The ticking of the clock was the only thing that could be heard, fabrics and various other materials laid on the floor out of order, only a mannequin with a beautifully crafted dress rested in the middle of the room, a sight to behold in the sore view of the room.

Meanwhile, across the room, gentle snores were distinct among the ticking, where the one called Rarity rested her tired body. By now she had begun stirring, unconsciously pushing blankets off herself before pulling her blindfold off, allowing the light to hit her eyes, bringing the world into focus.

“Well, I must say that was a very refreshing rest!” she said to herself with a satisfied yawn. She trotted off the bed and made her way to her restroom where she began her beautifying routine. “Now…” she made her way to her working room, the place where the ‘magic’ happened both metaphorically, and almost literally. “This isn’t really my best piece…” she admitted to herself, looking over the beautiful dress with knowing eyes. “But it won’t certainly be the worse,” she took the dress from the mannequin and returned to her room, where the beautifying process continued.

A growl reached her ears, causing her normally white coat to turn a slight shade of red. Awkwardly acknowledging her hunger, she made her way downstairs, her mind already planning a well deserved—and not messy—salad. As she entered the kitchen, she found herself gasping instantly as she noticed a certain filly sprawled on the floor, her eyes closed, breathing heavily.

“Sweetie Belle!” she lost all composure and ran towards her sister, who had then begun stirring at the sound of her voice.

“Oh… Hey, Rarity…” she replied weakly.

“Sweetie! What’s wrong? Should I take you to the doctor? Oh, what am I saying, of course I should! Come on, we need to g-”

“No!” shouted Sweetie Belle before returning to her tired form. “I’m just exhausted…” she stopped for a bit to inhale some much needed air into her tiny lungs, her sister shaking her head at the sight.

“But you look terrible! If that’s the case, tell me what happened or you will be forcing my hoof!” it wasn’t an ultimatum as much as worry over her condition.

“I was trying… To earn a magic cutie mark…” she explained quickly. “I was trying to teleport… But I… Failed and… Just got exhausted…” Rarity’s eyes widened at her words; teleportation was known to be one of the most advanced forms of magic for any unicorn, and as such, one of the most dangerous—and her sister had been attempting it.

“Sweetie Belle! That’s dangerous!” she couldn’t be too mad, it had been obvious Sweetie didn’t know of its difficulty. “Just listen to me when I say that's a big no! If you want to learn magic of that level, wait until you are older, okay?” Sweetie seemed regretful and nodded a bit before finding herself more tired than before.

"O-Okay..." she replied weakly.

“Goodness me, who even gave you this idea of attempting to get your magic cutie mark?” Sweetie could barely hold herself awake as she told Rarity.

“It was Mr. John… He told me I could try magic, and… I did…” she stopped as she passed out on the floor.

“… John…” Rarity said in a near threatening tone. “Oh, that human needs a strong talking to!” she had been uneasy around him for a while, but had grown accustomed to him over time. She still had some anger directed at him over nearly revealing Spike‘s secret —which wasn‘t a secret to everypony else, herself included-—but she had successfully kept it to herself. She took Sweetie to her room and then made her way back downstairs. “Alright, it’s time to go talk to him then! And while I’m at it, I guess I could show off my gallant work!” she made her way to the door, words about Sweetie Belle as well as the waste of time he had made for her two days prior as extra ammo in her head. She reached for the handle and pulled.

…

“Why can’t I open the door?” a note hanged from the wood, she took it in her hooves and read.

“Magic Cutie Mark Acquisition by Sweetie Belle.”

“Well, that’s Sweetie alright,” she noted, before continuing.

“First: Place magical sealing lock from the outside on every entrance including windows.
Second: Try to earn cutie mark and not give up -hence the locks-
Third: Get cutie mark. Yay! Unlock everything”

“Ah… Aaaah…” Rarity was at a loss of words, but not at the steps she read; rather, she was lost at what followed right after.

“In case of failed attempt, chimney escape will have to be done via rope ladder. I call it the exit of tears.”

