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Organised by
RogerDodger
Word limit
400–750
Passing Her By
Rarity clung to her pillow.
Silent tears spilled down her cheek.
A steady thump from the room across the hall kept her awake just as much as her brooding thoughts.
The decision to let Sweetie Belle move in with her once she graduated grade school and hired on as her dress making apprentice had been an easy one. Nights like tonight when she invited her coltfriend over for a “gaming night” gave Rarity pause to rethink that decision. The thought that there might be something more than gaming going on left a bitter taste in her mouth. What was worse was the hole that it dug in her heart.
Thirty years, her birthday crept closer with every tick of the clock. The young and vibrant mare that she was, turning “middle-aged” in the blink of an eye. What did she have to show for it?
She thought back on her life, how she’d been the first one in her class to graduate, a full year before the rest. The next step had been to set up shop here in Ponyville. Smart, sophisticated, an entrepreneurmare unlike any other, she took the classic female stereotype and bucked it straight into last century. The rest of her plan went off track sometime after that. A victim of her own good nature, generosity took her down another path to a much different calling.
Marriage?
Foals?
She didn’t need a stallion to take care of her. That was the lie she kept telling herself. In fact, it was her that needed a stallion to take care of.
She’d been the rounds with the local fare. Nopony measured up to her impossibly high bar. Was her fatal flaw opening up a shop in such a small town, limiting her prospects and tying her down? No, that was part of the plan. She needed her space to let her muse run free, unencumbered by the stoic fashion engine of Canterlot and Manehattan. That, and she wanted to have her family close by. Family meant everything, even more than her closest friends.
Sure, she’d had the occasional date. A few out-of-towners crossed her path once in a while. It wasn’t like she had shut out the world in favor of her work. Or had she? Perhaps there had been a missed opportunity passed over in favor of meeting an order deadline. The occasional call to save the world or resolve somepony’s critical friendship problem may have interfered in her social life as well. The nagging thought of how things could have been different if she’d only found the right pony to settle down with while she was still in her prime crashed through her head like a pinball from one of Sweetie’s friend’s silly games.
Passing midnight, the clock on the wall carried on like nothing had changed.
Rarity cradled her pillow like a newborn foal and continued to silently cry herself to sleep.
Silent tears spilled down her cheek.
A steady thump from the room across the hall kept her awake just as much as her brooding thoughts.
The decision to let Sweetie Belle move in with her once she graduated grade school and hired on as her dress making apprentice had been an easy one. Nights like tonight when she invited her coltfriend over for a “gaming night” gave Rarity pause to rethink that decision. The thought that there might be something more than gaming going on left a bitter taste in her mouth. What was worse was the hole that it dug in her heart.
Thirty years, her birthday crept closer with every tick of the clock. The young and vibrant mare that she was, turning “middle-aged” in the blink of an eye. What did she have to show for it?
She thought back on her life, how she’d been the first one in her class to graduate, a full year before the rest. The next step had been to set up shop here in Ponyville. Smart, sophisticated, an entrepreneurmare unlike any other, she took the classic female stereotype and bucked it straight into last century. The rest of her plan went off track sometime after that. A victim of her own good nature, generosity took her down another path to a much different calling.
Marriage?
Foals?
She didn’t need a stallion to take care of her. That was the lie she kept telling herself. In fact, it was her that needed a stallion to take care of.
She’d been the rounds with the local fare. Nopony measured up to her impossibly high bar. Was her fatal flaw opening up a shop in such a small town, limiting her prospects and tying her down? No, that was part of the plan. She needed her space to let her muse run free, unencumbered by the stoic fashion engine of Canterlot and Manehattan. That, and she wanted to have her family close by. Family meant everything, even more than her closest friends.
Sure, she’d had the occasional date. A few out-of-towners crossed her path once in a while. It wasn’t like she had shut out the world in favor of her work. Or had she? Perhaps there had been a missed opportunity passed over in favor of meeting an order deadline. The occasional call to save the world or resolve somepony’s critical friendship problem may have interfered in her social life as well. The nagging thought of how things could have been different if she’d only found the right pony to settle down with while she was still in her prime crashed through her head like a pinball from one of Sweetie’s friend’s silly games.
Passing midnight, the clock on the wall carried on like nothing had changed.
Rarity cradled her pillow like a newborn foal and continued to silently cry herself to sleep.