longer ended in tears.
Rarity was pulled back to the present by the brush pulling at her hair. Royalty or no, her patience was only so generous, and she'd learned when to pull back so it couldn't have a chance to run out. She gently took the brush from Rhinestone in her magic and tossed her mane. "What lovely work, dear!" Rarity praised, the filly's beaming expression making all the little twinges of pain worth it.
"Do you think Princess Luna wants her mane done, too?" Rhinestone asked, hopefully.
Rarity's predatory gaze dropped on Incantation like a weight. "I think Princess Luna would love to have her mane done."
With a yelp, Ink shifted back to her conveniently hairless base form, then bolted for good measure. Rarity and Rhinestone's twinned laughter rang through the theater as the double doors swung behind their friend.
The pastries on the table were piled as high as the stack of books Twilight once retrieved when Rarity acquiesced to some 'light teleportation exercises'. It was experiment day in Celestia's Bakery. Fluttershy nibbled at a pain au chocolat, Applejack was halfway through a pear tart, and the Professor was poorly hiding his delight over his slice of chocolate cake. The Cutie Mark Crusaders were trailing Pinkie and Incantation around the kitchen. An almond croissant sat untouched before Rarity.
Her friends were talking about how nice their visit to Hollow Shades had been, how cute the figure of 'Denza' Fluttershy had bought was, how well Lullaby's Dreamland was being received. They were not talking about Twilight, and how she was still trapped in the library, and how the air in the bakery was so, so thin, and how Rarity's lungs couldn't quite circulate the oxygen to her heart, her true heart, the one which lay leagues away in Ponyville.
Her eyes flicked to the door. The clock read six fifty-two. The seven o' clock train to Ponyville would depart in eight minutes. No time for packing a suitcase, but her saddlebags hung on the hook by the front door and had enough bits for a ticket.
"Boss?" She jolted at Incantation's voice, realizing she was halfway to the door already. "Where are you going?" Her tone was casual, but she recognized the strained tone. Rarity glanced at Fluttershy and saw what Ink hid, laid clear as day: pity.
So she bolted.
There was a clatter and yelling behind her, but she was already through the door of the bakery, yanking her saddlebags to her with magic. The front doors rang crystalline as she burst through them and out into the blue evening of Hollow Shades. She knew the way well, because she was a coward who walked to the train station at least once a week just to leave again. She wasn't that coward now. For Twilight, anything, a thousand times over.
She ignored the ponies calling after her as she sped through the trees. Her hooves pounded on dirt, which eventually gave way to wood as she galloped up the stairs to the platform. The train was already in the station, but she still had time to buy a ticket and get on board, just a little further—
She was tumbling in a mess of hooves and pain. Rarity collapsed, held against the floor of the platform by strong legs. "Reckon that's enough, Rarity," Applejack said from atop her, not even out of breath.
"No!" she shrieked, slamming her hooves against the wood like a foal, trying to get purchase and drag herself out from under the earth pony. "Let go of me!" The door of the train was right there, beckoning her. Ponyville, Twilight, everything was waiting.
"Not until you quit being a fool," Applejack muttered, unrelenting. "We got past this."
"You did!" she spat in response. "You, Fluttershy, Pinkie, everypony gave up on her! Abandoned her! But I will not! I cannot! So let me go!"
"And what then, huh?" Her voice was low, its veneer of patience long since worn thin, revealing the coarse grain beneath. "What's waiting in Ponyville?" She pressed down harder, and Rarity's straining muscles gave out. "Think I don't check that dang tree every week? What're you gonna do? Beat your hooves bloody against the barrier again? Spend your days ignoring commissions and friends?" She paused, a torturer looking over her rack of tools. "Make your little sister walk through the Everfree to bring you meals so you don't starve?"
"I have never," Rarity hissed, "made any of you do anything to help me."
One last struggle. One last desperate bid for freedom, kicking and biting and even trying to spit in Applejack's eye but only succeeding in blinding herself. Pathetic. Useless. This was why Twilight kicked her out, because even if Rarity pushed past the barrier she still wouldn't be able to do anything to help her love. The pony atop her was strong, muscles conditioned by work in Ponyville, the home Rarity had been exiled from.
The nothing in her chest howled.
Only a trail of steam remained as evidence the train had ever been here. It billowed up into the night, vanishing with Rarity's hope. Stars twinkled weakly against the dark, and the clear sky left the platform cold. Finally, Applejack stood, and all the tension she'd been holding together in Rarity crumbled.
