“I don’t think these seams are aligned.”

Sweetie Belle’s voice drifted into Rarity’s ears from across the boutique floor. She looked up from the lengths of silk ribbon she’d been considering side by side, mulling over which color was just right, and peered over small red spectacles perched on her muzzle. “Excuse me?”

“I said, I don’t think these seams are aligned.” How smooth and melodic Sweetie’s voice was these days, the cracks and squeaks of fillyhood refined away into a perfectly rounded, flowing character as if it were some wonderful liquor triple-distilled and aged to perfection.

Rarity smiled to herself as she stepped away from the table with the selection of ribbons and walked over to join Sweetie, standing next to her. She was as tall as Rarity now, though still a touch awkward looking with the adolescent lankiness of having attained an adult height without quite being done sculpting the figure to go with it.

Still, what a fine mare she was becoming. It made Rarity so very proud of her dear sister. In just a couple more years or so she would be there, at her very peak. And how breathtaking she’d be then! Rarity could just see it, plain as day.

But there was, evidently, something else to see first.

“A misaligned seam, is it?” she asked, frowning slightly.

“Yeah.” Sweetie pointed at a specific spot on an ornate work-in-progress draped over the ponnequin before her. “See? These don’t line up. It’s just a little bit off. Also, now that I’m looking at it, is that the right stitching to use there?”

“Oh, Sweetie.” Rarity’s frown deepened. “Hmmm. You’re right on both counts. Since when did you become such an expert tailor?”

“Since you made me,” Sweetie Belle said. “Remember? You had me learn to sew so I could repair all the stuff I ripped instead of asking you to do it.”

“You’re welcome, by the way.” Rarity glanced sidelong and smiled at her sister.

“Yeah, yeah.” Sweetie rolled her eyes. “Thank you, Rarity. I guess it is a good thing to know sometimes.”

Rarity studied the half-finished dress in a silence that dragged on just a hair too long for easy comfort.

“So, uh, you want me to help with fixing that?” Sweetie finally asked, filling the dead air. “I wouldn’t mind. I know you’re pretty busy, and, umm.” She gestured vaguely. “I could, you know, seam rip it for you, or something. If you want.”

Rarity let the silence drag on, just a few more seconds. “Oh, I don’t know,” she sighed. “You really think it matters?”

“But…” Sweetie Belle crumpled her muzzle and narrowed her eyes in puzzlement. “But that’s Rainbow Dash’s wedding dress. You never let a dress come out not-perfect, Rarity. Especially not a wedding dress.” She punctuated the two last words in a way that made them prickle like they were riddled with loose pins sticking through the silk that was her voice.

“As if Rainbow Dash of all ponies will notice a couple millimeters of seam and stitching,” Rarity mumbled, flattening her ears.

“I noticed,” Sweetie insisted. “From across the room, even.”

“Then your years spent here at the boutique with me have trained your eye, haven’t they?” Rarity replied.

“You don’t think other ponies will notice?”

“Who knows?” Rarity shrugged. “Perhaps, perhaps not.”

“But if it’s not perfect, you’re gonna fix it, right?”

“Sweetie Belle, so few things are ever perfect,” Rarity huffed, turning and slowly walking away to idly examine some other dresses on a nearby rack. “Nopony can have it all. Not everything turns out the way you want, does it?”

“I, uh… I guess not?” Sweetie ventured.

“No, perfection is so evasive. Always finds a way to slip out of your hoof. Oh, sure, sometimes it just happens by accident, but other times, you think you can have it, then it squirms just the one way you didn’t account for and it’s loose again, taunting you to catch it, so you reach for it, but by the time you reach it it’s back again the other way, always dodging, always there where you can see it but never in your grasp. You can spend all your time trying to catch it, just that one perfect thing you want, but then you realize you’ve wasted so much time on it that there’s never time for anything else, is there?” Rarity paused. “And then you’d just be more angry at yourself for all the things you lost out on in your dalliance for chasing perfection, wouldn’t you?”

“…Wait, are we still talking about the dress?” Sweetie asked, tilting her head at a confused angle.

“Of course,” Rarity responded in a blasé tone. “What else?”

“Okaaaaay.” Sweetie looked around. “Uh, so, anyway, if you don’t need my help, I gotta go. I’ll see you later, Rarity.”

