A prank by Rainbow Dash leaves Rarity stranded up in the branches of a tree. Trapped by the limitations of non-pegasi ponies when it comes to little matters like climbing down, Rarity contemplates her life.
Read it here
.
Tropes found in this story include:
- Beware the Nice Ones: The images which Rarity accidentally sculpts into the tree bark concerning her subconscious revenge fantasies against Rainbow are quite... detailed, enough to freeze Applejack in her verbal tracks and make Pinkie question whether one is physically possible. (Once Rarity sees it, she concludes that it is, but a touch of strategic double-jointing wouldn't hurt.) Also, Rarity responds to the assault of a particularly nasty bird by simply trapping it in her field and intimidating it into shutting up by offering to introduce it to Opal — which the bird seems to interpret as "I will feed you to my cat."
- Call-Back: To On The Application...; Pinkie Pie is sent along to Rarity to bear a message from Twilight, referring to how Rarity and Rainbow hung Twilight off of the town's central fountain in response to her Speed Dating experiment. Specifically, that because of that incident, Twilight isn't going to come and teleport Rarity down, at least not any time soon.
- Cue the Rain: Deliberately invoked. This happens exactly when Rarity says an appropriate feed line (basically daring the universe to make things worse) — which confirms to Rarity that Rainbow is still hanging around and watching her throughout the night.
- Disproportionate Retribution:
- Rarity, in response to Rainbow's complaints about invariably losing at the Bearers' poker nights, immediately explains that it's because Rainbow has absolutely no poker face at all, believing it's best to just tear the bandage off the wound. And when Rainbow doesn't initially want to believe her, Rarity follows up by describing many of her tells (some of which may apply in other aspects of life) in minute detail. For this, Rainbow strands Rarity in a tree.
- Later on, Rarity feels this way about Twilight's refusal to come and rescue her; she and Rainbow only left Twilight hung above the fountain for ten minutes, whilst she's been stranded in the tree for what might have been twelve hours at this point.
- Laser-Guided Karma: The story's ending; having stayed up all night to enjoy Rarity's suffering, Rainbow is just as eager to spend the day resting as Rarity. However, today is Diamond Tiara's birthday, and of course Mr. Rich filed a request with the Weather Bureau that Rainbow — and only Rainbow — be the one to create a special snowfall just for his daughter — something which takes no small amount of energy and can't readily be done while half-asleep Rarity takes no small amount of pleasure in pointing this out (along with her knowledge of Rainbow being out of sick days) to her tormentor before heading home to sleep.Rarity fed her cat. She went to the spa and took every hour necessary for getting her back into an acceptable condition, which put her into early afternoon. And then she trotted home, went into her bedroom, put on her sleep mask, and snuggled her body under the sheets, Opal curled up against the base of her restored tail.The Rich estate was much too far away for any sounds to carry, of course. There was no real way to pick up on the subtle noise of Rainbow Dash having to jerk herself awake every other minute, much less the frustrated demands of Mr. Rich wanting to know just why the special snowfall wasn't working out exactly as he'd requested or how the exhausted pegasus could keep veering into the side of the house, and surely it was impossible to truly have the seemingly-endless whining of his angry daughter, taking it out on the pony she'd see as responsible, reach white ears.But in her dreams, Rarity heard it all from a mere two body lengths away. And smiled.
- Logical Weakness: Even with their more human-like range of limb articulation, the configuration of pony bodies makes them very unsuited to climbing trees. (The short form: no grasping or prying digits, along with limbs which won't orient for wrap-and-shimmy.) Pegasi who can fly or unicorns who can teleport are exempt, obviously, but it poses pretty much an insurmountable obstacle for everypony else.
- New Powers as the Plot Demands: Defied. Rarity recognizes that her strictly average field strength isn't enough to levitate her down or even slow the fall enough for a safe landing — but then tries to teleport herself for the first time, reasoning that short-range journeys require very little power and Twilight has taken her along enough times to provide more than a rough idea of the necessary feel. She concentrates, focuses, uses as much energy as seems necessary — and conjures a thin layer of shimmering blue glass over her intended arrival point at the base of the tree. And deeper into the night, she attempts to use her wood sculpture spell to extrude ledges from the tree's trunk in a spiral staircase formation — but the resonance of her anger gets in the way, and she winds up carving images of revenge into the bark instead.
- Shout-Out: After being stranded in a tree, Rarity sadly makes the comment "Oh, bother," and then has the strange feeling it would be more appropriate if she were trapped in a too-tight Diamond Dog tunnel instead. This is a reference to the main character of Winnie the Pooh, specifically his Catchphrase and one story in particular where he eats too much and gets stuck in Rabbit's doorway.