She burst into tears, huge, shuddering sobs only paused by desperate gasps of air. The evening's chill bit at her lungs, but she sucked it in anyway, her body desperate to parcel all her grief into little packets of night air hiccuped out in broken exhalations. She wanted to scream, but every time she tried to muster one it was only shattered by another sob.
A warmth pressed into her left flank, soft and warm like kneaded dough. Another at her right, slender and strong like a willow. She pressed her muzzle against the cool wood, hair falling over her eyes and shielding her from the world, from the pitying looks of her jailers searing into her. In the darkness beneath her mane, she could see nothing but the glow of her necklace. Twilight Sparkle was not dead, after all.
Finally, after what felt like hours, she could summon words again. "Why won't you just give up on me, too?.." she begged.
From her left: "Because we're your friends!"
"You were supposed to be Twilight's friends, too."
From her right: "We were. But Twilight's... gone."
"She's not!" Rarity tried to yell, but it came out hoarse. "She's not. She's right there, on the other side of the barrier, and if I can just... If I can find the right words... If I wasn't so useless!" she cried, slamming her hoof against the wood.
"You're not useless," came that gentle voice from her right.
"I am. And all of you are, too. We've all failed her. And we'll fail Princess Luna, as well," she said, slipping as many barbs in as she could, making of herself a wilted rose, beauty gone but still sharp, nothing left for which ponies might brave the thorns.
"We don't fail until we give up!" Ceaseless, grating optimism from her left.
"I have," she said, and meant it with each fiber of her being. "Are you happy now? I've given up. I'll never save Twilight, or myself, or anypony else. So leave me be."
"None of us are anywhere near happy 'bout this, Rarity." Applejack knelt next to her in Pinkie's place, levering her hooves under Rarity's barrel and pulling her up with those same legs that had knocked her down just minutes ago. "Tomorrow's a new day. If you wanna give up for today, that's just fine. Happens to the best of us. But tomorrow we try again." Her side pressed against Rarity's.
She stepped forward, and Rarity had to follow or fall. She didn't fall. They stayed together until her bedroom, where she collapsed and was covered with sheets. Her friends left her in silence and darkness, apart from Fluttershy, who settled on a cushion across the room. She didn't listen to the murmuring outside the door. She didn't cry or think a single thought, and she didn't resist sleep as it swallowed her whole.
Rarity sits outside the barrier. Its surface is dark and deep as the night sky, dappled with galaxies of light. Within that space stands Twilight, smiling, her violet eyes untouched by darkness.
With some apprehension, Rarity reaches forward, and her hoof slips through the barrier's surface like it's water. It casts ripples through the dark, distorting Twilight's image. She yanks her hoof free, fearful that too much upset will dispel the princess entirely. The surface calms and Twilight's smile turns sad.
"I don't know how to get you out," Rarity says. It comes out as a whisper, her chest constricted by that heavy, everpresent fact coiled around it.
"Do you want me to be free?" Twilight replies, her tail whisking against the floor. Stars swirl in its eddies.
"Of course I do!" she yells, then immediately flinches, memories of her last yelling match with Twilight nipping at her. Slowly, she looks up, and is relieved to still see her eyes shining with violet and patience. "So much of what I've done has been for you..." She bites her lip for a moment, wondering if she should admit her deepest shame. "Even my work with Luna... Even that is only done on the hope that someday she will free you."
"Do you want that to be true?"
She laughs, more shaky than haughty. "Of course not! But it is. And what would you know? It's been over a year, Twilight." She scuffs a hoof against the dirt floor. "I'm not the mare you knew."
Twilight just tilts her head, unaffected. "Do you want to be that mare?"
Hot tears bite at her eyes. "The mare you knew, or the mare I was?" She looks down. A small pile of gems sit at her hooves, refracting the starlight from the barrier, trapping it in a labyrinth of angled planes until its brilliance diffuses to nothing. "I don't..."
Another question, slipped deftly into her ear. "Do you want to be happy again?"
That isn't a fair question. She is happy — in fits and bursts. She can't expect to be happy all the time, like a fool in love. She closes her eyes, unable to look at Twilight any longer. "Of course I do."
Still, another question, unhindered by the darkness. "Do you want your heart back?"
No. No, no, no. Yes. Of course not. It's Twilight's. Of course. Twilight's gone. When she opens her eyes again, she's standing at the base of the tree. No plaque lays at its trunk, and no hatch leads down.
In the morning, she gives her pendant to Pinkie Pie for safekeeping, and asks her to welcome Princess Luna into her dreams once again. Her hoof still finds its way to her chest at times, but the ache there doesn't tear at her so much anymore. It feels more like her muscles after a morning gallop.
