Sweetie Belle’s pencil glided swiftly over the page, trailing behind it a smooth, curved line of graphite as the unicorn’s magic propelled it along. Pleased with the flowing curve she had drawn, Sweetie lifted the pencil and drew another, slightly beneath it. The evening gown was taking shape on the page, looking every bit as good on paper as it had in her mind. She was still waiting for a day when Rarity would have enough free time to teach her the art of dressmaking, but until then she often found herself idly doodling out designs she’d like to make someday.

The door to the classroom opened, and both Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon hurried inside. Their manes and tails were horribly mangled by the wind, and both fillies fought briefly to wrestle the stubborn hair back into a respectable shape. The weather outside was still sunny and warm as it had been for the past many days, but an almost gale-force wind had been blowing through the entire town for hours. Sweetie and a few other ponies had elected to stay indoors at recess, but the majority had still gone outside. Apparently Diamond and Silver now regretted this decision, as their beautifully styled manes had been blown into disarray.

Sweetie Belle had glanced up at them when she heard the door swing open, but immediately looked back at her drawing once she saw who had come in. They’d not stopped nor slowed their taunting since the little silver tiara had appeared on Diamond Tiara’s flank at the beginning of the week. Sweetie had endured, but still shied away from the duo whenever she could.

“What’s that there, Sweetie Belle?” Diamond’s arrogantly aristocratic voice asked as the pair of them approached. “Oh, it’s a drawing. Of a dress.”

She had learned from experience that aloof or standoffish behavior only served to egg them on; better to at least attempt to be civil, in hopes they would get bored and simply leave her alone. “I’m trying to get my sister Rarity to show me how to make dresses like she does so I can be a designer, too,” she explained. “I’m just practicing my designs and coming up with things I’d like to make for myself someday.”

“How fitting…” Silver Spoon commented.

“Fitting?”

“That sounds like typical blank flank thinking to me: too dense to earn your cutie mark by coming up with your own special talent? Just imitate somepony else! How pathetic.”

“Now, now, Silver Spoon,” Diamond sarcastically defended before Sweetie could say anything herself, “you never know. Maybe a talent for cobbling pieces of fabric together runs in the family or something.”

“I sure hope it does,” Sweetie enthused, the sarcasm flying right over her head. “I wish I was as good as her at making clothes.”

Diamond and Silver exchanged brief smug grins, as if a devious idea had been hatched to capitalize on Sweetie’s gullibility. “Well, I’m quite an authority on design myself,” Diamond lied. “Let me see what you have and I can tell you if it’s something a respectable pony would wear.”

Sweetie gave up the paper, and Diamond swept it over with a hoof. As she studied it, she picked up Sweetie’s pencil in her mouth so she could alter the design any way she felt necessary. It was a loose and flowing gown, featuring elegantly shaped, wavy folds of fabric that seemed to pour off the flanks like a lively river. Rarity would have recognized the design instantly as a blatant rip-off of her own theme, the one established for the current Manehattan commission. To somepony who had not seen those designs—Diamond Tiara, for instance—would surely be led to believe that Sweetie had actual talent at designing gowns.

“This is…good…” Diamond started, actually impressed with the design and all the more determined to humiliate its creator, “But you might want to just smooth this part out a bit. Sleek shapes are in this season.”

A few scrubs with the eraser of Sweetie’s pencil rid the design of the waves in the river that spilled down the dress’s flanks, leaving just a plain sheet fastened to the wearer’s back. Silver Spoon caught onto her cohort’s plan and fished a pencil of her own from her saddlebags.

“And all this up front,” Silver pointed out, “all this is very…old-fashioned. Let me make it a bit more modern.” A few swipes of her own pencil, and the design was improved once again. Diamond then suggested that the back of the dress be cut shorter so it wouldn’t drag on the floor. Then Silver objected to the choice of accessories. Diamond suggested adding another layer of straight-cut fabric in the middle. Silver claimed the whole thing was immodest and made it a bit less revealing. In this manner the two fillies worked over the design, the painstakingly-detailed plan Sweetie Belle had worked on for several hours until it looked “just right.” She was eager to see their alterations once they finally finished, just minutes before class was to begin once more.