Rarity ran to every door and window, she found even her own room’s windows somehow close as well. It wasn’t long until she found herself staring at the chimney. It was an ornately one, she enjoyed it greatly in those cold winter days.

As of this moment, she despised it immensely.

“Oh… Mister, you, are in big trouble!”

“Hmm… No… This has nothing…”

“Hey Twi, here are some more books from the Princess, where do you want me to put them?”

“Uh huh…”

“Twilight! I’m going to be crushed, and it isn’t going to be pretty!”

“Come on Spike, it can’t be that ba-…”

…

Golden Oaks library was a place that could be found in either a state of perpetual cleanliness, or utter book chaos—at the moment, it was on the latter multiplied times one hundred, Piles upon piles of haphazardly placed towers of books stood in nearly every spot in the library, leaving only a small path created by both John and Spike who kept bringing books for Twilight to read.

“Oh. Maybe we should clean up…” she responded with a sheepish look on her face.

“You think?” replied an especially sarcastic Spike.

“It’s gonna take us hours, isn’t it…” complained John at the sight.

“Oh, don’t be such a baby! I do this every week! It’s not difficult!” replied Spike knowingly.

“Easy for you to say…”

“Come on now, I’ll help categorize the books and place the ones I read back in the boxes, okay?” comforted Twilight while John nodded miserably, but a small smile escaped his lips as he stared at her, happily humming while putting the books in their respectful spots.

“Well… At least she is better now.”

Despite their quick argument and solution to a problem, Twilight and John—accompanied with Spike who’d heard the whole thing from his room—had had to talk about it thoroughly, ending with an awkward group hug within Spike and John, but one that Twilight welcomed happily.

“Okay Twi, where do you want me to put this box?” John asked as he picked up the book-filled container from the floor.

“That is going back to the Canterlot archives, so place it near my podium,” she instructed, placing book after book in boxes with clumsy movements. “Ugh… This is annoying.”

Twilight had made up her mind to learn how to function without magic, as she had done so when she had been a filly, to her misfortune, such long forgotten habits had been difficult to remember.

“It’s okay Twilight, you can take a rest if you want,” called Spike who gave her a worried look.

“No… No. It’s okay, Spike, I have to get used to this, especially if I want to do this fast,” Twilight said, resuming her work with confidence to Spike’s approving nod. “Hey, John?” she called as she archived a second copy of ‘Magical Ailments and their Effects thorough History’ in her own shelf for later library addition. “I know I’m a little late, but who was at the door earlier?” John tensed up at the question, he’d forgotten about an early visit from a familiar pony.

“It was Mr. Rich. Do you remember what I told you happened like two days ago?” Twilight nodded slowly, recalling the unlikely events. “Well… He came to yell at me slash thank me.”

“What!?” asked Spike’s and Twilight’s voices in unison.

“Yeah… Apparently, I was the first one to look past the money and do that to his daughter; it seems no one who had been offered to be paid by him ever did that… Who knew, huh? In any case, I apologized, he accepted it, and I apologized in return for my own behavior. He was still a bit angry, but nothing too bad.”

“So what now then? Diamond Tiara must be furious…” replied Twilight, abandoning her current task and approaching John.

“Well, if my hearing didn't fail, I’ll be mentoring Diamond Tiara in the ways to ‘stop becoming a bitch’, as I call it, so… I have a job now!” Spike giggled at the title while Twilight delivered a disapproving look.

“John, please tell me you didn’t say that to Mr. Rich…”

“Of course not! I’m not crazy—but it’s not less true!” Spike was laughing by this point, while Twilight giggled a bit.

“I suppose not, but we need to talk with that behavior you have with foals, might cause some real trouble,” after accepting the fact, the three returned to silent work.

Knock, Knock!

“Huh? Wonder who that is?” Spike said getting on his feet and walking to the door, only to be stopped by a tower of boxes in front of him. “John! You barricaded me!”