“Alright. Goodbye, Sweetie.” Rarity turned to face her sister and waved briefly. “Back for dinner?”

“Sure.” Sweetie Belle nodded and started for the boutique’s front door. “See you then.”

---

Ting-a-ling

Rarity looked up at the small silvery sound of the bells jingling over the boutique’s door as it opened. The sun streamed in, and with it strode the familiar figure of Applejack.

As she passed through the doorway, Rarity watched, transfixed. For a brief, glorious second or two, she was lit up in splendor, the sunlight captured and meshed into her straw mane, shining from it, giving it the metallic sheen of spun strands of pure gold. The roughness of the ponytail it was pulled into, the unbrushed looseness of it, the split ends – it all just gave it even more of a halo, somehow.

It was unaccountable, Rarity thought, almost fuming. Applejack was always a bit of a mess, but in these moments of just the right light, such a stunning, impossibly beautiful mess.

The color, the shine, they were hypnotic when they caught her by surprise in these fleeting glimpses.

Divine, perhaps, was the only word for it.

Purple? Purple was class, purple was elite. Purple was even royal, yes. But gold was beyond royal; gold was divinity, the fire of the sun as it crossed the sky, so far above even the robes and capes of rarest, richest purple on the backs of the haughtiest ancient unicorn princesses. There was nothing ‘mere’ about luxuriant drapings of royal purple, but the grace of gold just had a way of making it seem so, at times.

And of course, purple, however rare, was ultimately made from other more mundane substances by the cleverness of alchemists.

But gold? Gold could never be made from something base. It arose as itself and could only be found as it was, dug and panned by long, hard labor from the streams and the hills, in flakes and nuggets already self-purified even among the dirt and stones.

Applejack walked in and closed the door behind herself. The sunlight vanished; the moment was gone. Rarity stood up from her sewing to greet her friend.

“Applejack, hello!” She trotted over with a smile.

“Heya, Rarity.” Applejack nodded back.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Rarity asked.

“I was just walkin’ through Ponyville and thought I’d drop on in an’ say howdy,” Applejack replied. “Hope I’m not interruptin’, if yer busy.”

“Oh, no, don’t be silly, of course not.” Rarity shook her head. “I’ve been at it too long, really. I’m overdue for a tea break. Join me, why don’t you?”

“Well, that sounds nice,” Applejack agreed. “Thank ya kindly.”

“But of course. Let me just get some water on, and I’ll be back momentarily.” Rarity ambled off into the kitchen at the back of the boutique while Applejack waited.

In the kitchen, she got out a kettle, filled it with a few teacups’ worth of water, and put it on the stove to boil, and then opened up the fridge and looked around at what she had inside.

“You’re not over-fond of tea, as I recall.” Rarity called out into the other room. “Cider okay?”

“Ya know me too well, Rare,” Applejack called back and chuckled.

Rarity pulled one of the dark green glass bottles with a sticker bearing a logo of a bright red apple out of the fridge. While the water in the kettle heated, she hunted around in a drawer for the bottle opener, frowning slightly. Sweetie never put anything away in the same place twice, she was sure of it. No matter, though. She found it and cracked the bottle open well before the kettle whistled.

At last, with water hot and cider cold, Rarity arranged everything necessary on a silver tray and carried it out in the magic of her glowing horn. She set it down gently on the small table she customarily enjoyed her tea at, situated in a sun-soaked bay window. Applejack joined her and they settled in.

“So, how ya been, Rarity?” Applejack asked before starting on her cider.

“Oh, fine,” Rarity replied, stirring her fresh-poured cup of tea. “Working. But, well, that’s better than not having work to do.”

“’Course.” Applejack nodded.

“I should be the one asking how you’re doing, with the big day coming up,” Rarity countered.

“Eh.” Applejack took a sip of her cider with a nonchalant shrug. “Truth be told, Rainbow and I ain’t gettin’ worked up about it much. Just sorta been takin’ it in stride. No big reason to do otherwise. Don’t see that things’re gonna really change all that much, ya know?”

“I suppose there is some sense in that.” Rarity nodded. “After all, a wedding really is just declaring to everypony else what the happy couple already knows for themselves, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Applejack nodded. “Ain’t even like we’re livin’ apart or anything at this point anyway.”