Sweetie gasped as the image reached her eyes. The dress, once a long, elegant, flowing formal gown, dripping with lace and adorned with diamonds, was now a plain, apologetic white hooded shawl that could be made out of nothing more than a bed sheet and safety pin. Hours of work had been wasted, erased into oblivion.

“It’s so plain!” Sweetie Belle exclaimed. “This isn’t glamorous, this is…this is…blank!”

Diamond Tiara’s lips formed a devious grin. “Well, you did say you were trying to design something for you to wear. I think it suits you very well.”

“Especially the flanks,” Silver added. With that, the both of them turned and left for their own classroom, giggling their cocky, mean-spirited giggle the whole way out the door.

The old oak tree on the corner of the Ponyville town center hardly noticed when a little orange pegasus slumped moodily against it. She pouted and crossed her forelegs, completely fed up with the world around her. An older pegasus noticed the filly’s sullen attitude and swooped in to try and cheer her up.

“Wow...” she said, leaning her head down from the sky so the filly could see. “Looks like somepony’s got a dark cloud over their head! Let me take care of that for you.” She flew up and circled around, kicking her strong legs into the small, pitch-black cloud she had positioned directly above the tree before announcing her presence. It scooted across the sky, heading out over the row of houses edging the square. “That’s better,” she said as she landed on the grass beside the filly’s blue scooter. “Now what’s got you down?”

“Oh, wow, Rainbow Dash!” the filly’s eyes brightened. “That was a really cool trick!”

“Yeah, I thought so,” Rainbow Dash acknowledged, standing proudly before her admirer so that her rainbow mane hung loose around her shoulders. “I’m definitely using that one again.”

“You’re definitely the most awesome pony in Ponyville,” she adored. “I bet you wouldn’t be having the kind of problems I am.” She sat back down beside the tree, looking even more upset than before, despite the presence of her hero.

“You’re Scootaloo, right?” Dash recalled. “I think I’ve seen you around before. What’s a talented young athlete like yourself doing cowering by a tree like this?”

“I don’t have my cutie mark yet.”

“So?”

“I’m the only one left in my whole class who’s still a blank flank. All the other fillies have theirs, and they’ve been making fun of me all week.”

“Maybe your cutie mark is gonna be so awesome that it’s just letting the other fillies have their fun being the best before one day, POW! You’re the coolest filly in school and nopony even cares about the haters anymore.”

“Maybe,” Scootaloo admitted. “I just wish they’d all leave me alone.”

“You have to stand up to them!” Rainbow Dash set her hind legs in a wide, powerful stance. “Show ‘em who’s boss! Let ‘em know that just because you don’t have a cutie mark doesn’t mean you won’t stand up and fight when somepony’s trying to make a joke out of you!”

“Yeah!” Scootaloo leapt into the air, eagerly accepting her hero’s advice without question. “Thanks, Rainbow Dash. I should have known you’d have the answers.”

“Of course I do,” she boasted. “You come find me if they give you any more trouble, okay?”

“Okay!” Rainbow crouched and flared her wings, about to make a dramatic show of her takeoff. “Wait! There’s one more thing.”

Rainbow aborted the takeoff, folding her wings away. “What’s that?”

“Uh…Diamond Tiara’s cute-ceañera is this weekend. I…uh…would you want to go with me? I was thinking about not going since I don’t have my cutie mark, but if you went with me I’d feel a lot better about it. It’s going to be a really fun party.”

“Sure thing, Scoot. I’ll be there. I promise.” With that, the rainbow pegasus took off into the sky, leaving a rainbow trail hanging faintly in the air behind her. Scootaloo gazed up in wonder, watching her idol disappear. She couldn’t wait for tomorrow. Then she’d show those stuck-up fillies that she wasn’t going to let their hate get her down.

On the upper floor of the Carousel Boutique, the sight of half-finished garments laying haphazardly on the backs of dress form mannequins was beginning to worry the establishment’s proprietor. The commission’s deadline was looming precariously over her head, and she still had quite a lot of work to do. She heard the bell jingle downstairs, announcing Sweetie Belle’s arrival home from school. Rarity could scarcely believe it; it couldn’t be that time of day already, could it?

