I. On Last Minute Ideas

This is a story about soulmates.

...No, that’s not accurate, is it? No, this is a story about the concept of soulmates.

It is a story about destiny, about traveling to far-off lands, about meeting and knowing yourself, about silly dates and silly thoughts and, like any good story, it starts with moi.

Or, more specifically, an alternate universe version of myself. Apparently, there’s more than one.

“This is a disaster! A disaster, I tell you!”

Though Rarity’s scream echoed throughout the school’s hallways, not a single person batted an eyelash. This was par for the course, especially so for Rainbow Dash, who it seems has to deal with my theatrics in every single universe.

“Rares,” she said, leaning against a desk and crossing her arms. “You say that about everything.”

“I mean it this time!” Rarity protested, stamping her foot on the floor before resuming her frantic pacing around the empty classroom. “How could Coco do this to me?! Getting sick the day of the Diva Mode?!”

Rainbow blinked. “The what? Oh. That fashion thing we’re going to.”

“Not just any fashion thing, Rainbow! The fashion thing of the year! Everybody’s who anybody in the industry is going to be there, and Coco calls in sick?! How could she do this to me?!”

“Just close the shop, then,” Rainbow said, clearly having no idea whatsoever about what that entailed. Another thing she shared with her counterpart from my universe.

“Close the shop?!” Rarity gasped. “Darling, are you mad?! The day of the Diva Mode?!”

“...Yeah? It’s not like you’re going to have clients. Aren’t people going to be at this Diva thing, anyway?”

Rarity scoffed. “Obviously not. Only people with limited tickets—like us—will be there. The rest who couldn’t get tickets drown their woes by buying clothes. Clothes that I now have no one to sell!”

“Why not get someone else, then?” Rainbow suggested. “Why not Pinkie? Selling clothes can’t be that different from selling cupcakes.”

Rarity blinked at her.

“Rainbow, I love you dearly, but that is the most offensive thing you’ve said this week. And regardless! Even if they were the same thing, I can’t ask Pinkie! She already has a rendezvous with Twilight that day, and honestly the only other person besides Coco that I trust the shop with is myself.”

Defeated, she fell back onto a chair and buried her face in her hands, resigning herself to her fate until Rainbow spoke up.

“I mean… Why don’t you ask her, then?”

Rarity looked up, frowning. “Ask who?”

“Yourself. Literally.” At Rarity’s expression, she elaborated. “Like, the you from Twilight’s universe. Princess Twilight.”

A long silence followed in which Rarity contemplated Rainbow before launching herself off the chair and running out into the hallway, her screams echoing throughout the school.

“SUNSET! I NEED YOU!”

And now this is where I come in.

II. On Potentially Dangerous Proposals

“There is simply no other way, Twilight,” I read aloud, sitting on my throne and staring down at this hoofwriting that certainly seemed like my own. “You simply must convince Rarity to help me. You must. Please let me know as soon as you can so I can return the book to Sunset. Love, Rarity.”

“Aren’t you excited?!” asked Spike when I finished, sitting opposite of me on his throne and stuffing some dreadfully greasy fried treats into his mouth. “You’re going to the human world! It’s a lot of fun!”

“Spike, darling, dearest, how do I put this delicately? You turned into a dog.”

“Yeah! Isn’t that awesome?!”

I smiled thinly.

“...’Awesome’. Yes. Turning into a dog. Absolutely.”

“Rarity.”

I glanced away from Spike and to the alicorn sitting beside him, offering me a lopsided amused smile that matched her arched eyebrow. This was The Look, you see? The one reserved for when she thought I was silly. Which I wasn’t, by the way.

“What?” I asked and then spoke up again when she raised an eyebrow. “What! Darling, I’m sorry I’m not excited about potentially turning into a dog!”

“You won’t,” she replied. “If you’d read my notes on the portal, you would know that.”

“It was ninety pages long!” I put the letter down on the table-map-thing and levitated said ninety pages. “And I’ll have you know I did in fact read them.” At her stare, I amended my statement. “All right, all right! I skimmed them, but still!”

“Rarity, I thought you wanted to help,” she pointed out.

“I did! I do, but…” I petered out into a whine and levitated the book back to me. I’d been excited a few days ago, yes, but now that it was here, well… “I don’t even know why I’m so nervous.”

