We Sing Cover Songs
by GaPJaxie
First published
The changeling who impersonated Rarity during To Where and Back Again returns to Ponyville to say she's sorry.
The changeling who impersonated Rarity during To Where and Back Again returns to Ponyville to say she's sorry.
A speedwriting exercise, written in six hours. Unedited.
Chapter 1
Late one fall afternoon, there came a knock at Rarity’s door. Tugging aside the blinds of her second-story office window, she spied down to the street below and saw a unicorn standing by her door with a dress box hovering beside them. For a moment, she wondered if she had forgotten to affix that sign which she hung on her door on weekends, whose text unambiguously read “Closed Until Monday, 8 AM.” But upon pondering the matter, she decided that that sign was likely indeed in its proper place, and that it could therefore provide her answer on her behalf.
All of which was to say, she shut her blinds again and ignored the caller.
Yet, their knock came again, then again, then a third time with no loss of exuberance, and Rarity came to the reluctant conclusion that this pony was one of her particularly determined customers. Exceptionally determined clients could earn a smile or a scowl, depending on their willingness to pay her exorbitant weekend rate, but smiles were less common, and even the most generous patron was not truly welcome on the weekend. Rarity, after all, needed time to herself.
Nonetheless, she went downstairs. She cracked the door, enough to see the pony on the other side and enough to make them feel unwelcome. “We are closed until Monday,” she said.
On one occasion, Twilight had made fun of her for that. The implication was of course that Rarity had assistants because what distinguished storeowner does not, but as she did not employ anypony at her Ponyville boutique, her use of the word was technically the royal “we.”
At the time, Rarity has replied to Twilight, “We are not amused.” Which got a round of laughs.
She had time for these reflections, as the pony waiting outside her door appeared frozen to the spot: unmoving, unblinking, like a statue. She was a mare, grey coat, green mane, a cutie mark with ladybugs or something like that. Visually, she was without distinction; perhaps cute, perhaps sweet, but only in that way that all ponies are, and entirely forgettable.
“Hello?” Rarity finally asked, tone curt, and the mare snapped from her reverie.
“Um. Hi,” she says, voice soft and dry, like the sound of dust being swept across a stone floor. “I’m sorry. I’m not a customer. I’m here to see you. I’m a changeling, and I fought in the Battle of Canterlot and a few other places. We’ve met before. And, and I wanted to talk about it. And say I was sorry.” After a moment, she appended. “If you’re free. It doesn’t have to be now. Or ever. I’ll go away if you want.”
Put rather on the spot, Rarity needed several moments to consider her answer. During that time, she watched the mare or changeling in front of her shift uncomfortably, moving their weight from one hoof to the next, and turning their gaze anywhere except to Rarity’s face.
“Is there a reason,” she asked, “you are disguised?”
“Habit,” the mare said. “I’m not comfortable being among groups of ponies as myself. And I think ponies still aren’t used to seeing changelings around. We don’t get, you know. Ponies are friendly, I mean. It’s not like I’m worried about getting run out of town. But I get a lot of attention and I don’t always want that attention.”
She did not change into some other form. And after a moment, Rarity relented. “Well, you had better come in then, shouldn’t you? Please, take a seat in the front room. I’ll make us some tea.”
Rarity’s as-yet-unnamed guest did as she was instructed, taking a seat and placing the dress box to the side of the table. She sat silently as Rarity lit a flame off her horn, staring down at the table and not making eye contact. Each waited for the other to speak until the stillness became oppressive.
Rarity’s unicorn magic produced a flame hotter than any common stove. The water boiled quickly. “Water’s ready,” Rarity said, “would you be a dear and get the nice teacups for me please?”
The mare at the table flinched like she’d been stung, and a laugh escaped her though it was an anxious and quiet sound. But she did as she was bid, and without further questions, she trotted into the back room, and thereafter to Rarity’s kitchen, opened the correct cabinet, and returned with Rarity’s good teaset, set up the way she preferred.
