“And then I said, ‘I told you to go get a FARRIER, not to go marry her!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed as she jumped up on the table, scattering the remaining Ponopoly pieces that had yet to be cleaned up onto the plush carpeted floor of her room. Hardly a pony noticed, however, as they were all too busy rolling about and holding their sides in laughter.

Except for Rarity, of course, who did not do things as base as rolling on the floor; not that she held it against her friends if they chose to partake in such an activity, she simply held herself to a different standard. She instead expressed her amusement at Pinkie’s story with a polite chuckle and a demure sip of her tea. “Wonderful story, darling,” she said as she placed her now empty cup back on its saucer.

“Best. Story. EVER,” came Rainbow Dash’s scratchy voice from across the room between hearty guffaws and gasps for air.

“Unfortunately,” Rarity began as she got up from her seat, “it is getting quite late, and I fear I simply must be going now. I have ever so much to do tomorrow, you understand.”

“Aww, are you sure Rarity? There’s still some cake left!” Pinkie pointed out as she jumped down from the table and sprinted across the room, returning with a slice of cake on a plate which she proffered to Rarity. “It’s suuuuuper scrumptious!”

Rarity raised a hoof as she leaned her head back. “It absolutely is, darling, but I’ve had three already tonight, and a lady must watch her figure.”

Pinkie sighed and put the cake down on the table. “Okie dokie… Thank you for coming, Rarity. It was good to see you,” she said as she spread her forelegs wide, wrapping Rarity in a hug.

Rarity heard her other friends echoing similar sentiments from around the room, and she gave Pinkie a quick pat on the back before breaking the hug and moving toward the door. “Be sure to let me know next time you do something like this, yes?”

“Absolutely!” Pinkie beamed, again echoed by the others.

“Have a good night then,” Rarity smiled and made her way out the door.

I really do have the best friends a girl could ask for, Rarity thought as she descended Sugar Cube Corner’s stairs and pushed past the front door. The crisp night air greeted her, and she was happy to see a bright full moon shining down, accompanied by a bevy of stars artistically placed throughout the sky. Tonight really couldn’t have been more perfect.

The walk back to Carousel Boutique took only a few minutes, and Rarity yawned as she used her magic to open her saddlebag and retrieve her keys. However, instead of feeling the cotton of the saddlebag, she found her telekinesis grasping nothing but air. Turning her head to look down at her side, she groaned. “I left them at Sugarcube Corner… Of course.”

Rarity wasted no time in getting back to the building she had just left. Thankfully, it was still a nice night out, so she took the opportunity to do some more admiring of Luna’s handiwork until she found herself once again at the front door to Sugarcube Corner. The door was still unlocked, so she pushed it open and headed up the stairs.

From inside Pinkie’s room, she could hear her friends laughing and carrying on, which was to be expected, of course. Still, it paid to be polite, so she gave the door a few firm knocks and called out “Excuse me, girls.”

Suddenly all the laughter in the room died, replaced by a few sharp whispers and the sound of glass clinking against itself. Rarity raised an eyebrow subconciously. That was curious, certainly. Pushing the door open, she began, “I seem to have forgotten my…” but she stopped short of finishing her sentence.

Rarity must have just missed a flurry of movement, because five ponies were now staring at her with smiles much too wide. “Welcome back, Rarity! What’s up?” Came Pinkie’s voice from the center table.

Rarity cleared her throat. Something was definitely up here, but she had no idea what it could be. “I realized I forgot my saddlebags… So I came back to retrieve them. What’s going on here?”

“Oh, uh, we were just, uh…” Twilight stammered from over by the snack table. Rarity glanced in her direction and saw something reflecting light down by the table leg, but Twilight followed her eyes and kicked whatever it was further under the table, producing another round of suspicious clinking.

“We were just starting another game of Ponopoly! Did you want to join us? We can still deal you in!” Pinkie smiled.

“You’re starting another game? At 10 at night? You’ll be up half the night.” Rarity felt a strong pang of doubt, and for good reason; Ponopoly was a long game.

“That’s right, sugarcube,” Applejack cut in, wearing the fakest smile Rarity had ever seen. “See, Rainbow was all bent out of shape about losin’ to me in the last game-”

“I was not!” Rainbow interjected, only to be nudged in the side by Fluttershy, with whom she shared a look before turning back to Rarity and blushing, speaking through clenched teeth. “I mean, yeah, I totally was. ‘Cos I hate losing and all.”

“So’s we thought we’d go again, like a grudge match. Ain’t that right, girls?”

“You don’t mind, do you Rarity? If we’d known you were coming back, we would’ve waited for you to start…” Fluttershy mumbled, looking like a foal caught with her hoof in the cookie jar.

