Buildings said a lot of Manehattan; they screamed pretension; they boasted history; they frightened strangers upon first glance; they curbed a fear of dreams with small comfort and subtleties.

Rarity liked buildings that could curb her fear, she had found. When she walked down Fashion Lane and felt nothing but absolute terror, she knew she needed other buildings. She needed buildings that were not the headquarters of the most prominent names in fashion; the ones who's magazines she didn’t used to rip through when she was young, magazines that taught her almost everything she knew about fashion now.

Yes, yes, she needed other buildings. Right now, she needed other buildings.

Like here, where she walked through the door and was greeted by a frazzled stallion with a vest thrown over his back. Here, she felt no fear.

She felt larger than life.

She held her chin high, strolled through the dusty lobby, and presented herself to him; Rarity Belle, talent you must have. She flashed her bombastic smile and he stepped back, eyeing her.

“And who pray tell might you be, doll?”

“I’m your new lead designer,” she told him, though the words sounded foul to her country manners trained ears. She brushed it off, because Manehattan was not Ponyville, and manners of that kind, especially in business, were perceived as foolish and proof of a nonexistent backbone.

“Oh, is that so?” he gasped with a giggle and turned back to his counter full of papers. Organization was not his strong point, especially not four weeks before their opening show of the season.

“Yes, it is,” she stated without falter.

“I already have one of those.”

“But she’s not me,” Rarity replied, voice and face steady with its arrogant confidence.

He stopped his meanderings at that.

And for some reason, it impressed him. He let his papers flutter to the desk and he turned back to her. His eyes narrowed and she willed herself not to blink. He fought to intimidate her and she fought for a chance. Neither broke for seconds, seconds longer than he had to play that little game.

He motioned back behind him, eyes still steady on her. “Just in the other room, sewing machine,” he grinned calculatingly. “Make something for me, doll. If I like it, the position is yours.”

“Consider it mine.” And she strutted past him and into the other room.

He shook his head and chuckled. Even after thirty years, the fashion world never failed to surprise him.

Buildings said a lot of Manehattan; they screamed pretension; they boasted history; they frightened strangers upon first glance; they curbed a fear of dreams with small comfort and subtleties.

Manehattan was nothing like Ponyville, and Ponyville was nothing like Manehattan. Rainbow could not fly up twenty feet into the air and feel bigger and taller than life in Manehattan like she could in Ponyville—here she had to battle with those pretentious buildings, compete with them. And of course she would lose. Here, the air was impossible to breathe, filthy with smog and smells of every kind. Here, the storm drains steamed, the streets were filthy, the ponies were snide. Here, the skies were not open, and there were no rolling hills or natural beauty.

She missed Cloudsdale already. The concrete, smog, shouts of ponies, they suffocated her. Her instinctive claustrophobia tugged at her, made her jumpy.

But what other choice did she have? Her dream had been crushed.

Or perhaps that was not the right phrasing. She sighed and started walking, passive interest in her eyes as she scanned the buildings.

Her dream was… not all it was cracked up to be. Somewhere, she didn’t know where, her love and undying loyalty to the Wonderbolts dimmed. And one week ago, as she stood at the tryouts, she came to the realization that the Wonderbolts were bigger fans of her than she was of them, now. She knew this because even as she stood in line they crowded around her and spoke to her as if she was an equal, as if she was a long-standing member—completely abandoning all pretense of professionalism.

She smiled bleakly, moodily. Some three years ago she would have swooned, would have maybe done something utterly unradical and stupid like pass out or start hyperventilating, but when she stood there that day all she could think was how unfair it was to the others who wanted to share that dream. She couldn’t believe it; she felt sorry for her competition, yet the feeling settled in her chest in a way that let her know it was what she should be feeling. The other ponies wanted the same thing she did, yet she knew that they wanted it more than she did, and she also knew that she would beat them out the spot: how could she not, when her biggest fans were the ones who were deciding the outcome, she had thought bitterly. Even if the other ponies flew better and faster than her—though her arrogance threw arguments against that statement—she would still get the spot over them.

And it wasn’t fair.

So she turned them down. It was depressingly easy, to turn them down.

And now she was here, stalking the streets of Manehattan, wheeling a bag behind her and mumbling apologies to the sneers thrown at her for being in the way.

There was hollowness inside of her, a numbness to her feelings, emotional and physical, and distance to her perspective.

This was what it was like to lose one’s purpose, she supposed.

Her eyes snapped up to the sign: 91st.

91st would be her new home. She smiled, a bit of warmth and meaning coming back to it. At least she would have Rarity there with her. They would live together, the epitome of a young couple; broke, in a squalid, cramped apartment, but crazy in love.

She was still in mourning, but distantly she could see the beginnings of a silver lining.