“The Battle of Canterlot indeed,” Rarity said, letting out a heavy sigh. “Do you prefer tea or boiled water?”
“Boiled water, please,” the changeling replied, eyes still on the table. “I’m sorry. I… I didn’t know how to say… I mean. I did actually fight in the Battle of Canterlot. That’s true. It’s not why I’m here, but I didn’t know how to break the ice. You’re very clever. You know?”
“Thank you.” Rarity poured her guest a cup of hot water, while she filled the teapot for herself, adding something herbal and minty. “May I take it then, that you are the changeling who kidnapped and replaced me during Queen Chrysalis’s second return to power? Before Starlight and the reformation and all that.”
“I’m the changeling who replaced you.” She levitated her cup over to herself but left it to cool. It was very nearly boiling after all. “There was a team of three who kidnapped you. I wasn’t one of them.” Before Rarity could speak again, the changeling said, voice stiff, “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I don’t know… I…”
“Dear,” Rarity reached across the gap between them and gently touched her guest’s shoulder until their head rose. “I won’t say ‘it’s okay,’ because it is not. But I do believe you are genuine in your regret, and it does not make me feel any better to see you punish yourself. You said you wanted to apologize and to talk about it. You’ve apologized. Let’s talk about it. Tell me your name.”
“I’m Novelty,” the changeling said. “And I know, that’s not a changeling name. My old name was Poison Sting. But after the changelings reformed, I didn’t… like, that. It didn’t feel like a good name. So I changed it.”
“Novelty?” Rarity asked, speaking slowly. “Am I correct in assuming that’s… let’s say an homage?”
“Yeah.” Novelty nodded once. “I um… I had to study you for four years. Because Chrysalis thought I was going to have to impersonate you indefinitely. That meant I needed to be able to pass as you to people who knew you well. To your parents, and Sweetie Belle, and old customers. I needed to know my way around your house, how you talk and act, what jokes you’ll tell in private but not in public. So we…”
She tapped the table twice with a hoof in quick succession. “We, um. Recorded your private conversations, stole your diary, read all your correspondence. I don’t know if you know changelings can turn into objects, but um… do you remember that panel in the upstairs hall that was ‘wiggly’? Sometimes it stuck out, and sometimes it seemed recessed into the wall? It was always recessed, I could just turn into an identical panel of the same size, fit into the recession, and listen in on what you were doing.”
“Ah.” Rarity’s eyes went up to the ceiling for a moment, but she forced them back down. She kept her eyes on Novelty, even if Novelty could not keep her own head up. “And I suppose you also listened in on those most private moments. My liaison with Thunderlane, the nights I cried, my use of the ladies’ room, all that?”
Novelty nodded. “Your secrets are safe with me. Forever. I won’t tell a soul. And we destroyed all the old recordings and notes. Nothing is written down.”
“Well. Good.” Rarity picked up her teacup and blew over the top, taking the excuse to pause before she spoke. “I confess, I already suspected that something like that was true. While you may have failed to deceive Starlight, you did fool nearly everypony else, including several ponies with whom I share private connections, in-jokes or the like. Thunderlane said… in his words, ‘the other Rarity’ shared our private joke about how his tail looks. At which point I realized I had very little privacy left.”
When Rarity returned her teacup to the table, it hit harder than it should. It clattered against the saucer, and tea spilled out onto the table. “I suppose it’s good to get confirmation.”
Novelty began to speak, but Rarity cut her off with a sharp: “Don’t say you’re sorry again. I know you’re sorry. I accept your apology. I’m not mad; I’m upset. It’s different.”
“I would, um.” Novelty took a breath. “I’m living in Ponyville now. With a few other changelings. We’re renting the rooms over the bowling alley. If you ever want to talk about this again, you can go find me there. Or we can never talk about this again, and I promise, I’ll take all your secrets to my grave.”