“Don’t worry, I’ll get it,” he told Spike, laughing a bit as he headed for the door and opened it. “Oh, well. Hello.”

“Who is it?” asked Twilight. He removed his frame from the door, revealing a sheepish looking Ditzy. “Oh… H-hi Ditzy,” the room became an awkward silent as neither spoke.

“Okaaaay! So, what’s up?” John asked, trying to keep the awkward mood away.

She quickly recovered from her stupor at John's words. “W-well, I’m off today, and I was wondering if you wanted to hang out? I still need to give you that tour I promised you…”

“You didn’t promise me any tour,” John revealed, making Ditzy shift uncomfortably in place.

“W-well, if you don’t want to, that’s okay, I’ll just g-”

“Sure, he can go. He isn’t busy,” both John and Ditzy turned to the voice, Twilight revealing a huge smile. “Don’t worry, Spike and I can handle this. You go ahead and get the tour; it’s long overdue after all,” she said no more and returned to her work.

“O-oh. Well, if you say so. Are you good, Spike?”

“Pffft, of course! I’ll be fine on my own! Go!”

“Well, let’s go then,” Ditzy said excitedly, John following her out, turning right before closing the door, mouthing a silent thank you to the pair..

…

“I hope he enjoys the rest, he deserves a break,” Twilight said out loud, returning to her work once more.

“Hey! I deserve a break too!” Twilight only gave him a glare. “What?” she couldn’t help but laugh at Spike’s sudden expression.

“How about this? We finish two more boxes, and then we can go out for lunch; would that be okay?” Spike didn’t need to say anything else, as he rushed to the pile of books and brought them over to Twilight, helping her put them back in their rightful places with ease. “Heh heh. I’ll take that as a yes.”

“La, la, la, la, laaaaa!”

“What are you doing, Pinkie?” Dash asked, barely holding her attention on her current companion.

“Singing!” she replied easily, jumping around Rainbow who currently occupied herself on a cloud that had descended from the sky, forming some fog on the ground.

“Well, it’s not really much fun for me… Why don’t you go and have fun with somepony else? Then, after I’m done here, we can hang out by the lake, how about that?” Pinkie gave Rainbow a big smile and jumped in place.

“Oh, you are SO on!” and she was gone, leaving behind a dust of pink smoke.

“Yawn… Maybe I‘ll just take a nap instead.”

Pinkie ran through the field at top speed, reaching the town in just mere seconds. She donned a pair of binoculars and observed quietly, looking for any sort of fun she could be having. It wasn’t long until she noted a robed figure who currently, was in the process of talking to herself.

“Come on, Rarity, it’s all good, nopony will recognize you like this!”

“Hiya, Rarity!” Rarity found herself instantly skyward, and just as fast, she was on the ground once more, Pinkie observing from the same spot. “What you dooooing?” glaring behind her hood, she composed herself and got on her hooves.

“Oh, hey, Pinkie… W-well, I’m going to Twilight’s, so, if you’ll excuse me, I need to g-”

“Ooh! Can I come?” Pinkie said excitedly, blocking Rarity’s path.

“W-well… I need to go show her my latest dress, and it’s a surprise for her, and her only! It’s in my rulebook, Pinkie! I can’t let this outfit be seen until the owner does so!” Pinkie visibly pouted, but she was soon smiling once more.

“Okie, dokie then!” she then skipped away from Rarity, off to find some fun somewhere else.

“Well, that was close… Alright, John, prepare yourself for uncouth Rarity!”

Meanwhile, in Sweet Apple Acres, Applejack returned with a cart full of apples, carefully dropping them into the barn.

“Well, Ah’ guess it was bad business today,” said Applebloom, jumping off the cart while looking down at the floor sadly.

“Now, now, don’t be sad sis, it was just a slow day; besides, we had fun, didn’t we?” she ruffled Applebloom’s mane who giggled at the affection. They hadn’t done anything particularly fun, but they had spend the time talking about themselves, something that they hadn’t been able to for a long time, due to their erratic schedules

“Ah’ guess you are right, sis! We did have fun!”