“Spike,” Twilight said after a pause, turning to him. “Can you go see if Starlight is done getting everything ready?”

“Sure thing! ...After I go to the kitchen first,” he said, jumping off the throne and walking off with his bowl still full of food. Once he was gone, I turned to Twilight and found her smiling conspiratorially at me.

“...You didn’t really need him to go check, did you?”

“Nope. So, why do you really not want to go?”

“Dearest, I just told you! I don’t know.”

“Alright, alright.” She bit down on her lip, her ears pressing against her head as they did when she was deep in thought. “Okay. Think of it like this. This is to help the other you, right?”

“Yes.”

“Right! So, there’s no need to be nervous becauuuuse...” Her gentle smile twisted into a smirk. “Aren’t you all about loving yourself?”

I blinked, unimpressed. “Twilight, I resent the implications of that.”

She cocked her head to the side. “Am I wrong, though?” she asked, and when she giggled, I couldn’t help a smile.

“...Nooo, you’re not, I suppose,” I conceded, sighing theatrically.

“You’ll see, it’ll be fun,” she promised me, as if her lab hadn’t nearly exploded the last time she swore to do something fun. “We just have to take care of her shop for the day, and afterward, we can go out on a date in another universe! Another universe, Rarity!”

“I don’t knooooow, darling,” I said at length, in part because I was still nervous, but mostly because teasing her was my hobby. “It’s a tall order, and it’s not really my shop, and I don’t know what’s trendy in that universe, and what if their fashion sense is awful, and so many other excuses I could list like—”

“Rarity.” She teleported herself in front of me and propped her forelegs upon the throne, trapping me in place. She then displayed how much time she’d been spending with me by tilting her head to the side and perfectly imitating my puppy-eyed look. “For me?”

“Da-a-a-rling, come now. Trying to use my own lines against me? I thought you were more creative than that.”

“I know.” She leaned in. “In all fairness, you can’t improve on perfection,” she said, which damn her, immediately had me giggling in delight. I might have almost waved my hoof and said “Twiiilight, stop iiiiiit~!” if she hadn’t started speaking up again. “So. Are you ready to go?”

“Yes,” I relented. “I suppose I am.”

Honestly, it should be fine. Twilight seemed to have everything prepared, and I couldn’t deny there was some thrill to meeting my other-self. And Twilight’s other-self. And maybe going on a double date together?

Unless they weren’t together yet, in which case… Twilight and I could be the perfect wingmares and set them up! Oh ho ho ho!

Before I could suggest the idea to her, Twilight rudely teleported to the other side of the room, peering out the door and into the hallway. “Starlight!” she bellowed. “We’re ready to go!”

“What?!” Starlight called back. “Really?! She didn’t back out?! Wow!”

“I know! I thought she would, too!”

“You know what?” I muttered. “I think I’ve changed my mind.”

“I’ll get everything ready, then!” Starlight yelled back.

“Thank you!” Victorious, Twilight turned to me with an almost manic grin. “See you in ten minutes at the mirror,” she instructed before disappearing in another teleportation flash.

One, two, three seconds went by before I slid down on my throne, levitated the book over and read my other self’s letter for the last time.

“Oh Rarity,” I said, “what have we gotten ourselves into?”

III. On Last Wills and Testaments

The Crystal Mirror stood before me, tall and imposing and surrounded by a plethora of scientific and magical contraptions I only vaguely understood. Twilight had explained once how the entire thing worked, back when she’d first made it, but if I may be honest, I can’t for the life of me remember a shred of it. It didn’t help that she spoke so fast one could barely keep up.

“Sooooo,” said Starlight, standing beside me as Twilight did sextuple checks on the machinery, “are you excited?”

“Cautiously so.”

“It’ll be fine, Rarity,” she reassured me. “Twilight wouldn’t make you do anything she didn’t consider safe.”

“I wouldn’t,” agreed Twilight, even though she had. Many times. Many, many times. Last week, in fact, but I digress. She reached for a nearby book, looked it over and after a moment closed it and turned to us. “Okay, I think we’re good to go.”

I furrowed my brow. “You think? Twilight, I do dearly love you, but I am not stepping into that thing as long as you simply think it’s ‘good to go’. Need I remind you what happened during one of the last times you tried to use this? The entire getting-stuck-in-a-space-loop-for-three-days affair?”