“You’re leaving already?” Rarity’s tone kept its edge. “What is this? A hit-and-run confession? The tea isn’t even cold yet.”
“I mean, I don’t have to. If you want me to stay,” Novelty said, rubbing one leg over the other. “But you’re um… upset. I’m just offering to give you your space. If you want to think about things first. Or if… I don’t know. Maybe that was stupid to say. I can stay.”
Rarity held her counterpart with a glare for a long moment, but in the end she relented, and her gaze softened. “I’m actually not mad, you know,” she said, and Novelty nodded. “But you’ve given me a lot to think about and…” Rarity struggled. “While I may believe you’re sorry, naming yourself after me gives the whole thing an um… well. An unhealthy aura, doesn’t it?”
Novelty said nothing and continued to stare at the table, with only the barest glances at Rarity. Finally, Rarity said: “Maybe you’re right, and we should discuss this later. When I know what I want to ask. And what questions I’d rather not know the answers to.”
“Okay.” Novelty rose from the table, her teacup full of water still untouched. She lifted the dress box from where she had left it, and offered it over to Rarity. “Before I go, I wanted you to have this. To pretend to be a dressmaker, I had to, I mean. I had to make dresses. Obviously. So I studied. I um… I don’t need it or want it. Changelings don’t wear clothes. And I won’t be the least offended if you want to throw it away. Get rid of the memories. But it’s based on your work, and I can’t think of any creature that deserves it more than you.”
“Thank you,” Rarity took the box in her telekinetic grip. “I will open it later.”
Novelty accepted the rebuke for what it was and bowed her head -- which, given where her gaze had been for the whole conversation, involved looking at Rarity somewhat more than previously -- and left.
With her guest’s departure, Rarity decided that four in the afternoon was not too early to pour herself a glass of wine, and having done so she departed to see her friends. Twilight and the others could tell Rarity was disquieted and were to degrees troubled by her refusal to explain why, but Rarity told them that no matter the source of her inequities, being with her friends always made her feel better.
And it did.
When she returned home late that evening, Rarity felt somewhat herself again. She was still, in the deeper sense, distressed by what had happened, but she no longer felt an involuntary tension in her muscles and did not suffer from the instinct to cry or the urges of fight and flight. She tried to think of what she wanted to ask Novelty, but found her mind blank, and considered the merits of not pursuing the matter. She knew, in the general outlines, how she had been wronged and wondered what peace there was to be found in the details.
The dress, to her mind an afterthought to the whole affair, was forgotten until the next morning. Only when she was readying the storefront to open did she again notice the dress box she left leaning against one wall, still unopened. She did not expect much of it. Novelty, or “Poison Sting” at the time, had been in possession of her shop for several weeks, during which time she had executed on Rarity’s pre-existing designs in a manner competent but mechanical. Upon her return to Ponyville, Rarity had found not a single deviation from her designs, for good or ill.
Surely then, Rarity thought, the dress must be a copy of one of her classic works. Maybe it was a Princess Dress; there were so many of those it would have been easy for the changelings to acquire one for practice. She would never sell such a thing, and didn’t want it, but nor did she wish to discard the box unopened.
And so she broke the seal and pulled open the lid.
It was the most beautiful dress she’d ever seen.
Chapter 2
More than a week passed before Rarity traveled to the bowling alley. In the back, there was a rickety set of stairs, and at their end, a worn wooden door. She knocked firmly, and when there was no answer, she continued to knock as persistently as Novelty had knocked on the door of Carousel Boutique. But still no creature came, and when Rarity put her ear to the door, she could hear no motion or other sounds of inhabitation within.
So she tried the handle and found the door unlocked.
The attic was large but mostly unfinished, being partitioned into a series of spaces which might optimistically be called rooms. These rooms were defined by plain dividing walls that did not quite reach the ceiling and were made accessible by doorways without doors, resulting in a space that offered only marginal privacy. Entering slowly, casting her eyes about as she did, Rarity found that many of the spaces were used for storage, containing bowling alley equipment. Only three were given over to tenants.