“Oh, Applejack!” Rarity rolled her eyes back dramatically and raised the back of her hoof to her forehead in mock-shock, feigning a sudden bout of the vapors. “Shacked up out of wedlock! How scandalous!”

“Heheh.” Applejack chuckled. “Well, if Granny’d nixed it, we’d a’ waited. But it ain’t nothin’ Big Mac n’ Sugar Belle didn’t do before us, so… heck with it, I figure. ‘Course, ah, they’d take their business out to the barn before they were married, so the rest of us could at least just kinda politely pretend not to know they were doin’ it.”

“I take it that you and Rainbow Dash are not retreating to the barn, then,” Rarity said.

“Nah. I ain’t gonna pretend I ain’t when I am, and Rainbow… eh, well, she’s Rainbow.”

“She is just that, isn’t she?” Rarity mused. “So…” She leaned forward and grinned. “How is she in bed?”

Applejack thought for a moment, and smirked. “Vigorous.”

Rarity giggled. “Yes. If there’s a one-word summary for our Rainbow Dash, I suppose ‘vigorous’ would be it.”

“How ‘bout you, Rare?” Applejack asked. “Seein’ anypony? Anything on the radar these days?”

“Alas, Applejack,” Rarity sighed. “No such luck.”

“Sorry t’ hear that.” Applejack took a long pull of her cider.

“It’s alright.” Rarity’s voice briefly punctuated the silence settling around them.

For the span of a breath, Applejack studied the deep green glass of the bottle she was holding, her contrastingly pale green eyes fixed on it.

Rarity sipped her tea.

“So, uh.” Applejack finally set down the bottle and swung her green eyes up, across the table, to meet Rarity’s sapphire blues. “Look, Rare, there’s somethin’ I gotta ask and I dunno how else, so I’m just gonna ask it.”

Rarity stared at Applejack for a moment with a blank look, and blinked. “Alright. You may fire when ready, my dear.”

“What I gotta ask is,” Applejack began, a bit ponderously, “when the officiator at our wedding asks if there’s anypony who objects to this union, is anypony gonna raise their hoof and say yes?”

“Excuse me, what?” Rarity went wide-eyed, completely taken aback.

“I gotta know, Rarity.”

“Well, I… Applejack, I just don’t understand.” Rarity frowned. “Certainly not me. You know that.”

“Yeah.” Applejack exhaled slowly and looked down. “Yeah, I know. I believe ya.”

“What’s this about?” Rarity reached out and put her hoof on Applejack’s. “Is everything alright, Applejack? What’s going on?”

“I dunno.” Applejack shook her head. “Was hopin’ you could tell me. Look, Sweetie Belle came ‘round the farm, earlier today. Said she was there to see Applebloom but I kinda got the feelin’ she was really there to tell me somethin’. Somethin’ about you. She kinda implied there was somethin’ going on. Said you were bein’, quote, ‘Weird’ about somethin’ to do with Rainbow Dash. About her dress, maybe? She didn’t sound too sure herself, though.”

Rarity seethed. “Oh, that little—”

“Hey now, sugarcube, don’t be mad. I think her heart was in the right place. Usually is. I think she just didn’t know what else to do.”

“Maybe so,” Rarity said guardedly. “But still.”

“So what’s the deal, Rare?” Applejack asked. “There somethin’ goin’ on or ain’t there?”

Rarity thought about this for a few seconds. “I don’t know,” she finally whispered.

“It’s okay if there is,” Applejack said. “We’ll get through it, it’s just, we need ta talk about it now, instead of havin’ it come out later, y’know?”

“I would tell you if I could, Applejack. Believe me, I would.”

“Is it Rainbow?” Applejack asked.

“No, I, um.” Rarity hesitated while she pondered. “Not per se. No, I don’t think so.”

“…Is it me?” Applejack asked, sounding as if she really didn’t want to.

“Applejack, I really think a wire must have gotten crossed somewhere, if you’re asking what I think you are.” Rarity said. “You know it’s stallions I’m interested in, don’t you?”

