The Worst Day

A knot grew in Twilight’s stomach that threatened to rip her in two. She held her lifeless friend in her arms, blood slowly trickling down from an almost anti-climatic wound. A sharp cut and deep purple bruise were all it took to take the life from both of them.

Twilight watched with the hope of despair as Clyde made his last vie for Rarity’s life. She wanted so badly to believe that he had some unheard magic that would bring Rarity back to her, that he had found a way to turn humble dirt into the essence of life, that anything was possible. It was a truly hopeless situation, but only in such tragedy was Twilight able to unleash everything she felt into a few shining moments of anticipation.

After he pushed the last bit of his breath into her, they waited in despair. There were only a few precious seconds left. Those few seconds passed.

Clyde’s voice was strong, dauntless. “Now, we trust the good earth beneath us...”

Twilight felt in her heart that it would work. She told herself that it had to work.

Because she couldn’t imagine what she’d do if it didn’t.

She imagined Rarity opening her eyes and smiling up at her, saying something extraordinarily beautiful, only to leave Twilight a babbling mess. She imagined the two of them sobbing like little fillies, deeply embraced, promising to not even leave the house at the chance of a stray meteorite. She even imagined forgiving Trixie and Inkie if Rarity would just wake up. As a concession to karma, she made herself promise to that.

While she imagined all those things, the hope waned. Clyde may have become the cruelest pony in Equestria for giving false hope to so dire a situation. He raised her spirits just to let them fall even faster in the abyss.

...this can’t be happening... it just can’t...

Rarity coughed.

Twilight held her breath, still as a statue, only tears pouring out. Too afraid to move or interrupt her friend, she watched the lone breath of her friend with horrible anxiety. She could be excreting the last breath, she could be coming back. All Twilight knew is she wouldn’t be able to take this much longer. Rarity either needed to wake up or move on.

Any more broken promises and she might end up following Rarity back home.

She coughed again and gasped, filling her lungs full of air. She struggled to retain a steady breathing pattern, choking and hacking away. After a few seconds the coughing fit subsided into shallow, but sustained breathing. Rarity blinked her bloodshot eyes, returning her pupils to the center.

Twilight trembled and shook almost violently, eyes glued to her love. Snot ran down her nose, mixing with tears and probably drool. She bit her pursed lips as her face scrunched up in an indescribable mixture of happiness, terror and hope. For a moment she didn’t know what to do with herself. Inside, she was completely hysterical, but on the outside she refused to even make a noise. Her silence was merely the calm before the storm she’d unleash on the unknowing unicorn.

Twilight looked up to Rarity’s saviour whose face was more or less the same. Clyde smiled at her and knelt down, placing a hoof around shoulder as they watched.

Rarity fluttered her eyes, still intensely dazed. She groaned, and for the first time in what felt like an eternity, she moved. Shock kept her spitting headache at bay, but her vision was blurred everything together. Her mind was far from focus. Extraordinarily random things passed through it with no real rhyme or reason. She’d forget most of them, but the concept of baking stuck with her as odd. It seemed ridiculous to put things in a fire box to eat them. Also basic math was impossible.

In her enchantment she did make out a familiar combination of purples in front of her. A combination that made her happy. She smiled dreamily.

“...d-darling...?”

Twilight’s face scrunched further as her love spoke. She had both a thousand things and nothing to say. She wanted to explode, but didn’t know how. So she went with the first thing that came to her mind.

“...s-s-shut up...! you stupid bucking unicorn!” she sobbed. “...h-how dare you do that to me!”

Rarity’s was left perplexed by the odd idea of having a conversation. Fortunately Twilight didn’t want to talk. She threw her hooves around her love, crying deeply into her shoulder. She lifted up her up and squeezed her tightly, savouring every moment like it would have been their last. Rarity was taken back by the gesture.

“...ugh... please... I’m going to be sick...” Rarity groaned as she was displaced from her perfect resting position. She burped.

“I don’t care! I’m not letting go!” Twilight squeezed harder.

Rarity puked all over Twilight’s back. The warm, slimy bile running down through her mane and and back. It was the most bizarre feeling that Twilight had never felt before, sending shivers up her spine. The smell was sickening. After heaving for a few seconds, Rarity wiped her lip, looking at the spittle on her hoof, estranged. Her mind shut down for a second and she nearly passed out.

She swayed dizzily. “...Did... I just vomit all over you...?”