There was one common space, which contained little crystals, pockets of moss, ferns, and other things which reminded her of the reformed changeling hive. There was a sleeping space, apparently communal, which contained five waxy pods and little else. Finally, there was a room used to store instruments: a set of drums, a saxophone, a french horn, two guitars, a xylophone, and a triangle.
It was the last room that caught Rarity’s eye, both because it was out of place and because it contained the only thing that might be described as a personal item among the communal, utilitarian furnishings. There was a book resting next to the instruments, and when Rarity flipped it open, she found it to be a journal full of dated entries. Some were common prose, some were sketches, some contained musical compositions. But there wasn’t a name on the cover, or any other way to discern which changeling it belonged to.
The door latch clicked behind her.
Fast as any pegasus, agile as any gymnast, silent as the wind, her heart pounding inside her chest, Rarity darted to the open attic window, swung out onto the roof, and from there leaped down unseen into the bushes beside the building.
Her getaway was clean.
Chapter 3
Ponyville’s finest drinking establishment was Wine and Carpets, located just across the street from Sugarcube Corner. Their business model of “you stain it, you bought it” produced robust revenue, and nopony could deny they had the finest selection of drinks and the best live entertainment to be found in Ponyville. They had standup comedy, performance art, and consistently good music, and several of the Elements of Harmony were regular customers.
Rarity generally only went as part of a group; in her mind, drinking was a pleasant distraction with friends, a vice alone. Her feelings about standup comedy were much the same. Yet, one particular evening in the fall, she arrived at the door of Wine and Carpets unattended. Once inside, she sat, ordered a small glass of mild wine, and left it untouched as she sat alone at her table.
Anypony could tell she was waiting for something. Her eyes lingered on the stage, and it wasn’t long before the evening’s scheduled show began.
“Hello, everypony.” The band that walked on stage had five members: a dragon on drums, a griffon on the saxophone, a unicorn on the piano, an earth pony on the guitar, and a pegasus singer in front. “I’m Prior Art,” said the pegasus, “and we are They Sing Cover Songs.”
And they did, with grace and distinction. They sang Smells Like Horse Spirit with such passion Neighvana themselves could not have done better. They sang Birds of a Feather, an old griffon song, though they changed some of the raunchier lyrics to be more suitable to pony culture. And, in response to request from the audience, they sang the Winter Wrapup song, just like Ponyville would in a few months.
Their performance won them applause and a good quantity of tips, and Rarity suspected it also won them a second booking at the same venue. But she did not applaud and no sooner had the show ended than she strode towards the stage with purpose, arriving before the band members had even finished removing their instruments.
“Which one of you is Novelty?” she asked.
A moment of silence followed. None of them ratted another out. Eventually, the griffon raised a talon. Rarity experienced a moment of incongruity, trying to associate the slight, quiet, grey unicore mare who knocked on her door with the bulky, intimidating, male griffon before her. But she had overcome greater challenges before, and did not show her discomfort on her face.
“I’d like to speak with you now.” The words came out cold and snappish, and Rarity had to force herself to amend, “If that’s okay,” in a noticeably softer tone.
“Sure,” said Novelty, said the griffon, and he did not follow his bandmates backstage, but hopped from the stage to the floor, and followed Rarity back to her table. A waitress asked if he wanted anything, and he ordered a glass of water. When Rarity failed to speak, he tried to start the conversation on his own. “Did you like the show?”
“The dress you gave me,” Rarity said. “It’s good. It’s very good. It’s…” She lifted and released her hoof from the table several times. “It’s in my style. So much in my style I feel like I made it, only I hit my head and somehow forgot about it. There’s so much artistry in the design, the technique is…”
Several times, Rarity tried to speak and failed, but Novelty did not interrupt, and after a moment to steady herself, Rarity was able to finish: “You might be the greatest dressmaker of our generation.”