“Yeah, that’s what I always thought.” Applejack nodded. “But Sweetie Belle just made it sound kinda like… well, I dunno. Shoot, maybe I just heard somethin’ that ain’t there. What, then?”

“I’m not sure,” Rarity said in a small, hitching voice. “I— Maybe it’s something, but I’m just not— not sure.” She blinked down water gathering in her eyes.

Applejack scootched across the bay window’s cushioned benching over to Rarity’s side of the little tea table and wrapped a foreleg around her.

Rarity leaned her head to rest on Applejack’s wither and stared off at nothing in particular. “I’m sorry,” she sighed. “I don’t mean to be like this.”

“’S okay, sugarcube,” Applejack said softly.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into me.”

“Don’t worry ‘bout it.”

Rarity just sat quietly in Applejack’s embrace for a while longer, tea forgotten while she puzzled over herself.

“Guess I also gotta ask if Rainbow’s dress is still okay,” Applejack finally ventured.

“I don’t know that, either,” Rarity admitted. “But it will be, Applejack. I promise you, it will be.”

“I know it will. I trust ya.” Applejack nodded slowly. “Rainbow does too.”

---

“…And every time I work on it, I just feel this— this— repulsion,” Rarity griped to her companion in the sitting room.

Twilight Sparkle sat and listened attentively, a study in natural purple beauty decked with the most tasteful accoutrements of gold.

“It’s like I just can’t bear to touch it, or even to look too hard at it,” Rarity finished.

“But you love making dresses.” Twilight took on a confused look. “Especially wedding dresses.”

“Of course I do,” Rarity said. “It’s just that I set my sights so high, and put in so much time chasing that loftiness, and then somehow it always takes a wrong turn. Something turns out not as I expected, something I should have seen so easily if I’d just been realistic, but I put the blinders on myself with my tunnel vision and I always end up finding out the hard way why they call it being blind-sided. And I end up hating myself for that, every time.”

“Um. Wait, are we still just talking about the dress?” Twilight asked, tilting her head.

“…I’m not sure,” Rarity admitted. “But I do know that just can’t get those damned seams lined up!”

“Kinda sounds like there’s more to it than that,” Twilight said delicately.

Rarity cleared her throat. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to waste your time with my problems.”

“Rarity.” Twilight smiled softly. She slowly took off her crown and set the little coronet down on the coffee table, a mask of the mingling of golden metal and purple gems being laid aside. She looked at Rarity, and Rarity gazed back at the true face of Twilight, her friend. “I’m here for you. You know that.”

“It’s just, I don’t understand,” Rarity continued. “This is supposed to be one of my proudest projects. Maybe not in the sense of being my magnum opus of technical achievement or grandiosity, perhaps, but something made for one of the happiest purposes. Two of my best friends are getting married! It should be thrilling. Overjoying.”

“And yet it’s not?” Twilight guessed.

“It is, though!” Rarity shifted in her seat. “I really am happy for them. But… it’s…”

“It’s complicated.” Twilight nodded.

“Complicated.” Rarity nodded back. “Yes.”

“Okay, so, you feel happy for them,” Twilight continued. “What else does it make you feel?”

“I…” Rarity’s jaw moved for a moment, but no words came out. “…I’m ashamed of…”

“Ashamed of what?”

“When I work on that dress, I think about them. Applejack and Rainbow Dash. Together. Standing there, side by side. In love with each other. And so, so happy together.” Rarity slumped slightly. “And some deep-down part of me… I can’t help it. It just wells up and it mixes with however I happy I feel for them. I feel… angry.”

“Angry at them?” Twilight puzzled.

“No, that’s just it!” Rarity said in exasperation. “I don’t feel angry at Applejack. I don’t feel angry at Rainbow Dash. They’re my friends, I love them. Why should I feel that way? But when I think of them, together, in their perfect love, getting married, living happily ever after…”

Twilight started laughing and continued for several seconds while Rarity waited, nonplussed. “Oh, Rarity,” she finally said, through the last of her chuckles. “You know their relationship is far removed from some perfect storybook romance.”

“I know it’s not a picture-perfect fairy tale,” Rarity agreed. “But maybe what I know isn’t cooperating with what I see. What I feel.”

“Mmmmm.” Twilight half-closed one eye in thought. “If I can say something, Rarity?”