Twilight’s face morphed into some sort of combination of total disgust and the smile someone wore during the happiest moment of their life. She didn’t care in the slightest and in the maelstrom of emotion she was feeling, she even found it sort of funny.

“Yes... yes you did...” she smiled and laughed.

Rarity groaned again. “...that’s... revolting... I’m so gross...”

*

Fluttershy dashed up and around the boutique, checking every corner for Rarity or her sister. Fluttershy didn’t know how much time they had, but Luna’s unnerving sense of urgency broke any delusion of leisure. Cadance was dying and finding the Heart of Dreams was their last chance. It was somewhere hidden in the house and neither of them had the slightest clue where.

Upon finding Sweetie Belle, Fluttershy grabbed her and threw her in front of Luna. They both proceeded to yell relentlessly at the poor filly in their panicked, time pressed anxiety.

“Where doth it rest?!” Luna interrogated.

“Wh-what...?”

“We don’t have time for this!” Fluttershy asserted.

“SIlence fool! Where art thine’s kin?”

Sweetie Belle gave them a petrified look of fear and misunderstanding.

“Where’s Rarity?!” Fluttershy shouted, clarifying.

“Sh-she’s at the Pie’s rock farm...! Why? What’s goi--”

“I don’t know where that is!” Fluttershy cut her off.

“Neither do I!” Luna parroted

Cloudy thundered.

“I don---” Sweetie Belle started.

Fluttershy cut her off again. “Have you seen a big heart shaped ruby with a bunch of weird veiny things on it!?”

“No! What’s going on?!” The foal began hyperventilating in reflected fear.

The situation was growing desperate. Fluttershy wasn’t sure if they had time to search the house, but there wasn’t any reason to stand around and think about.

“I’ll check the upstairs, you check the downstairs, Sweetie Belle you look in--” Fluttershy commanded

“We hath but minutes dearest! Evacuate Rarity’s sister, I shall find it.”

Acting on instinct, Fluttershy grabbed Sweetie Belle and flew her outside. As soon as she cleared the doorway she heard the Princess’s sovereign command.

“Exsisto etiam...”

Following the Princess’s words, all the sound in the world muted, leaving perfect silence. In slow motion, Fluttershy turned around to see the boutique explode. The entire house looked like it had been crushed and shot outwards from the force of a dazzling light. Fluttershy screamed as her life flashed before her. The entire front side of Rarity’s house came hurtling towards her.

Yet, she was left unharmed.

Still screaming, Fluttershy opened her eyes to see remnants of the house pop up high into the air, and as they landed, they turned vapour. It smelled oddly of baked goods, filling her lungs with a peculiar, somber state of relaxation.

Sweetie Belle and Fluttershy sat in a daze, one clearly more upset by exploding the house than the other. The spell’s effects had a entrancing quality to it. Seeing each massive piece of debris splash against the town silently was eerie to say the least.

In the misty wreckage, the saw the silhouette of the princess dash to a glowing red ball that had remained afloat. Instead of searching, Luna opted to remove the house from the equation and leave only the Heart behind. She vanished from the mist and behind the two ponies she appeared, only to vanish again in a flash of light.

*

The three of them, and Cloudy, were thrown back in the chaos of Cadance’s room. Sweetie Belle was left trying to absorb the scene. Everypony was running around and shouting, some of them favouring extensively colourful language. A dozen doctors and a half dozen scary looking machines surrounded the unconscious Princess of Love, who laid lifelessly on her bloodstained bed. Even scarier medical terms were constantly bellowed throughout the room. Terms like cardiac arrest, heart failure and morphine stuck out and traumatized the filly most.

Luna didn’t mean to take the Sweetie Belle with her, but Fluttershy still had her in her arms when they teleported back.

Celestia was unconscious on the floor when they arrived. Her eyes were rolled back and she was muttering quietly to herself.  Sweetie Belle screamed as Luna toppled over next to her, putting herself out cold. The aforementioned gemstone lay between them.

Both their eyes glowed bright gold and indigo, respectively, when suddenly the gemstone lost its faint glow.

“She’s coming back! I got a pulse!” shouted a nurse.

Celestia snapped back awake. She took a deep breath and shook her head to refocus her mind. The horrors she encountered deep within Cadance’s psyche would never leave her nightmares. She cast them aside and turned to the head doctor.

“Is she stabilizing?!”

“Yes, she’s breathing again and we’re doing--”

“Don’t touch her! Don’t do anything else! Her leylines are open, she’ll heal herself now! Unhook her from everything!” Celestia commanded. “Somepony find me Captain Armor of the Guard!”

