Songs of Innocence

Chapter 42: Pony Tales

(Writer's note: this is probably the most skippable, not plot-important chapter ever, so skip it if you want :D)

Fluttershy's cottage, many moons later

"She had finally found the end of the path. The entire time, it was leading her to the truth, and she finally found it. Now, she had no purpose. Some would say that that was bad, but it allowed her to take time to find a new path to walk on. It would take a long time for her to find a new one to walk that she could truly call her own." Fluttershy suddenly dropped her somber tone, and adopted a more excited one. "So in the meantime, do you want to hear some funny stories about her?"

The filly nodded eagerly, and Fluttershy grinned. "Great!" the mare continued, "Why don't we start with the story of how Sun became a fashion designer, and more importantly, got a job? And then, I can tell you the story of how she met Pinkie's sisters. And finally, the story of Sun convincing Gilda to forgive a certain shy pegasus... Even though it really should've been the other way around, if you ask me."

She flipped to a page in the old book, and showed the filly what seemed to be a page of a fashion magazine that was taken out and taped onto the old book's page. The page had a photo of a bat-pony model posing dramatically like a character from a manga that the filly knew but couldn't remember the name of. The outfit was an intricately-designed jet black jacket with numerous gold patterns all across it, and two long coattails that looked almost like rabbit ears. 

"Sun designed that jacket. People thought her designs were very impractical but also very interesting. She always would tell people that that was the point, but..." she chuckled. "I digress. Here's how she accidentally got Rarity's dream job."

Sun's house, many moons ago

"What?" Sun groaned, opening the door to see Rarity. 

"Sun! Listen to me!" Rarity commanded, speaking with a fast pace, "Flame Queen is coming to my boutique soon to review my designs, and I need you to help me win her over!" She grabbed the gloomy unicorn, and galloped towards the boutique. "She HAS to pick me to be her personal outfit designer, and all you need to do is to stand by me and tell her how good I am when I ask!"

"Who am I doing this for?" Sun asked with a lifeless tone as she struggled to keep up. 

"WHO?!" Rarity gasped, "Have you not read any fashion magazines for the past five months?! Flame Queen is the fashion icon! Everypony calls her the Tranquil Wildfire!" The two rushed into the boutique, and Rarity rushed around to make everything look extra organized, while Sun stood idly by. "Sun," Rarity barked, "think of some good things about me!" 

Sun was silent.

Rarity gasped, feeling insulted. Sun suddenly burst into laughter, and said, "I'm just kidding! Uh, you're... a really nice pony, and... very dedicated to the color white."

"Sun, it's okay. You can just agree with me when I say I'm good at something."

"Got it." Sun sat down, and took her sketchbook out of her bag, and started to draw in it as the two waited for Flame Queen to arrive. Rarity was so focused on organizing everything that she didn't even notice that Sun began to nod off, as she was still not fully awake. But a sudden knock from the door caused her to jolt awake. 

"No!" Rarity cried. "She can't be here already! I still need time to mentally prepare!"

Sun reassured her, "Don't worry about it. Here's a good thing I can say about you: you do really well in tense situations, so... y'know... don't worry about it."

"Thank you, Sun." She whispered to herself, "But it better be true." She opened the door, and was met with the sight of a tall, slender earth pony who she recognized as Flame Queen, as she remembered seeing her in a fashion magazine before. She had an interesting appearance. Her body was mostly black, with multicolored spots and red, tiger-like markings all over her body, and a black and turquoise jacket on her torso. Her eyes were calm and lidded, and she had an iridescent red and dark grey mane with yellow stripes to separate the two colors.