Rarity braced herself. “Go on.”

“Well, I kinda think you’re a hopeless romantic,” Twilight said. “And I think it colors how you see them. And, uh, maybe that’s not doing you any favors, here.”

“You’re right.” Rarity nodded. “I won’t dispute that perhaps I do see them in a way that is less than uncompromisingly real. But is it bad to want to think the best of my friends?”

“I’m not saying being a romantic is necessarily a bad thing,” Twilight continued. “I think it’s what makes you such a great artist. You see things as they could be, before they are. I mean, I’ve watched you create, I know how your mind works. When you make a dress, it’s already done before you ever even lay hooves on cloth, isn’t it? The part we see is just getting it from your head to the fabric. That’s why you shine so bright at what you do.”

“Yes. And Applejack and I are such very different ponies, that way,” Rarity said.

“Right,” Twilight agreed. “You see the way things could be, but I think Applejack takes things as they are. I guess that’s why she’s so great at what she does. She never counts the apples before she can put her hoof on them and they’re in a bushel basket.”

“Maybe that’s also why I fail,” Rarity said sadly.

“In what way?” Twilight asked.

“In the way that ponies aren’t dresses,” Rarity said. “You can’t just make them into your vision. They already are what they are, blemishes and all. You’re on a course for disaster when you start thinking otherwise.”

“Yeah.” Twilight nodded. “Yeah, I guess so.”

Rarity sat and thought for a little while. Twilight waited patiently.

“And that’s why she has what I have never been able to,” Rarity concluded. “It’s why she and Rainbow fell so easily into something that I can only make worse the harder I try to make perfect. Blueblood… Trenderhoof… every other failure on my part to see the real instead of what I wanted. Maybe Applejack and Rainbow simply have what I never can. Because they live in the real.”

“Rarity, isn’t that a bit dramatic? I don’t think you’ll never—”

“You can’t find love with ponies who never actually existed, Twilight,” Rarity interrupted her. “Yes, I think I see now. Anger is just a symptom.”

“Of what?” Twilight probed curiously.

Rarity resented this, for a fleeting moment. She knew that Twilight knew darned well of what.

But she also knew why Twilight asked; why it was important that she had to say it out loud, and hear herself.

Rarity raised her head and looked Twilight in her deep amethyst eyes. “Envy, Twilight. I envy what they have with each other, so much. It’s so selfish. And I hate myself for it.”

“Oh, Rarity.” Twilight pulled her into a comforting hug.

Her eyes watered. She sniffed and the tears broke over, spilling down her cheeks.

“Why can’t I just be happy for them?” she sobbed. “What am I going to do?”

---

Ting-a-ling

The silvery sound of soft bells rang out from above the door as Rarity entered a Manehatten boutique, carrying a bag at her side in the soft aura of her horn.

“Rarity!” Coco Pommel gasped as she galloped over across the shop floor to meet her. “I didn’t know you were in town!”

“I didn’t know I would be myself,” Rarity replied. “Bit of a spontaneous trip. I just needed some time. A few days to think over a few things, I suppose.”

“Well, come in, come in!” Coco ushered her further into the store. “Want some tea or something?”

“No, thank you, I don’t have all that long, I’m afraid.” Rarity shook her head. “I’ll need to be off to catch my next train soon.”

“Aww. Sorry to hear that,” Coco said.

“Actually, I’m here because I have a favor to ask, and you’re only pony I thought of to trust with it,” Rarity continued. “You see, I have a dress that needs completing, so I was wondering, if you happened to have the time available…”

“A commission?” Coco asked. “Sure, for you I can squeeze one in. What is it?”

“Wonderful! More like a commission of a commission, really, if that makes sense. I have it here.” Rarity lifted the bag beside her and pulled out a half-finished piece of work. “I’ve already got it started. The pattern is all there, of course, along with the client’s measurements and the concept sketches showing how it’s all intended to look. It should be a piece of cake to finish off.”

Coco looked it over. “Ah. For a pegasus, I see.”

“For a dear friend.” Rarity nodded.

“Wait. Rarity.” Coco frowned. “This is a wedding dress.”

“Yes, and?”

