Always a Bridesmaid
The door to Carousel Boutique burst open. "Hello Opalescence, did you have a good time while mommy was away?" Rarity said as she walked into her boutique. "It seems like there is another wedding to attend every other day." She sighed and her horn lit up as her magic enveloped the dress she wore with a light blue glow, lifting it from her body and depositing it on the floor. She shook herself free the feeling of burden she hadn't realized was there. "I know I shouldn't complain but I do wish my clients would stop insisting I attend their weddings, I am simply exhausted. Although I do love to watch them enjoy their special day and knowing that I had a hoof in making it the best day ever."
Opalescence hopped off of the ponyquin's back she had been laying on and walked over to Rarity. Rarity rubbed her hoof over Opalescence's head while the cat rubbed against Rarity's leg then walked over to the dress Rarity had been wearing and sniffed it. Rarity stretched her legs and looked over her shop. Ponyquins were everywhere, creating a barrier she would have to navigate to get upstairs to her bed room. "If only I had time to sleep but there is too much to do." She said to herself, shaking her head. There was another wedding tomorrow and the couple had specifically asked her to attend, just like all the others. What little time she was not working was spent eating, sleeping or making appearances at her clients weddings.
"I really should see the girls again, it feels like it has been absolutely forever since I last saw them." Opalescence looked up at her as her magic reached out and enveloped a ponyquin with bits of white fabric on it. "I know it's silly but I have started to feel a bit like a third wheel when I'm with them." She sighed. "It was so much simpler when we were all friends. I don't mean to sound like I don't still love them all but after they started getting married..." She stopped and her magic lifted the bits of fabric that would soon become a lovely white wedding dress off the ponyquin and put them on the one table not covered in bolts of white fabric.
"It's just been awkward to be around them now. I know they don't mean to make it so but they all have their special somepony." Opalescence hopped up on the table and started to bat the fabric with her paw. Rarity watched her and smiled. "At least I have you Opalescence." She turned her attention back to the fabric, moving the pieces together as she tried to come up with something not only lovely but unique. "I do wish they would like some color other than white. I know Princess Celestia's dress was stunning but there is only so much one can do with a pure white wedding dress. Neither Rainbow Dash nor Pinkie wore white dresses and they both looked spectacular. Even if I would have liked to spend more time working on them, after making that dress for Celestia I simply do not have the time I need to focus on a single dress like I used to."
Rarity levitated a needle and thread. The needle pierced the white fabric, binding it together as she created. After she was satisfied the stitch would hold she levitated the fabric, which was beginning to look like a dress, back onto the ponyquin standing beside her. Opalescence had curled up in a fluffy white ball next to her workspace. "I wish I had been able to help plan and setup their special day like I had been able to with Fluttershy and Applejack's. Ohh that was such a wonderful wedding." She let the dress settle on the ponyquin and rested her front hooves on the table as she looked up at the ceiling, a dreamy expression flowing over her face.
"The dresses were perfect, the decorations were perfect, the location was perfect. I hope I have a wedding that is as perfect as I helped to make theirs." She looked back down at her hooves then to the dress on the ponyquin. "Focus Rarity. You can think about that once you finish making sure that this bride's special day is the best day ever." She let her front hooves fall back to the floor then walked around the ponyquin, examining it from every angle with her carefully honed designer's eye.
"I do wish everypony could make white fabric glow like Princess Celestia. She looked absolutely stunning in the dress I created for her and there are so many more designs I would have liked to try out. Sadly, they just look horrible without that inner glow she projects." She giggled to herself. "Just watching how radiant she looked from the seats almost blinded me. I can't imagine how Twilight was able to look directly at her for their kiss. Oh! ideeeeaaaaaa." She sang as she pulled the fabric from the ponyquin and laid it back onto the table, pulling out stitches and adding them in other spots.
Opalescence uncurled herself and stretched before sitting next to Rarity's work area. She watched as Rarity expertly manipulated the needle and thread with her magic. Bit by bit the dress was coming together. "I still wish I could use colors other than white but I do believe this will be spectacular. Ever since I made that wedding dress for Princess Celestia I have had almost too much business. It really was too bad that Princess Luna had already requested to be put in charge of wedding planning. It was a lovely wedding but I do so enjoy being able to help make such a special day perfect." She looked back behind her at the army of ponyquins. "I suppose it is just as well that Princess Luna was in charge of preparations. I would certainly have to turn away a few brides if I had to do more than just create their wedding dresses." She sighed. "Actually, I guess I have taken on a bit too much at once." She shook her head clear of her doubts and focused back on the dress she was working on.
A small wood box on the table glowed a light blue of magic and the top opened. The glow faded from the box and a thin white gold chain, enveloped in the light blue glow lifted out of the box and levitated over to the dress. Rarity carefully attached the chain to the bodice of the dress and levitated it back onto the ponyquin. She looked over the dress and sighed. "Not quite what I was hoping, if I had more time I could make it fabulous," she looked closer and noticed how similar it was to another wedding dress she had made last week. "I wish I had time to start over but deadlines wait for nopony. I'm positive she will love it but I wish I had time to make it perfect."
She took a quick glance around the shop, looking over all of ponyquins, each with white dresses in varying stages of construction. Each one needed to be something special for somepony's special day. As she examined the shop her gaze came to the dress she had casualy discarded onto the floor when she arrived home. She walked over to it and levitated it up in front of her. She loved the dress. It had been made for her by her friends and she had worn it to the Grand Galloping Gala. Now though, she could see bits of thread sticking out from the seams and small stains along the neck line. A few of the gems had fallen off of it. She sighed and tried to put it out of her mind. "I hope I'll have time to fix this once I'm finished with all these orders." She gently levitated the dress over to the one ponyquin without any white fabric on its back then pulled open a curtain and pushed the ponyquin back against the wall. It stopped next to another ponyquin that wore a lovely purple dress that resembled a few of the white wedding dresses in her shop. There was a fine layer of dust on top of the dress and a broach around its neck with three blue diamonds on it. She tried to avoid looking at the dress and quickly pulled a curtain closed around it.
She walked back to the table and her magic glowed around the wedding dress, lifting it once again off the ponyquin and moving it over to her sewing machine. Opalescence walked around the sewing machine a few times before finally deciding on a spot then plopped down on the hard table. "I know darling, I miss the old workroom also, but I needed someplace to put all the colored fabrics and old dresses that nopony seems to want anymore." The rhythmic clicking of the machine filled the shop as she worked.
The moon was high over Ponyville as night reached it's zenith. At a small cottage just outside of Ponyville a yellow pegasus slumbered. Behind her an orange earth pony slept, her legs wrapped around the pegaus. Her muzzle was buried in the pegasus's pink mane. In Ponyville the only light that could be seen were a few street lamps. In the great tree that served as the town's library a window was open. A cool breeze blew in, the purple unicorn inside would have been cold were it not for the white wing of a sun goddess wrapped around her. At Sugar Cube Corner the only noise that could be heard was the snoring of two ponies. A blue pegasus with rainbow mane lay on her back, her legs sticking up in the air and her tongue hanging out of her mouth while a pink pony lay across her stomach. Back at Carousel Boutique the lights were still on and a rhythmic clicking noise shattered the quiet of the night. Inside a white unicorn with purple mane stood at her sewing machine, working into the night with a white cat sitting on the table next to the machine. Just as it had the night before and just as it would the next night, and the night after that, and the night after that, and the night after that.