“Did somepony say fun?” Pinkie Pie asked, popping out of the apple-filled cart, surprising both Apples who jumped at the unexpected visitor.

“Pinkie! How long have you been there?” Applejack asked as Pinkie ate one of the apples, leaving a bit on the cart as payment.

“I just got here, silly!” she jumped off the cart and stood between the pair with a huge grin. “So what were you saying about fun?”

“Um, we said, we had fun, Pinkie… Fun is over, Ah’ guess?” explained Applebloom, while Pinkie had a horrified look on her face.

“What!? That’s terrible!” Pinkie said loudly, grabbing Applebloom’s face between her hooves.

“Pinkie, we can always have fun later, you know, it’s not that ba-” Applejack was stopped as Pinkie put her hooves around her own face.

“No! I meant to say I missed the fun! What if I’m missing the fun somewhere else!? Oh! What if me talking here, putting more words together into lines, and then badly structured sentences is making waste more time…! See!? I just wasted zero point nine seconds with that pause!” and with that, she ran out of the farm, leaving behind two very confused mares.

“What just happened, AJ?”

“Your guess is as good as mine, sis.”

“… Can we get some Apple Zap jam now?” Applejack licked her lips at the question.

“You had me at Apple, Applebloom.”

“Aha! Finished!” Spike said proudly, putting a book in the last open spot in a box.

“We are done starting, you mean. We haven’t even gone through three-fourths of the books here,” explained Twilight, Spike didn’t take kindly to this as his current glare was saying. “Oh… Sorry.”

“That’s okay, we get to eat now after all!” he lifted himself with his own tail, bouncing around happily at the grub that was coming.

“Well, aren’t we excited?”

Knock, Knock!

“Oh? Wonder who that is?” Spike headed for the door and opened it, jumping back at the cloaked figure in front of him. “Woah! Hey… R-Rarity… How may we help you…” Spike couldn’t hold any coherent thoughts as he lost himself in the visit of his crush.

“How does everypony keep knowing it’s me? Ugh,” she closed the door behind her and pulled her hood off, revealing a sight that not many ponies would glance into; Rarity’s mane was a mess, tangled and dirty, her face was covered with dark spots, overly visible due to her white coat.

“Rarity… What happened to you?” Twilight asked, staring agape at a sight of her friend she never expected to see.

“Twilight! Darling! You look fantastic! I’m glad to see that you are feeling better,“ Rarity said, disregarding her own looks, something that Twilight was thankful, happy that she didn’t hold any ill thoughts for her previous behavior.

“Thank you, Rarity, I’m doing just fine… But you don’t seem too hot yourself.“

“Yes she does!” intervened Spike, but was ignored as he continued to drool over Rarity.

“Pardon?“ Rarity asked at Twilight’s wording.

“Oh, just ignore it, it’s something I picked up from John,” she explained, disregarding her comment.

“Well… I would say that I was caught up in another one of Sweetie’s attempts at earning a Cutie mark, but that wouldn’t be entirely true. If I could be so bold, may I use your shower first, please? I’m rather dirty, as you can see. I will explain afterwards.

After a good hour, and waste of all hot water the library had to offer, the three met up in the kitchen; there, Rarity explained the issue to the pair, and while Spike quickly took Rarity’s side, Twilight wasn’t too open to it.

“You know, Rarity, you can’t really blame him for that; Sweetie Belle didn’t know either, right? It’s no surprise John was ignorant of the knowledge,” she explained, trying to justify John’s advice.

“W-well, I suppose that’s right…” Rarity agreed begrudgingly, not having thought of it herself. “But it was still pretty dangerous! I expect that you can at least inform him of such things!”

Twilight noted with some skepticism. “You know, I’m actually surprised you didn’t tell her about this before yourself. Didn’t you learn the basics of it from your parents?”