Sweetie’s little hooves clopped up the stairs and carried her into the workshop. As she had done every other day of the week, she stood at the door and magically moved her saddlebags to the floor directly adjacent the doorframe. She looked around, an even more melancholic expression on her face today than the days before.

The workshop was a mess. Four dress forms stood near the sewing machine and workbench at the far end of the room, all draped in various unfinished pieces of dresses. Bolts of cloth lay scattered on the floor, along with the scraps that had been cut from them. Rarity’s beautiful purple mane was now disheveled and scruffy, barely retaining the elegant curls she normally brushed it into. Her red glasses never left their perch, though by now they only served to highlight how much her exhaustion had sapped her eyes of their vibrant, lively color.

“Rarity…” Sweetie Belle sighed. “I know you’re busy, but I need to talk to you about Diamond Tiara.”

“I’m sorry, darling, but this really isn’t a good time,” Rarity declined, her horn perpetually glowing as she changed tasks a dozen times, so overwhelmed by her workload that she couldn’t decide if she wanted to start cutting the next major piece of her design, sew the lace trimming onto the piece she had just attached, or start working on the matching hat and come back to the dress later. Scissors, thread, needles, measuring tapes, and all manner of cloth flew around her head, her designer’s mind unable to focus on a single item when there was just so much left to do.

“This whole week hasn’t been a good time,” Sweetie protested. “I’ve been trying to talk to you about this since she first got her cutie mark!”

“I know that, Sweetie Belle, and I’m sorry. I really am. I’m just so busy with this order. We can talk about it when I finish, okay?”

“But the party is the day after tomorrow, and I still don’t know whether or not I should go!” Sweetie Belle stamped a hoof on the floor in frustration. “Diamond and Silver haven’t stopped harassing me about my cutie mark, and they even ruined the evening gown I designed just so they could make fun of me! They’re so mean! But everybody else in the class is going to the party and if I don’t go it’ll be just as embarrassing as if I showed up without my cutie mark.”

“Oh, they’re just being typical school fillies, Sweetie Belle,” Rarity dismissed. “Everypony goes through that phase at some point in their lives. They’ll grow out of it. Just try and tough it out until then. You can do it.”

“That’s it?” Sweetie’s voice hardened and her eyebrows pointed down in frustrated anger. “That’s all the advice you have for me? Your little sister is being ridiculed every single day for things she can’t even control, and all you can say is ‘tough it out’?”

“Sweetie, I’m sorry,” Rarity apologized defensively, setting down her equipment for the first time in days and actually addressing her sister’s accusation, “but if I stop to hold your hand and coddle you, then I’m going to lose this commission. My Manehattan reputation is too small to survive that kind of blow—all my regular customers will stop placing orders out of fear. If that happens, I’m limited to Ponyville. I’m sure you can see how few ponies here have need for a dressmaker when they can scarcely be bothered to put on clothes of any sort at all. So that means if I lose this commission, if I take time out to help you deal with your insignificant social problems, then the Carousel Boutique will be out of business by the end of the year. Do you understand that, Sweetie Belle? Do you?”

“I guess…” Sweetie Belle stared at the floor. She still felt anger towards her sister for having been ignored so much, but now Rarity had convinced her, at least in part, that her reliance on her sister for guidance was actually a selfish act that threatened their entire livelihood. On top of all that was the ever-present pressure coming from Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon as they used the class’s one remaining blank flank as a social punching bag just so they could get some cheap laughs. It was a cruel, vicious set of circumstances, and Sweetie Belle felt hopelessly trapped in her own emotions.

“Now can you please let me work in peace?” Rarity pleaded. “I’ll make good on my promises, Sweetie, I assure you. We’ll talk all about cutie marks and special talents when I finish this commission. You have my word on it. I will not let you down.”

“If that’s what you want.” Sweetie Belle retreated from the workshop once more, feeling even more defeated than ever. She dragged her bags behind her into the guest bedroom, climbed onto the bed, buried her face in the pillows, and cried.

Next Chapter: Chapter 4 Estimated time remaining: 55 Minutes