“It’s just, I don’t do many wedding dresses,” Coco fretted. “I’ve spent most of my time the last few years doing stage stuff. Bridleway costuming. Stuff that only needs to look good at a distance. Are you sure my fine details are going up to par for something like a wedding dress?”

“I know you’ve got the chops,” Rarity reassured her. “You will do just fine, Coco, if you’re willing.”

Coco paced a few steps. “Alright. For you, I’ll do it. But can I ask, why aren’t you finishing it yourself?”

“That’s been a difficult question for me, too,” Rarity pondered. “I realize now that in the course of some projects, you just find yourself too close to them.”

“Oh.” Coco looked taken aback. “I think I see. Umm, if you want to talk about it…”

“It’s not like that, Coco.” Rarity set down the bag and carefully settled the dress back into it. “It’s just, well, something I’ve learned is this: honesty is noble, but there’s a such thing as being too honest. Not always just with words, either. When you’re close to a thing… when you have complicated, clashing feelings about it… when you pour your honest best into a work, as you must for any piece to be authentic, sometimes too much honesty about those complicated ways you feel comes out in it. Doesn’t it?”

Coco remained silent, looking like she didn’t really know what to say.

Rarity cleared her throat. “There’s a seam that didn’t line up, by the way, where I used the wrong stitches. It needs ripping and resewing. You’ll notice it. Sweetie Belle did easily enough.”

“I’ll find it,” Coco promised. “I think I get how important this must be to you. It’s very generous of you to make a wedding dress for your friend.”

“Seems that way, doesn’t it?” Rarity asked. “Maybe that was the other problem, as well. Just like too much honesty, there’s also a such thing as false generosity – doing something not for somepony else, but really for yourself. To fit your own image of things. Gifts are supposed to be for the pony you’re giving them to, not about you. And not about trying to use them to change somepony to be who you think they should be in your mind, instead of what they are. Nopony is perfect. Resenting them for something that was only ever in your own mind? Just asking for disaster. Ruined friendship is virtually a certainty at the end of pushing down that road. And so, sometimes… sometimes, you have to just let go of a thing, when you can’t be truly, honestly generous about it.”

“Huh?” Coco tilted her head. “Are… we still talking about this dress?”

“No, I’m… I’m quite sure now that we’re not,” Rarity stated.

“Well, I don’t know what else I can help you with, there,” Coco said apologetically, and awkwardly.

Rarity smiled and put a hoof on Coco’s wither, looking into her seafoam eyes. “Just helping with the dress will be more than enough.”

“Alright.” Cocoa smiled back, and nodded. “If that’s what I can do. I won’t let you down. It’ll be perfect, Rarity.”

“I know it will, Coco. You’re a good friend. Thank you.”

---

“I now pronounce you mare and mare!” Mayor Mare declared. “You may—”

The gathered crowd laughed as Applejack and Rainbow Dash enthusiastically beat her to the punch.

“Yeah. That.” The mayor rolled her eyes and smiled. “Just kiss already, why don’t you?”

Pegasi overhead dumped confetti on them. Bouquets were thrown. The cake was cut, with the first slices predictably mashed into both bride’s muzzles as if they were locked in a cafeteria foodfight with each other. Wine bottles popped open, dances were danced, dinner was served. Finally, everything started to wind down as the guests bid goodnight and drifted away, one by one.

Rarity was among it all, enjoying herself until the party dwindled down to just the two brides and a select few of the last hangers-on sitting around a single table.

They talked long into the night.

“I love my dress, Rarity,” Rainbow Dash said. “I know you said you had to farm it out this time, but all the same, thank you for making sure I’d look so nice on my big day. It really means a lot to me.”

“Oh, it was nothing,” Rarity waved a hoof modestly. “Apple Bloom did such a wonderful job with your dress, too, Applejack.”

“Still surprises the hay outta me that she insisted.” Applejack looked at her own dress and beamed. “I don’t even know where she learned t’ sew like this. But yeah, she did real good.”

“Well, I’m not surprised,” Rarity said, slowly, taking another sip of wine, “because when it really counts, it doesn’t matter how hard it is, does it? You don’t cut corners. You find a way. You do what it takes to get it to be…”

“Be what?”

Rarity looked around at the ponies still there, all of them her friends, all having a wonderful time, and smiled a little smile. “Perfect.”