Rarity froze, the topic having turned a direction she hadn’t expected at all. “W-well…”

Growl… the sound of two simultaneous stomach growls caused Twilight to giggle, as Rarity held her own stomach in shame, while Spike fell on his back.

“Hun… gry…”

“How about we talk about this more over some lunch? My treat, Rarity.”

“W-well, I suppose a lady must have some food on her if she wants to have a good c- Growl… conversation…” Twilight got on her hooves and poked Spike, making him get on her back.

“Come on, let’s go then, wouldn’t want Spike to pass out on us, heh heh.”

The sun was high on the sky as Ditzy and John walked side by side, it was an especially good afternoon, as they had visited a couple of places and Ditzy had managed to explain everything while they were at it. A good hour later, a growl from John’s stomach got Ditzy out of her tour guide mode.

“Oh, I guess you want to eat something, huh?” she said playfully.

“Well, I guess I do… What do you have in mind, Ms. Doo?” Ditzy could only blush at the comment, as she had never been referred to as such by other ponies, much less another species.

“I got just the place!”

It wasn’t long until they made it to a place where tables were set outside, John gave the place a sweep and shrugged.

“This looks good,” he took the nearest seat, and a pony in tuxedo trotted towards them.

“Good afternoon, sir, madam,” he placed a pair of menus on the table and bowed. “You may call me once you have made your orders,” John ordered a simple salad, Ditzy mimicking his order, and both ate in peace, enjoying the surprisingly tasty treat. As they did, John began some small talk.

“Thanks for the tour, Ditzy, God knows I need it,” he said gratefully. She only smiled and nodded, fiddling with her salad as she did.

“Well… It’s my pleasure! I’m always glad to be w- hang out with you! You are nice,” John smiled at this and ruffled her mane.

“You are pretty nice yourself,” at this point, Ditzy had found herself as red as Big Mac, or so she thought as she felt the burning in her cheeks.

“Y-you know," she began carefully. "We could always hang out m-”

“Hello!” the pair jumped in their seats as a sudden pink intruder appeared on them. “Hi guys! Anything fun going on!” Pinkie Pie looked at a watch hanging around her neck and sighed. “No! This isn’t fast enough!”

“Well… I was… Till you showed up,” Ditzy complained internally at Pinkie’s intrusion.

“Yes… Hi… So what do you mean, Pinkie?” John asked with some confusion.

“I’m trying to take part in the most fun I can manage, and I’m trying to run from Rainbow Dash’s spot on the lake to Sweet Apple Acres barn raising that Applejack just told me about two point five minutes ago, but then I’ll miss Rarity’s big reveal that she might or might not do and I could miss hanging out with Vinyl! GAAAAASP!” she fell back on the floor, rasped breaths coming out at a fast rate.

John couldn’t help but laugh at Pinkie’s ridiculous dilemma. “Pinkie, you know that’s plain impossible, even for you. The only way to do that is if you could teleport, or heck, cut yourself into more of you, hah… Please tell me you can’t do that,” John said with reserved fear.

“No…” she replied miserably before suddenly smiling once more. “The legend of the Mirror Pool! Why didn’t I think of that ages before! Could have saved me at that bachelorette party!” and just like that, she was gone, leaving behind a very confused John and Ditzy.

“Legend of the what-now?” John asked Ditzy who only raised her withers, knowing as much as John did.

“Well… Now that we are alone… Wanna continue that tour? If you are done eating, that is.” asked Ditzy, getting Pinkie out of her mind.

John ate the rest of his salad in seconds and nodded. “Well… I am now. what’s next?” John asked curiously glancing around as Ditzy paid the bill for both of them.

“Well… Ever heard of a place that sells only quills and sofas?” John’s vacant expression at Ditzy's question was almost unreadable.

“This town is freaking weird.”

“You honestly have no idea."

“… And that’s how I was stuck with the order, and now it’s ruined…” Rarity pouted as she took a drink from her tea and put a hoof over a bag with the ruined dress as a server came from close by and refilled her cup. “Thank you.”

