Once upon a time, there was a girl who lost everything.
She was a great beauty, the loveliest young woman in her town. She had marvelous skill with needle and thread, and an unsurpassed sense of style and grace. When she went out into town, wearing the clothes that she had made herself, throwing her luscious violet hair over her white shoulder, all the men would call out her name.
But the vain and capricious Changeling Queen, watching through the eyes of her million changeling spies, saw her and felt envy. For though Queen Chrysalis was beautiful in the manner of the Fae, she was cruel, and that cruelty shone through to all who saw her. No heart would willingly love one who was so full of frost, and Chrysalis desired love more than anything. So she kidnapped the girl from her home under the light of the full moon and brought her to her stronghold in the forest.
Chrysalis held the girl for three days. On the first day she took away the girl's sense of direction, so that she could not make her way back to the town. On the second day the queen took away her name and cursed her to never have another, so that the girl could not answer when others went looking for her. But on the third day, the day that Chrysalis was to have taken her beauty, the girl used her skill as a seamstress to fashion a disguise and escape the Queen's minions into the forest.
But because the Queen had taken her sense of direction, she knew not where to go. The girl wandered, lost in the heart of the woods, from clearing to clearing. Her cries echoed through the silent trees, and she despaired that she would fade into a wraith. One day, when her hope was nearly gone, she saw a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye. It could have been a deer or a rabbit, but something deep inside her told her it was neither. The girl sat down on a rock in that clearing and waited.
She saw movement a few more times, timid and tentative, before what was moving in the bushes revealed itself. It was a lovely forest spirit, appearing as a woman clad in branches and leaves, with hair made of vines that draped over one eye. She was called Sweetie Belle, because she was the most cautious creature of the forest, and because butterflies flocked around her in a flickering cloud. She was drawn to the girl's loveliness, and her curiosity overcame her shyness.
Sweetie Belle asked the girl her name, and she was saddened when she heard that it had been taken by Queen Chrysalis. Sweetie Belle was afraid of a great many things, but even the mention of the Changeling Queen would make her hide behind a bush until the girl coaxed her out again. She tried to give the girl a name, but none would stay in their minds.
Sweetie Belle and the girl talked for hours, and when she sun set and the forest grew cold and misty, the spirit wrapped them both in a blanket of leaves for the night. The next day, she taught the girl how to collect food in the woods, and how to make a fire for warmth. Hungry and weary of traveling, the girl stayed with Sweetie Belle, happy to have found such a kind soul in the wilderness.
As the weeks moved on and winter's chill subsided to the first hints of spring warmth, the two women found themselves falling in love. The girl, to the spirit's open heart and preternatural kindness; and Sweetie Belle, to the girl's grace and skill and endless generosity. The girl missed her arts, and she feared she would lose her talent with long disuse, so Sweetie Belle showed her how to make clothes from the things of the forest. Broad leaves she made into cloaks, and pine boughs into hats, and butterflies made themselves brooches when they landed on her. So with her art regained, and her love close at hand, she was happy.
But in time, the Changeling Queen found out where the girl had escaped to, and her fury rose in her gorge. She no longer wanted to take the girl's beauty away; now she would only be content with ending her life. First she sent a pack of hounds to drag her back, but Sweetie Belle intercepted them. She stared at them, and they saw her true nature, and they returned to their master with their tails between their legs. Then Chrysalis sent a swarm of changelings to tear the girl apart, but they were still little more than beasts, and again Sweetie Belle sent them back from whence they came.
Finally, the Changeling Queen herself came to Sweetie Belle's clearing to claim what she felt was hers. She was wreathed in all her magics and royal fury, and she tried to bully the lesser spirit into relinquishing the girl. Sweetie Belle stood firm. Chrysalis hammered at her with spell after spell, weakening her, withering the plants around her. The Changeling Queen knew a thousand curses, each more terrible than the last. But Sweetie Belle looked back and saw the girl looking at her with love and fear in her eyes, and she stayed, defiant. She did not fear the Queen's thousand curses, for she had learned a thousand and one terms of affection in her time with the girl.
Sweetie Belle's love outlasted Chrysalis' hate. Finally, after hours of battle, the queen collapsed before them, beaten and spent. She looked up at the girl with one final bargain – if she let Chrysalis go, she could have her name back.
The girl didn't even need to look back at Sweetie Belle to know what her answer would be. Her name was just a thing that the men back in the town would call to her; it meant nothing to her now, that she had found true love. The girl took Chrysalis' life with a single strike and no remorse.
And with her passing the curse was lifted; the girl could be given a name again. And Sweetie Belle told her that she had always had a name for the girl in her heart; a name she had dared not voice lest it be lost to the curse. She spoke it now, and named her Rarity, for only the rarest of creatures could inspire such courage and devotion in the forest's meekest guardian.
And they lived happily ever after.