Rarity rolled her tongue against her lower lip, narrowing her gaze at her friends. She glanced over at the game board and frowned. “How’d somepony already get hotels?”

“Those are mine!” Shouted Rainbow, strutting over to the table and leaning against it nonchalantly. “Yep, I’m winning so badly this time, I already got almost all of Applejack’s money. Right, cowgirl?” She said, sneering at her.

Applejack rolled her eyes. “Yeah, sure. I’m losin’, with gusto.”

“... They’re on the jail,” Rarity said flatly. A brief look of panic crossed over the other ponies’ faces before Twilight stepped up.

“Variant rules. I read about them earlier, and we decided to try them,” She said, wearing a smile that was almost as bad as Applejack’s.

Now, Rarity was many things; A designer, a fashionista, a socialite, a sister, and a friend, for example. If she was going to brag, (Not that a lady ever bragged, just if she was going to) she might even say she was a national hero, the very embodiment of the Element of Generosity. She was not, however, a fool. She was not convinced in the slightest by her friends’ charades, but as she weighed the situation at hoof, she concluded two things; The first, that her friends were definitely hiding something, and the second, that she was much too tired to deal with this at the moment. It bore repeating; Ponopoly was a very long game.

“Well then, I suppose I’ll just take my saddlebags and be on my way. Have fun with your game.” Rarity nodded politely as she levitated her bags onto her back and turned to the door.

“Okay. Good night, Rarity,” Pinkie called, followed by each of their friends offering their own farewell.

As Rarity closed the door, the remaining five ponies shared a long gaze and let out a collective sigh of relief.

------

Walking home for the second time that evening, Rarity found her mind considerably less refreshed by the night air this time around. She felt… Well… Not annoyed per se, but… Puzzled, perhaps? No, a more aggressive form of puzzled. A form of puzzled that implied much ickier conotations. Perhaps Celestia’s Equestrian didn’t have a word for it; The Prench almost certainly did, but Rarity would be astounded if she could think of it at the moment.

Actually, astounded wasn’t bad – better than puzzled anyway – but it still didn’t tell the full story. Perhaps astounded and confounded; If nothing else, at least the internal rhyme pleased her refined sense of literary aesthetics.

Rarity had finally managed to decide that she was feeling astounded and confounded as she arrived back at the door to Carousel Boutique. With keys properly in her possession this time, she opened the door and walked inside with another yawn. It really was getting late, but she didn’t want to go to bed quite yet. Perhaps she could use some tea while she pondered this. Tea always did the trick, did it not?

As Rarity hung her saddlebags on the hook by the door in the kitchen she heard a distinct purring sound from behind her. She smiled as she turned to see Opal sitting underneath the chair closest to her, staring up at her with a blank look. She walked over to the table and bent down, running a hoof over the cat’s fur. “Good evening, Opal, Mommy is terribly sorry she’s so late.”

”Purr,” Opal replied.

“Yes, yes, I know, you expect your bedtime snack to be at 10 PM sharp and it is now it is an entirely unacceptable 10:23. But fear not, Mommy shall rectifiy this.” Rarity stepped over to her cabinet and pulled out a food dish, scooping some kibble into it with her magic. Placing it on the floor in front of Opal, she sat down and watched the cat quickly eat.

”Purr,” the cat said.

Rarity tapped the ground with a hoof. “Opal, Mommy has a problem.”

”Purr?” came the cat’s reply, though Rarity found she had to add the upwards inflection in her mind, since Opal forgot to.

“Yes. I believe my friends are hiding something from me.”

”Purr,” Opal mispronounced her gasp, but Rarity was willing to let that slide.

“You see, I forgot my keys at the party, and when I went back to retrieve them, they were acting quite suspiciously… I just can’t imagine what they would feel the need to hide from me, or why they would feel such a need in the first place.”

”Purr.”

Rarity got up and put a tea kettle on the heat. She tapped her chin as she looked through her cupboard for a tea she wanted to drink. “I don’t know, Opal, maybe I’m overreacting. If they have something they do when I’m not around, is that such a big deal? After all, I spend time with Fluttershy at the spa, and no one gets bent out of shape that they’re not included.”

“Mao.” Rarity turned, shocked at Opal’s tone.

“Opal, that’s ridiculous,” she admonished as she saw Opal’s empty bowl and the cat sauntering away towards the stairs. Rarity frowned. “My friends would never purposefully exclude me from something. They love me!”

”Mao,” Opal said from the bottom step before hopping up the rest.

“... No. They wouldn’t…” Rarity sighed, feeling completely defeated and exhausted. She glanced at the small mirror sitting on the window sill above her sink. Grasping it in her magic and lifting it to eye level, she met her own gaze.