“Well… You know you could have taken the dress off, right?” Twilight pointed out.

Rarity grimaced—she had expected the question. “Of course, but I will admit that I was NOT totally in control, you would say I let my anger get the best of me… not my best decision,” she ate a piece from her apple tart, delicately cleaning the crumbs from her mouth.

”You know, this still doesn’t explain what you meant by you not telling Sweetie about teleportation,” Twilight said, roudning back to her original question.

Rarity sighed loudly, the question had been expected as well, but she had not planned in answering it to just any pony; however, Twilight Sparkle was just not any pony.

“Well, Twilight… It’s complicated, and let’s just say, it has to do with the fact that…” she hesitated for a moment.

“Rarity, if it’s something embarrassing, you don’t have to tell me,” Twilight said in understanding.

Rarity raised her hoof and shook her head. “No, no. You are my friend, and as such, I must tell you…” she took a deep breath and let it out in a whisper: “The thing is I’m a very weak magic user.”

Twilight’s head was full of questions at the statements, there were also obvious holes in that statement, taken from over two years of knowledge of the pony.

“Rarity… I’ve seen you levitate a lot of things at once,” she began, hoping for Rarity to clear her doubts.

“Of course! But you should know that levitation is the most basic skill for magic users everywhere! Not much magic is used when a pony has mastered that art,” Rarity had been right, even Twilight herself used such magic in that way with nary a thought, and when she was a kid no less.

“I just needed to analyze every possibility,“ Twilight took out a pad from her satchel and hastily wrote what she could with her mouth, messy scribbles that she would have Spike transcript later. “What about that time you made a dress out of seemingly unrelated materials, when Trixie was here?” Rarity hissed at the question, finding it difficult to give a straight answer.

“Well… Have you ever heard of the term ‘transfiguration’?” Twilight’s eyes widened at the realization, her mouth was agape at the knowledge.

“Are you telling me that you… Wow! Rarity! But how could I not see it! That’s a really rare use of magic! I’m very surprised that you know it! I was actually going to practice it myself, but not at the moment,” Rarity gave her a disapproving look that Twilight quickly caught. “What’s the matter?”

“The matter is that I don’t enjoy using it. It takes away from the satisfaction of creating my own pieces at my own merits!” she waved a dismissive hoof and continued. “Regardless, my point is that I cannot use magic like most unicorns can!” she suddenly realized what she had said and quickly added. “Oh, I’m sorry Twilight! I’d forgotten… I hope you don’t think any less of me for this rant,” her ears drooped and she sighed, she felt a hoof on her wither and looked up to see a smiling Twilight.

“Don’t worry, Rarity, I‘m not mad. I may not have my magic, but I can sure try to help you get more proficient at magic use, and don’t worry—this is between us,” she finished softly, placing a comforting hoof over Rarity's own.

Rarity’s lip quivered, an exaggerated smile showing in her face. “Thank you, Twilight.”

“So, what did I miss?” came Spike from another room, his claws dripping water behind him.

“Spike, did you forget to dry your hands again?” asked Twilight knowingly.

“Um… I’ll be back!” he ran back to the restroom, leaving behind two giggling mares.

Author's Notes:

This is part one of the chapter, mind you, this chapter won't be too plot heavy, nor will the following one. It was just something that I wanted to add, maybe some more character development here and there.

Not my best, but well, can't be always doing all serious in this. If you notice any mistakes, also, please let me know.

I will post the rest tomorrow, as I am on a tight schedule at the moment of this note. Enjoy!

Spoiler Notes 24 - 5/21/18

This was the first chapter where I tried to separate the episode I was using as a basis, and simply having it as background events from the proper focus in this one—I feel I mostly succeeded in that.

It's pretty obvious, but this is also where I begin working on Rarity; it was clear to me for a while that she was a bit too bitchy, so I did my best to begin that change.

This one was actually fairly easy to write, so I got excited that I was pretty much ready to be more consisten- yeah, I wish.