Hoofsteps ring out in the throne room, two quartets for three ponies, Princess Cadance flanked by two guards. Rarity stays where she is, near one of the stained glass windows lining the hall. No curtains are drawn, today, as Cadance isn't expecting an audience.
"Seems you've finally caught me," Rarity says, offering a dull smile.
"Seems you're finally ready to be caught," Cadance counters, her smile far prettier. A wonder, how she keeps hers so genuine after a thousand years. A year and a half has already reduced Rarity's to a pale imitation.
"I suppose I've had enough of running," Rarity sighs, turning to gaze up at a stained glass depiction of Cadance raising the moon, and wonders if it once depicted Luna instead. "I know I'm the last one to realize it, but... I have to move forward."
The guards withdraw to the doors, and Cadance moves to stand beside her, tilting her head slightly towards Rarity's, the incorporeal substitute for a nuzzle. A woefully lacking substitute, but a concrete gesture nonetheless, and Rarity knows the lack hurts far more for the princess than for her. "How are the plans for dear Lullaby coming along?"
Rarity hums. "Well, I believe. They are yet to pass a true test, but the foals... They really do believe in her, as more than just a guardian of dreams. I suppose now it's only a matter of seeing whether that belief is stronger than Discord's magic."
Cadance nods, face set grimly. "We have to assume it will be."
"We do," Rarity agrees. "It's certainly a change of pace from my previous work. Fashion trends come and go as surely as the seasons, but this work must stand the test of time. When I finished a dress before, it would only be weeks until I saw whether it was a success. Now... I'll be lucky if I live to see its fruition."
"If ponies only planted trees they could sit in the shade of themselves, Equestria would be bare," Cadance responded, the old adage ringing a little truer in the mouth of an immortal.
"Still, to see even a sapling would help..."
"You will. How long?"
"... A few months until Dusk's big day."
Resolute, Cadance turns away, her gaze wandering to another window, this one depicting herself surrounded by floating tomes of magic. "It's good to see you doing well, Rarity. Don't go getting too lost in your work, okay?"
"You know me far too well, princess," Rarity titters in return. "Pinkie Pie is a very effective distraction, rest assured."
Cadance joins her in laughter as they walk toward the exit. "I'll see you again soon, won't I?"
Rarity rolls her eyes. "No, darling, I'm getting quite bored with royal audiences, I think I'll go roll in some mud instead."
She laughs harder at that.
"May I borrow an escort for the train station? Ideally somepony handsome, strapping, intelligent..." she trails off.
Cadance takes her turn for an eyeroll. "That describes all my guards, dear. But yes, Rift is free. He should be waiting by the entrance."
Rarity gives a smile she hopes approaches dazzling. "Thank you, Cadance. I'll see you again soon."
She trots out of the throne room with head held high, not looking back as she passes through the aforementioned doorway.
"Rarity!" Rift Shield calls, near-cantering up to her. "You're looking better."
"I'm feeling better, darling," Rarity says, turning to him with a smile just a little more charming than the last. "As it turns out, my dear friends were all concerned about my wellbeing and looking for the best path forward for me, rather than treacherously undermining me as I assumed. Who would've thought!"
He doesn't laugh, but his undeterred smile is enough for Rarity. Many things, she's finding, are enough. "So, how're things in Hollow Shades? How's Incantation doing?" he asks.
"She's well, most days. Nopony even screams when she transforms in front of them anymore. Some have even grown to like her for the mare she is, not the changeling they're scared of — she has a book club." Rarity lets out an irritated huff. "But then one pony will say something like 'are we really okay with this' and it will set the entire town back for a month. Part of me wonders if the chaos magic is contributing to more than just disbelief in the princesses."
Their voices drop to a hushed tone as they pass through the palace gates and into town. "You're sure sending another of us won't help?"
She sighs, hoofsteps feeling a bit heavier. "I'm sure it would help Ink, but Hollow Shades would rally against it. We've asked them to trust us with this much, changing the terms of the agreement would just shatter what little goodwill we've built with them."
"I guess. I'm not sure I could find any in Heart's Haven as willing as her, anyway. She's a brave one."
The train station comes into view, and Rarity smiles. "That she is."
"Windy Willows was... nice." Rarity says. The sewing machine's whirring fills the room, mingling with the warm sunlight of evening.
"Nice?" Pinkie prompts, demonstrating her oft-used poker face that always vexes the Professor. They're in the dressing room, where she returned after dinner with the mare Pinkie set her up with. She's at her workbench, of course. Pinkie is sprawled vaguely on the floor, and Brazened Awe sits on a cushion by the door, reading.