“Would they?”

There were a number of things about life in Ponyville that were quite predictable. Some might even say the town ran like clockwork; The weather was perennially as close to perfect as equinely possible. The harvests of the local farms always came and went at the same time of every season. The library opened and closed at the same time every day, ever since a certain lavender unicorn took over its daily operations. Even the disasters that continuously plagued the town ever since that same unicorn’s arrival seemed to follow a very distinct, regular schedule; If a month went by without half the village collapsing, the residents knew they were due for something big, and the local architecture firm counted on it.

Rarity, however, knew of one more thing that ran on schedule that the rest of the town might not have suspected. This thing happened to be something that nopony would ever guess; That thing was Pinkie Pie.

As random and crazy as that mare seemed to be to the casual observer, it was easy to dismiss anything she did as just ‘Being Pinkie Pie.’ However, she did fall into one pattern Rarity could rely upon. A single method to her vast madness, as it were.

Every weekend, stretching as far back as Rarity could remember, Pinkie Pie threw a party.

It didn’t matter if it was to celebrate the arrival of summer, the departure of winter, the perennial favorite ‘Hooray it’s Friday’, or simply a ‘The Sun Rose Again And That’s Great Because Nopony Wants It To Be Night Forever, P.S. Sorry Luna We Still Like The Night Just Not Enough To Not Need The Day Too’ party; Pinkie Pie always had a party to throw.

Thus, when she showed up at  Carousel Boutique early Thursday morning, Rarity was ready.

“Hi Rarity! Did you know it’s been 37 weeks since the last time we had a ‘Gravity Appreciation Day’? I did, and I think it’s time we had another one, in case Gravity starts to think we’re not appreciating it and gives up and then we all float away into space! Soooooo, I’m gonna rent out the bowling alley tomorrow night from 8-11, since bowling is only possible thanks to gravity, and we can all play and there’ll be punch and sundaes and sarsaparilla and fudge and cake and it’ll be super fun!”

Like clockwork, Rarity smiled to herself. “That sounds delightful, darling–” Rarity began, but then a thought struck her.

Her friends were hiding something.

Rarity frowned inwardly. This still seemed ridiculous, but as Opal had so tactfully pointed out last night, the evidence was pretty convincing. Nopony in their right mind started a game of Ponopoly at 10 in the evening. Even allowing for Pinkie, that made four ponies who had no business doing what they claimed they’d be doing, almost certainly doing something else. But what?

Rarity was not proud of how much this small act of deception was getting to her, but it kept coming back to the same point in her mind. If her friends were hiding something from her, she had a right to know what it was. And if Rarity had a right to know something, she would.

“–That sounds delightful, darling, but I’m afraid I must decline,” Rarity resumed, feigning disappointment as best she could, “You see, I have a very large order due on Monday, and I need to spend all weekend working on it if I hope to have it delivered in time. You understand, yes?”

Pinkie Pie’s smile dropped momentarily, but picked back up immediately. “What if I helped you until the party? I have the next two days off from Sugarcube Corner, I bet we could get a lot done!”

Even if Rarity hadn’t been lying about the order, it only took her remembering the previous time Pinkie Pie had “helped” her with her work to know that was a terrible idea. How Pinkie Pie managed to start that many fires with nothing but a needle and thread was a mystery she feared she would never solve.

So much fire.

“No, I’m sorry dear, but I fear this order is very delicate, and requires my handiwork alone. I shall have to join you at your next party.” Rarity shook her head. She didn’t like lying to her friend, but if her friends were lying to her, she supposed turnabout was fair play. Even if she was misapplying the idiom.

“Okie dokie lokie…” Pinkie Pie sat dejectedly on her haunches. Her disappointment had an extremely short half-life, Rarity had come to learn, and was proven right again when the pink mare shot back up to her feet with a smile as wide as ever. “We’ll save you some cake, and hey, maybe when your order is done, we can throw a party to celebrate that! And we can have more cake, and streamers, and–”

“Yes, that sounds lovely, Pinkie,” Rarity said as she slowly pushed Pinkie’s body out the door.

“–balloons and games and music and–”

Rarity closed the door. For a moment she wondered if letting Pinkie Pie throw a fraudulent party wouldn’t be against some sort of ‘Party Code’ the mare held, but immediately dismissed the notion. Pinkie was about to host a party to celebrate gravity, for pony’s sake, and that wasn’t even touching the literal 'Party for No Reason' she’d held last month.

Besides, Rarity had more important things to worry about. She had 36 hours until this alleged ‘Gravity Appreciation Day’; If she was going to find out what her friends did when she wasn’t around, she had some planning to do.

First, though, she was going to need to design the most fabulous stealth suit Equestria had ever seen.