Novelty laughed. The sound gave Rarity momentary pause, much like she’d experienced near the stage; it was very much the laugh of the archetypal male griffon, a boisterous, loud, assertive sound. “I’m not. And this isn’t how I expected this conversation to go.”
“If you made that dress yourself, I think you are.”
“You’re flattering a mirror,” Novelty said, his tone light. “That’s a copy of your work.”
Rarity pulled back her lip. “That isn’t one of my dresses.”
“No, it’s every one of your dresses.” With the tip of a talon, Novelty gestured in the air. “The floating chest plate and geometric shoulder wraps are from the princess dress. I know they look different because they’re in orange instead of teal, and because they’re broken up into hexagons instead of triangles, but if you put those two dresses side by side, you’ll see it. The wither wrap is from Twilight’s backup coronation dress, again, I just changed the color and added a geometric pattern. The dock rest and train are from your ‘pegasus week’ display at Rarity For You. The hock wrap is from Rainbow Dash’s second gala dress.”
Rarity hesitated for a moment, her expression turning to a frown. “Still, there is talent in knowing which elements to combine for the best result.”
“I used trial and error.” For a moment, Novelty hesitated. “I don’t want to attract a lot of attention by transforming in the middle of the club, but.” He extended his talons, and there was a small rush of green fire, after which the digits in question were painted an ugly yellow. “I look at that and go, mmm. That color palette doesn’t work.” Another flash, an ugly purple. “Oh, and that doesn’t. And then I do this all day until I find one that looks good.”
He shrugged and sat back. “It was like that, but with dresses. I must have tried a thousand combinations before I landed on that one.”
“Oh.” The frown on Rarity’s face only depend, and with it appeared lines below her eyes. “I thought… it was beautiful, you understand.”
“Yes, it is. But that’s because your work is beautiful, Rarity.” Novelty leaned over the table, lowering his voice. “It’s because you’re creative and talented and… you’re the sort of pony who’s good enough that even their cheap knockoffs stand out from the crowd.”
Rarity lapsed into silence and met Novelty’s eyes across the table, and Novelty again spoke: “I uh… I picked a name, like yours, because I admire you. And I’m sorry, if that was too much. But after Chrysalis’s downfall, I didn’t have a lot of figures to look up to. And I knew you well.”
“I’m not mad, Novelty.” Rarity’s voice was stiff. “I’m… upset about what happened. But as long as you keep your word about not revealing my secrets, I’ll just be upset that it happened. Not mad at you.” Then she added. “The stitchwork is excellent.”
“Well I’m good at sewing.”
“You want a job?” Rarity asked, her expression suddenly animating.
“What?” Novelty pulled away from the table, and his expression was quite taken aback.
“I could use another seamstress. And your stitchwork really was good. I’d certainly trust you to finish one of my dresses, with—”
“Rarity, I’m very sorry for what happened,” Novelty said. “And I’m very grateful for how forgiving you’ve been. And if you want to talk about it, I will. But I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to spend a lot of time together. I know the layout of Carousel Boutique too well. If you understand.”
“Oh… yes.” Rarity laughed, faintly. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I don’t even know what I was thinking.”
It was at that moment that the waitress returned with water for Novelty, and bread for the table. “You want anything else?” they asked.
“I was just leaving, actually,” Novelty got up and nodded to Rarity in what could be taken as a respectful gesture, but then left before she could reply, and at a pace that discouraged inquiry.
“Ouch,” the waitress said, in the face of sudden retreat. “Too bad. He was cute.”
Rarity sighed, and in a dramatic motion, dropped her head to the table. Her wine glass, untouched, wobbled and tipped over, spilling down over the side. She and the waitress both looked at the spill, their eyes tracking the drops of fluid.
“It was a white wine,” Rarity said, with as much dignity as she could muster.
“We put special dyes in the wine,” the waitress explained. “It makes white wine stain carpets just as well as red.”
Rarity went home without answers, and with one carpet, mildly damaged.