Celestia, still heaving from the adrenaline, smiled weakly as Cadance slowly took her first breaths.

*

The two remaining members of the Pie family hurried out with a small, wooden box and wash basin. They ran with urgency, but upon seeing the white unicorn alive and awake, they relaxed their pace. Sue set the box down next to Rarity and opened it to reveal a wealth of homemade medical supplies, bandages, vials of medicines, syringes, medical tape, a splint.

Twilight was stroking Rarity’s mane, holding her close. She had almost lost her once and wasn’t about to let anypony take her love away from her again. She eyed the Pies wearily.

“Why hello hon, how are you feeling?” Sue asked rhetorically, working quickly to assess Rarity’s condition.

“I’m fine.” Rarity smiled.

Sue’s tone was warm and comforting. “Seems like you took quite the bonk to the head. Don’t you worry, you probably just have a concussion. It’s nothing we can’t handle. Here on a rock farm we get bonked on the head all the time,” she said genuinely, holding Rarity’s hoof. “You’re gonna be just fine.”

Sue took out a some alcohol and cleaned Rarity’s wound, much to the dismay of Twilight. Rarity winced in pain with each delicate touch of the cotton swab. A tension grew in Twilight’s chest as she watched her love hiss and grimace. The last thing she wanted to see was Rarity is even more pain. Seeing Twilight’s uneasiness Sue spoke to her.

“Twilight dear, why don’t you give your friend a little room to breathe and get yourself cleaned up? Blinkie, could you help Twilight with that little mess?”

Blinkie waved at her and Twilight reluctantly released the unicorn and walked over to the water basin. Twilight took a washcloth in her magic and began wiping off Rarity’s vomit. Blinkie did the same and they shared an awkward silence. Blinkie wanted to say something, but wasn’t sure if she’d find the right words.

“I uh...” Blinkie hesitated, her words were quick and terse. “Just pulled out a boysenberry pie... Should still be hot. After we’re done you and your friend are welcome to have some. It’d be good to get some food in your belly.”

“Thanks,” Twilight muttered.

Meanwhile, Trixie watched distantly, sitting stupidly on her rump. None of them had so much as acknowledged her existence. She wasn’t surprised though. She wouldn’t have even acknowledged her own existence if it wasn’t what she did for a living. She thought she had finally lied her way out of all the questionable decisions she let herself make, but instead she was left alone.

‘Alone’ was something she had been for far longer than she’d ever admit and now it seems like it was all she’d ever be.

The only family she had left was shunning her, the mare she loved was probably furious with her and, sickeningly enough, she could still only think about herself.

She watched the compassion that these ponies were displaying, almost proudly, in spite of her and wondered why she didn’t have that in her own life. Maybe it was because she was a terrible pony, but even the worst of the worst had somepony who loved them. Wasn’t it everypony’s right to be loved? S

One pony did look at her though. Even though it was the last pony whom she’d want to lock her shameful eyes with, she was surprised to see something besides seething hatred.

Twilight Sparkle looked at her with a look of mutual pain and suffering. Maybe Twilight knew how much she cared for Inkie and could honestly tell her she knew what it was like to lose that special pony. Maybe she was humbled by the pass with death she just faced and resolved that anger wasn’t the answer. Maybe she was just confused and Trixie should make her peace before facing the end herself. Ending Trixie wouldn’t even be revenge now, but justice.

Given what she’d done and what she had left, Trixie wouldn’t fight it. She had a whole other world of hurt coming to her.

Amidst the low chatter of Sue interrogating Rarity for her medical symptoms and Twilight sobbing lightly with Blinkie doing her best to make small talk with her, Clyde stoically watched in pensive thought.

“Twilight, may I have a word with you?” he asked, slowly approaching the mare. Blinkie scurried away towards Rarity to lend a hoof.

“What is it?” she replied.

“Now, you are always free to do whatever you will, but I have a request.”

“Absolutely anything. You saved my friend’s life, I’m eternally in your debt.” Twilight bowed her head humbly.

“I’ve been thinkin’, I don’t want you talkin’ to Trixie. Later today, I want to take you and Rarity back to Ponyville. We can go by train and after that, I don’t want to see either of your hides ‘round here for a good while.”

Twilight didn’t know how to respond to his request. She was mostly worried about Rarity, but a part of her still needed to say something to Trixie before she left. There were things that still needed to be said.

Clyde continued.

