The fabulous unicorn's coat was beautiful, shining almost white in the sun, but not actually white, if you know anything about colors.
"Another beautiful day," Rarity sighed as she looked up in the sky seeing Rainbow Dash, Twilight Sparkle and Fluttershy flying around together. Applejack was back at the farm doing gross apple stuff, and Pinkie Pie was out of town throwing a party for some earth pony hobos in the desert. Rarity had finished all of her orders for the week early, but not found herself with nothing to occupy her time. She had to find something to do... something that didn't involve being around Spike.
Rarity found her hooves getting covered with dust as she was absent-mindedly grinding them into the ground. She heard her three winged friends sharing a laugh up in the sky. Were they talking about her, knowing she could not hear them from down on the ground? These are the things that Rarity worries about. She huffed and trotted back to her house to clean off her hooves.
After a nice, warm bath, Rarity stood in front of a mirror admiring herself and styling her mane. "Stupid Twilight and her wings... being the only interesting unicorn in Ponyville sure is boring and exhausting," said Rarity, entirely unaware that her interesting unicorn sister was standing behind her waiting to ask a question. Rarity continued to examine herself in the mirror for several minutes as Sweetie Belle sulked with hurt feelings and eventually left to go look for Apple Bloom and Scootaloo.
Then Rarity got an idea and ran to the library.
Hours later in the library, Twilight and Rarity were still arguing with each other. Rarity had asked her to cast a temporary wing spell again, but Twilight was refusing to cooperate. Twilight had done so much to earn her wings and resented the idea of just casting a spell to give them to Rarity again, but didn't say that because Rarity was a friend and sometimes you just can't be honest to your friends.
"You almost died last time," Twilight said.
Rarity paused for a moment to think about the experience she had had. It seemed like it was a long time ago that it happened.
"Sure, Twilight darling," Rarity responded, "But this time I'm not going to fly close to the sun. Or anywhere more than a few feet off the ground."
"It was hard to cast," Twilight said, her face worn down from spending all evening dealing with a fussy demanding drama queen.
"But that was in season one! You're so much more powerful now," Rarity stated.
"Well, that's true, but it's a dangerous spell. We don't know what sort of crazy side effects could happen," Twilight lectured.
"Ple-ee-ee-ease," pleaded Rarity as she made a sad face. "I'm so bored being me."
Twilight had reached her breaking point; there was only one way this discussion was going to end.
"Fine, I'll do it.
"When we're done, we'll have a celebration!" Rarity said as she perked up and started to bounce up and down excitedly and make Rarity noises.
"Spike can't come."
Meanwhile in another universe, Barry B. Benson's boutique was bustling in the days leading up to Valentine's Day. Sales were booming for the smug bee, and he sat in the rafters at the top of the store, looking down at the idiot humans who rushed in to hand over fat stacks of cash in exchange for plants that were going to be dead in a few days. A week ago they could have bought the same flowers for less than half of what they were paying now.
The unremarkable woman who worked in the shop looked up at him from the ground and cleared her throat.
"Barry, we're running low on a few things," said the flat character, "There's a list in the storage room. Can you go back there, look at it and see if we can get more in stock before closing tonight?"
Barry sighed at having to do work, and slowly flew through a door at the back of the shop. He buzzed over to the shelf in the back corner of the room and examined a clipboard that had been nailed to the wall.
"What is the deal with tiger lillies," Barry mused towards nobody in particular. "They're not striped; in fact, there's nothing remotely cat-like about them at all!"
Barry stopped and looked around the storage room. Who was he talking to? There was no one else in there. Barry, but an explosion of tapioca pudding-like goo burst from the ceiling and covered.
"Bzzzz!" he buzzed angrily, unable to crack a witty joke because he was covered in pudding. Then he disappeared in a burst of purple energy.
The next day, Rarity was flapping around enjoying her fancy wings. She loved being able to go places without getting dust on her hooves and flying around provided a distraction because she didn't have the Internet. Her giddy frolicking in the flower fields outside Ponyville was cut short when she heard a mild groaning and looked down to see an odd-looking bee writhing on the ground.
"Oh shit, what happened to me?" groaned the bee.
"Wow, a talking bee," said Rarity observantly.
The bee shook off his dizziness and glanced up.
"Oh, a talking horse," he responded sarcastically as he dusted himself off, relieved to be free of his previous pudding prison. "My name is Barry. Now tell me where I…"
Barry stopped mid-sentence when he saw the brilliant colors of Rarity's wings with the sunlight reflecting off of them.
"Your wings are so pretty," he mused
"I know, they are, aren't they?" responded Rarity. "My friends think I'm mad for liking them so much, but they really complete the look for me. Also you are very handsome for a bee."
The two were infatuated with each other immediately, and as Rarity tried to tell Barry where he was, and Barry tried to figure out how he got to Equestria, their two souls formed a common bond based on being underappreciated by worlds that had no reason to appreciate them to begin with. Rarity's shoulders got sore from flapping her wings, and Barry flew up and gave her a sensual massage. Human women wouldn't let him do stuff to them, but maybe magical talking ponies with butterfly wings were different.
"Barry, that feels so nice," Rarity moaned.
They rolled around in the flowers together.
"Oh, Barry," Rarity said. "I love being covered in your pollen!"
Barry shrugged and looked the non-white unicorn in the eyes.
"Well, technically, it's not my pollen. It comes from the flowers and it really belongs to all of us, and when I think..."
"Shut up and kiss me you sexy bee," said Rarity as she used her magic to pull Barry up to her snout and gently press his bee lips against hers.
The two of them spent the rest of the afternoon in the fields, expressing their love physically and pausing in between to discuss fashion, flowers and pollen.
Their lustful rendezvous was interrupted by Twilight, who had discovered what had happened and rushed to the meadow to tell them that they had to send Barry back to Bee World, or the entire fabric of reality would collapse. That's just how things work and nobody can prove otherwise. He would be able to visit on weekends in the summer, but had to leave now because it was Tuesday.
The ritual to return Barry was going to be intensely complicated, giving him and Rarity time to return to the Carousel Boutique to say goodbye.
"Goodbye, Barry," said Rarity sadly, as Barry started to walk out of the Carousel Boutique.
Barry slowly walked toward the door, then turned back to look at Rarity one more time.
"Don't worry, I'll bee back," he said with an asymmetrical smirk.
Just then, the door burst open and Sweetie Belle charged in with the other Cutie Mark Crusaders (except Babs because she doesn't count) following close behind.
"Rarity, you won't believe what we found!" Sweetie Belle squeaked excitedly, "We..."
Sweetie Belle's eager sentence and gallop were abruptly halted as she stood in the entry way of the boutique with a confused look on her face.
"Did I step in something?" pondered the tiny unicorn as she turned over her front right hoof and drew it toward her face to examine it. There was a crunchy, gooey mess stuck on the bottom of it and a small smudge on the tile where Barry B. Benson had been standing moments before.
Scootaloo and Apple Bloom drew close to examine.
"Looks gross... let's go wash it off with Applejack's hose!" said Apple Bloom. With a flash, the three CMCs disappeared out the door.
Rarity quivered in shock. Seeing the love of your life trampled to death by your sister will do that to anyone. It was no consolation to her that Barry had only suffered for a couple seconds, especially since they were the most incredibly painful seconds that anyone had ever experienced ever. She had no words. A single tear leaked from her left eye and ran down the side of her muzzle. It stung.