"She's very well-mannered, and she has an admirable passion for her rescue work. She takes good care of herself; I should've asked what shampoo she uses. She shows interest in my work, both with clothes and with foals — genuine interest, not just politeness." Rarity finishes a piece of the pattern and holds it to the light with her magic, examining it."You certainly have a good eye, Pinkie; I must thank you again."
"Rarity," Brazened Awe says, not looking up from his book. "If the date went well, you wouldn't be sitting here with us enumerating all the ways it was perfectly pleasant." She cuts him an annoyed glance, but he continues unabated. "You would either be gushing about your next dress order to vent your enthusiasm, or you would not be here at all."
"The date did go well," Rarity huffs. "It had all the ingredients of a good date."
"So why are you back here already?" Pinkie asks, like she hadn't been making herself look busy by the workshop door when the seamstress returned.
With a sigh, Rarity admits defeat. "I suppose it might not have had all the ingredients of a good date. It, er... It takes two to tango, as it were."
"Ah," says Awe, the sound of an alchemist who hadn't quite gotten the right ratio of reagents.
"Aww," says Pinkie, the sound of a balloon deflating.
"Pinkie, please!" Rarity rushes, attempting to reassure her friend. "I was being truthful, she really is an excellent mare. You made a good decision, and I thank you for it."
"But no spark, huh." The room collectively winces at the unintentional near-pun.
"... None," Rarity agrees with word and spirit.
"Maybe on a second date?.." Brazened ventures, feigned interest in his book leaving him.
"No, I don't think... I'm sure she wouldn't want to see me again." Rarity begins work on the next piece of the pattern.
"Ooh, did you do something embarrassing? I did last time I went on a date." Pinkie says, some levity finding its way back into the room like water bubbling from a spring. "I ordered a huuuuge plate of spaghetti," she rolls onto her back and flings her forelegs wide as if to demonstrate the dish's size, "because who isn't impressed by a mare who can put it away, right? But I went way too fast and gave myself a tummy ache! And he was so disgusted by my lack of stamina that he just walked out! Can you believe that?"
Brazened Awe rolls his eyes as Rarity covers a giggle with her hoof. "Well, darling, he certainly didn't deserve you."
"He sure didn't. I went back the next day and knocked out three plates just to prove I could. They put my picture on the wall and everything!"
Well, that solves the mystery of the local Italian restaurant's 'do not serve this mare' poster.
"So what happened?" Pinkie asks, hooves idly windmilling above her.
"Ah... My faux pas was... not gastronomical, fortunately." She finishes a stitch. "I broke down crying in front of her. It was quite embarrassing," Rarity says, eyes not leaving her work.
Pinkie rolls back over, a fire lighting in her eyes. "And she walked out on you?!"
"No, Pinkie!" Rarity snaps, her patience evaporating like a puddle in the desert. Exhaustion wipes irritation away like the freezing night. "No, she was... I wish there was something I could point to and say 'that, that is why it did not go well!' But she just—" Frustration sparks in her again, and she lifts her hoof from the pedal, unable to keep the stitch steady. Jumping up from her station, she paces quickly to the alcove, pauses, turns back. Brazened looks down at his book again, apparently deciding his presence is support enough.
"She comforted me, paid the bill and guided me out of the restaurant." Rarity stands in the center of her workroom on the cool blue carpet like a sailboat adrift. "She even offered to walk me home. I declined. As I said, she was a model date. The fault lies with me."
If Pinkie were to pursue fencing, she would surely reach the peak of the competition. She has an uncanny talent for ducking past the defense you put up against a question you expected, instead jabbing at a weakness you'd forgotten about. And she exercises that incisive approach rarely enough that it always catches Rarity off guard, as it does again now: "Why were you crying?"
Her throat threatens to close up, so she pauses to take a few deep breaths. Then, she walks over and sits next to Pinkie, lightly touching her side with her own. She's real. Here. Tangible. It's okay. "You know why," she says.
Pinkie nods, leans against her. "I was hoping otherwise, I guess." She stretches her foreleg on Rarity's side out. "But it's fine! We'll try again, right?"
Rarity hesitates, then places her own hoof on top of Pinkie's. "Of course." She winces. "... In a little while, okay?"
"Yeah!" Pinkie says, smile uncharacteristically soft. "We've got plenty of time."
It will be a perfect afternoon. She'll see it clearly through her workshop's window, honeyed light kissing the crowns of the trees, wind caressing the leaves, like the world herself adores Hollow Shades. Below the window will lay Twilight Sparkle, and Rarity will feel that the sunlight was made to caress her coat as surely as the alcove was made to hold her.