“Trix has made a mighty big fool of herself to say the least, but I think you and Rarity have done enough talkin’ today. Let me handle her. She’s like a daughter to me and it pains me to see her fall so low.”

Clyde watched from afar as the azure unicorn cried a few silent, shameful tears. Despite keeping his voice low, Trixie could hear every word Clyde said. She couldn't believe, even after what she'd done, that she was still being shown such mercy.

“Trix ’ll get what’s coming to her and believe me, she will be set straight after we’re through with her. But we’re gonna do it because we care about her. She’d had a hard life. No family, no friends...” He paused and reminisced. “Too long without family or friends and you do things you wouldn’t normally do. I know now what she did to you Twilight and soon Inkie will learn the truth. Hopefully at least one daughter will have the grace to let go of the past.”

Twilight nodded her head knowingly.

“I’ll agree on two conditions,” she replied.

Clyde eyed the unicorn wearily.

“First, you have to tell Trixie I’ve forgiven her and that I want to talk to her again. Not anytime soon, but someday I’d like to be friends again.”

Clyde smiled. “Twilight, you are wise beyond your years,” he said fondly. “I can do that for you. Maybe when I tell her, Trixie ’ll learn something from you about the value of mercy. What’s your other condition?”

“The other condition, you have to tell me what you did to bring Rarity back. I’ve never seen magic like that in my life.”

Clyde smirked and rubbed the back of his neck before digging his hoof into the dirt. “Heh...That? That’s an old, Pie Family secret.”

*

“Twilight... This isn’t the concussion playing tricks on me, is it?” Rarity said shaking her head.

“Why what’s wron--- Oh my goodness! Rarity! Where the hoof is your house?!” Twilight shouted quite obviously, mouth now agape as she beheld the crater that was Carousel Boutique.

“Yes, that’s what I thought...”

Twilight trotted in place, antsy, as she searched the ground frantically trying to locate the missing establishment. To both of their complete surprise, it was not there. There was a rather interesting looking crater that Twilight was sure must have been new. She could study it and maybe live in it after she lost the last bit of sanity she had been clinging to.

Twilight looked around, hoping an answer would present itself. She turned to passing pegasus carrying some groceries.

“You!” she bellowed out.

“Who? Me?” he replied, oblivious.

“Yes, you! Where did Rarity’s house go?! What happened to it?!”

“Oh, you mean that clothing store?”

“Darling, the term is ‘boutique’,” Rarity corrected, now a bit more properly frazzled by her new lack of housing.

“Yeah, ok,” he replied, weary of her tone. “Princess Luna came by earlier with Fluttershy and blew it up. Then they foalnapped your sister.”

The mares stared at him stupidly, unsure of what to make of his answer. Something about it just wouldn’t connect in their minds. No, that couldn’t possibly be the explanation. That would have been absurd. Princess Luna and Fluttershy, of all ponies, blowing up Rarity’s house. Maybe if it was just Princess Luna she’d maybe believe it, but not Fluttershy.

“No, I mean what happened to Rarity’s house?” Twilight asked him again.

“Princess Luna and Fluttershy blew it up and then foalnapped her sister,” he repeated, annoyed.

The dumbfounded, non-understanding looks on both their faces left him defeated. The pegasus perked his head up and looked around, spotting his friend.

“Hey Joe, come back me up here,” he called out to a nearby earth pony.

The stallion trotted over. “What’s up bro? Oh, hey Rarity!” he said noticing the unicorn. “Nice seein’ you around. Oh yeah, by the way, we’re all supposed to tell you that Princess Luna and Fluttershy blew up your house.”

The pegasus stallion crossed his arms.

“Indeed....” Rarity stuttered. “That... that explains the crater, now doesn’t it Twilight darling? And what was that part about my sister?”

“They grabbed her and the three of them teleported off somewhere,” the pegasus replied.

Rarity nodded her head slowly.

Twilight’s ear flopped and her eyes twitched. She had hit her absolute breaking point. Today may had been the worst possible day conceivable. She had been attacked by her number one assistant, she got in a horrible fight with a her first love, Pinkie’s sister had almost killed Rarity and two of her friends had been accused of blowing up her love’s home and foalnapping her sister.

This was too much for any one mare to handle.

“Rarity?”

“Yes, Twilight?”

“Would you like to go to dinner with me this coming, oh I don’t know...” Twilight feigned. “Right now?”

“My, my, feeling romantic are we? Where shall we dine? Cherrycobbler Factory?”

“Nah, I was thinking we should just go to Applejack’s and steal a keg of cider...”