She faltered. “Well. Yes. I did get stuck in a loop once, and technically it was a time loop that actually only felt like three days in Equestria, but was actually twenty days for me, ten of which I spent in a really interesting wasteland near—”

“Uh, Twilight?” Starlight, bless her, interrupted, the only one to have noticed my horrified expression. “Maybe you can save that for after you’ve crossed?”

"Please," I added, stricken.

Twilight smiled, giving me A Look. “Rarity. Do you trust me?”

I smiled. “Oh, darling, of course. Just, allow me one last thing, won’t you?” I drew myself up, standing tall and proud before turning to Starlight. “Starlight," I said severely, "should this somehow take a turn for the worse, I am appointing you as the executor of my last will and testament, which goes as follows. Carousel Boutique, I leave to my beloved sist—” Raspberry magic cut my last will and testament short, enveloping me and turning me away from Starlight and towards the mirror. “Twilight!”

“Are you done?” Twilight asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Am I being too much?”

“A little bit.”

“But you still love me?”

“Yes, I do.”

I sighed theatrically and looked away. “Very well, then. I suppose I shall have to do the unthinkable and take this seriously if only so I may reap the glorious reward of making you happy.”

“I’ll go first, okay?” Twilight said, letting go of me and stepping up to the mirror. “So I can be there for you on the other side.”

I hesitated. “Shouldn’t we go in together?” I asked, to which Twilight only offered a coy smile.

“No. If we go in together, how am I going to catch you in my forelegs?” she teased, and my! I could hardly stop myself from giggling like a schoolfilly, my tail swishing behind me.

“Twi-light Spar-kle, are you actually being romantic?” I matched her grin with one of my own. “Darling, dearest, are you quite sure we aren’t already in an alternate universe?” When she rolled her eyes at me, I giggled. “Ah. Nevermind. You’re still you.”

“And you’re a silly pony."

“Am I? Dear me, it must be the influence of the company I keep!” I fluttered my eyelashes, tilting my head ever so slightly. “It would seem that perhaps you, my dear Princess, are the silly pony here.”

She stepped up to me, amused. “Oh? Is that a fact, Rarity?”

“It most certainly is, Twilight,” I replied, stepping forward as well, “and I gather you love facts, do you not?” I blew her a kiss. “Among other thi—”

“AH-HEM,” Starlight interrupted, not even bothering with actually clearing her throat and instead raising an eyebrow at us. “I want to say get a room, but in this case, maybe I should say get a universe instead?”

Twilight coughed, cheeks bright red. “Right.”

“After you, Twilight?” I asked, pointedly ignoring the grinning Starlight.

“After me,” she repeated with a firm nod, offering me one last smile before turning around, crossing into the other world, and disappearing into the mirror without a trace.

Unfortunately for me, she didn’t bother to explain the process so all I could do was imitate her and hope things went well. I stepped up to the mirror and admired my reflection for a moment—one last good look before I turned into a dog, probably—and then I inched my hoof towards the glass, gasping when it rippled and distorted like water as soon as I touched it.

“Well then,” I said decisively, steeling myself. “I shall be seeing you this evening, Starlight.”

“Okay! Have fun!” Starlight called from behind me.

I took another step towards the mirror, closed my eyes, took a breath and thought of what Twilight said.

And I did, for better or worse.

Hopefully better, but we know how these things go, do we not?

Author's Notes:

So this is a story I've been writing (a.k.a giving up and trying again every few months) since April 2018. The biggest reason I've not finished it is because I've fallen into the "it needs to be PEEEERFECT" trap, which then turned into "people have done this idea before probably so why bother", etc etc etc.

Any sane person would have let it stay in their drafts forever, but this is unfortunately one of my drafted stories that I know will haunt me until I finish it. Also, it would break BluePaladin's heart if I don't finish this.

So, I've made myself a challenge: Finish this in two weeks or else pay $50 USD to two friends each. I'm also posting it as a way to hold myself socially accountable. I'm also writing the story in vignettes because it's easier for me, and in first person Rarity because 1st person Rarity is my writing drug.

So yeah!

wish me luck lmao

also, if you find any typos, please let me know (preferably through pm)! Thank youuu