"You know," she'll say, "there's not really anything special about these books."
Rarity will look at her with a dangerous expression that, to her, will feel derelict in its disuse. Twilight will respond instantly; to her mind, she'll have seen it mere days ago.
"I, er, I mean, there wasn't anything special about these books," Twilight will clarify, and she'll hug the one in her grip, The Hedge Maze of Intersecting Paths, to her barrel. "They're very special, now."
Rarity will acquiesce and, faced with her love's words, lose interest in her work entirely. Or rather, she will lose interest in maintaining the pretense of being interested in her work, and will instead keep looking at Twilight like she's in a dream, because it will feel like she is in a dream. It will have been a few days, though, so she will manage some words: "You mean that nothing distinguishes them from the others in your library?"
It will feel strange, calling that hollow, dark tree hers, when everything that is Rarity's will belong to her; her heart, her home, her every plan. It will feel familiar, herding the awkward princess's words. It will feel dizzying, talking to her at all. It will all ache, ache, ache, and she will revel in it.
Twilight will nod, and scootch up closer against the window, a silent welcome. Rarity will hope, for a moment, that she might resist, and will fail utterly. She will cross the room cutting like a white wake through water, and join her heart there. It will be a perfect fit, in that space that felt too big when she tried to exorcize Twilight's shadow, and she will revel in the solidity of that which cast it. Twilight will lift a wing and rest it over her, and she will almost lose the thread of the conversation entirely in the warm darkness of a truly content mind.
But something will stir in that blackness. Something shaped like her love, but with two patches of overcast, moonless night where eyes full of curiosity and love should be.
She will kiss the line of Twilight's jaw in protest, and it will almost work. "I just mean that I should've figured out that..." Twilight will hesitate, the name still like ash on her tongue, "that he was lying about them being the key to my freedom."
"... But they were, in a sense, were they not?"
Twilight will tilt her head quizzically, a gesture for Rarity to continue.
"Well, if I hadn't had a quest, then..." A little laugh will bubble up out of her, the freest in years. "I don't think you ever would've figured out you were in love with me, had I not been at risk."
Twilight's wingtips will ghost along the scar on her flank, and Rarity will shiver a little at the touch. Unspoken will be the question of if it was worth it. Unspoken will be Rarity's rebuff, captured in a hard stare. Unspoken will sit that sentence, as true as the day she penned it. A thousand times over.
The princess will admit defeat and sigh. "You're probably right."
"As usual," Rarity will respond, a proud little smirk on her face. "It's quite alright, darling. Not all of us can master their own heart so effectively as I. I knew I was head over hooves practically the moment I met you." She will grin at her love, that Rarity dazzle finally back in full force. "You got quite a good spin on that throw, after all."
Twilight will glance down at her fearfully, a record skipping, and the needle will find the groove again as she'll realize which instance of throwing Rarity is referring to. Still, an afterimage of that uncertainty will remain as she strokes feathers along her side again. Her gaze will wander to the bookshelves surrounding them, her little library, a bundle of comfort in a world that's outpaced her.
"And without that," Rarity will say, softer, "without realizing I love you... I'm not sure you ever would've freed yourself."
Twilight will be quiet for a moment, not needing to confirm that. "But... you kept collecting them. Even after..."
"Yes." Rarity will float down a book, ignore the cover, open it and run a hoof along the edge of the nameplate inside. "I did."
"Why?"
Rarity will sigh, as unable to leave her question unanswered as her camera was able to stay assembled, years ago. "I... Closure, I suppose." She'll return the book to where it belongs. "I talked to Ink about it. She said... The things we do for ourselves, the things that affect nopony else, are the truest of all. And I think it worked. I no longer hold delusions of being a hero, of saving a princess."
"You did save me." A wing will squeeze tighter.
Rarity will laugh, and the bitter taste of it will be far more familiar. "You saved yourself. I... If I hadn't... You would've..." She'll close her eyelids, and the darkness behind them will be indistinguishable from that black barrier.
She'll be pushed away, slightly, and worry she's gone too far, but then her gaze will be caught by Twilight's. Alert, searching purple eyes. "You saved me. Okay, Rarity?"
Something will threaten to well up in her, but she'll control it. "Okay." She'll press her head into Twilight's chest, partly to escape her gaze and partly to revel, for an uncountable repetition, in her tangibility. Her eyes will flutter closed, and the darkness within will not be of the barrier, or of Twilight's eyes, but of the library years ago. The warm silence of a sleepover, broken only by the violet glow of her heart, tangible and real as the mare beside her.