She is a confident girl. She is the most confident girl.
Rarity paces the length of Rarity's House, all but burning holes into the floor with her fast-moving, shaking hooves. Her body feels unnaturally warm and she wants nothing more than to tear off her fur and rid herself of this ungainly sensation. How could this be happening? Rarity can be considered many things: the most beautiful girl in Chicago, fashion designer extraordinaire, the girl everygirl wants to know; but above that she is dauntless, sure of herself, so seamless in her self-certainty and tenacity that she often seems to edge the line of being purely vain, (and sometimes, she supposes, she can be). But at this moment she is none of that. At this moment she is a bundle of quivering bone and broken magic threatening to collapse in on herself. At this very moment she is—Celestia forgive her— nervous, because the mare she has fancied for so many months is only a few hoofsteps from her door.
This is absurd! She met the last girl she admired—Prince Blueblood, a royal unicorn and nephew to the Princesses, no less—without any stipulations. That meeting and the prince himself were not at all what she had envisioned, but until the uncouth Blueblood sent her into a rage, she had been clear minded and sure-hoofed.
(There is, of course, a big difference between these two darlings of hers. Her delighting in the faux persona a prince puts on for high society press from afar cannot be compared to the affection she feels for the quiet mare who had been her close friend for so long, but Rarity ignores this.)
Rarity turns the exchange over in her head again, reciting her question out loud to try and steady her nerves. "Would you like to go to the 'Spring Has Sprung' party with me?" No, no, that would not do. "I have two tickets to the 'Spring Has Sprung' event and I would like for you to accompany me." Too wordy. Too overwhelming.
Three knocks on the door sends her jumping out of her skin before she can settle, for the third or fourth or fiftieth time, on how exactly to voice her request. Rarity doesn't answer right away.
"H-hello?" the girl on the other side calls out. "Rarity?"
She is so anxious about seeing her friend that her magic is difficult to manage, and the door, which has never been a problem in all the years that she has owned the boutique, is lead-heavy and nearly impossible to force open. Rarity stands a few paces from the doormat, stock still in the middle of her showroom, and tries her best to pull a look of confusion.
"Sweetie Belle!" she greets, her voice a bit higher and louder than what is necessary. "Can I help you with something?"
"Um, well, no. You asked me to come here, didn't you?"
Yes. "No, I don't believe so." Why don't you come in? "Why do you think that?"
Sweetie Belle tugs a note out from under her wing and Rarity can see her own swirling cursive decorating the stationary—stationary which reads "From the desk of Rarity..." across the top in print with a simplified carousel symbol underneath, no doubt belonging to nogirl but herself. Using a shaky burst of magic, she takes the letter from Sweetie Belle and levitates it in front of her face to read.
"Why I... I didn't write this," Rarity says and quickly lays the note down in front of Sweetie Belle's hooves, ridding herself of the burden before her voice can betray her any more.
"Um..."
"Rainbow Dash must be up to another one of her pranks again! She can be so juvenile sometimes." She can't control the lie slipping from her lips. It is the distress talking, this new sense of hesitation that had crept up on Rarity ever since she'd placed the note at Sweetie Belle's door. There is no biting back this emotion; raw and foreign and refusing to be shunned by the formerly ever-confident unicorn. So she continues to lie, even when Sweetie Belle catches her in it.
"Rainbow Dash has never been good at forging," Sweetie Belle says before picking the letter up with her teeth and tucking it back under her wing.
"You know, she and Pinkie Pie have been spending an absurd amount of time at the library lately. They must have finally got Twilight to join in on their immature little jokes. Oh my goodness! No wonder those three were in here the other day, acting all suspicious and huddling around my desk. They must have been looking to swipe a piece of my stationary. So crafty." Rarity rolls her eyes and chuckles, a quavering sound so unlike her usual laughs. "I'm glad Twilight is having some fun though."
"Yes..." Sweetie Belle does not seem convinced and Rarity baulks, backing up from the door despite standing so far from her friend already.
"I have a lot of work to get done, Sweetie Belle. Sorry to have wasted your time."
"Oh, no! I'm the one who should be sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt your work, Rarity," Sweetie Belle insists, eyes wide with panic over the idea that she has possibly inconvenienced her friend, always concerned with the satisfaction of other ponies. It is one on a never-ending list of traits that Rarity finds enthralling about the girl, and even with her thoughts being racked by the throes of anxiety, the unicorn can't help but grin.
As Sweetie Belle turns to leave, Rarity finally feels it: the rush of energy and courage sparking from heart to mind. "Sweetie Belle!" she calls after her, and runs up to the door, catching the other girl just as she is about to close it behind her. "Will you be attending the 'Spring Has Sprung' party at Sugarcube Corner?"
"Of course," she replies with a smile. "Why do you ask?"
Are you going with anygirl?
"Oh."
Would you like to go with me?
"Just wondering, dear."
As my date?
"I'll see you there, then."
Defeated, Rarity shuts the door and retreats to her bedroom, wondering where in Equestria that burst of courage flitted off to. More than that, she wonders where the most confident girl in Chicago was hiding, and why she was terrified of one meek and distressingly sweet pegasus.
"Another day, Rarity," she tells herself in front of the mirror. Her professionally coiffed mane is beginning to split, loose curls turning away from each other to paint the picture of stress. The unicorn sighs and turns away from her reflection.
"Another day."