“Twilight! How lovely to see you! To what do I - oh, oh my.”
Rarity’s chipper greeting tailed off somewhat when she worked out what it was that was casting the shadow across her doorstep and found herself looking up at Jack, blocking out the sunshine.
“Hello tiny Rarity,” he said, giving a tiny wave to a tiny Rarity who - at a bit of a loss for words - could naught but give a tiny wave back.
“Uh,” she said, fumbling, then clearing her throat and letting her composure reassert itself: “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Twilight didn’t say anything and instead looked to Jack, but Jack was looking at Rarity and waiting for Twilight to speak. Even coughing from Twilight failed to get anything done so she ended up having to bump into his leg, which was rather like bumping into a tree trunk. Got his attention, though.
“What?” He asked, looking down to find Twilight jerking her head towards Rarity. “Oh, right. Uh, Rarity, sorry to impose and sorry if I’m interrupting anything but would you mind maybe possibly making me something to wear? Don’t worry if it’s too much of a bother or anything.”
The more Jack spoke the more apologetic he sounded, wringing the curtain wrapped around his waist and only able to glance up at Rarity to try and gauge how his words were being received. For a big guy, he looked remarkably tiny at that moment.
Rarity smiling was rather like the sun breaking through the clouds, and his relief was palpable.
“It’s no bother at all! Come in, come in. I must say, I’ve rather missed working on something a touch more challenging and different,” she said, stepping aside and pulling the door fully open. Twilight went in first because Jack silently insisted, and he followed.
Jack had - with a few exceptions - always had to duck to get through the doorways of Equestria. Recently though he’d also had to start turning a little to the side to get through some of the narrower ones. The door to the Boutique was one such door, and he did it without thinking. Twilight noticed, though, and chewed on her lip.
“Where do I go?” Jack asked, peering around.
“This way,” Rarity said, leading on through a wide doorway into an attached room with mirrors. “There, if you’d be so kind,” she said, pointing to the raised portion of the floor surrounded by the mirrors.
Jack did as he was told, and noticed that he was too tall to actually see himself in the mirrors. Worse things had happened, he reckoned.
Rarity - who had trotted off to retrieve a notepad, pencil and measuring tape - came trotting back and stopped by Jack’s side, having to crane her neck a little now to look up at him properly. She’d put her glasses on, too.
“Now, what did you have in mind?” She asked and Jack, bewildered, turned to Twilight who was bringing up the rear.
“Uh, what did I have in mind?” He asked her. Twilight shrugged.
“You’ll be the one wearing them, you tell her.”
“Uh, just...stuff so I won’t be naked?” Jack ventured.
This didn’t give Rarity a whole lot to go on and she considered the problem silently for a moment or two, eyes narrowed as she took a few steps back to properly get Jack in view. Whether this gave her an inspiration was unclear, because what she came out with was:
“Rather like what you had when you and I first met?”
“Yes! Yes like that exactly. If you can remember.”
Jack barely, which troubled him a tiny bit before he shoved the worry right back down again and did his best not to think about it. Rarity, horn glowing, opened a drawer on the other side of the room and floated some papers over.
“I can. What’s more, I kept the designs from the last items I made for you.”
The last items having been a few more pairs of trousers and a few more rather plain t-shirts after the design of the one he’d arrived in, along with some other sundry items just so that he’d had more than one set of clothes. Sensible, all had agreed, and very well done thanks to Rarity.
“Ooh, smrt,” Jack said, nodding, impressed, and Rarity beamed. Twilight just appeared a little puzzled.
“Think you missed out a vowel there.”
“It was a joke, Twilight,” he said.
“Ah, I get it,” she said, not getting it.
“Your dimensions don’t appear to have changed overmuch, though measurements taken should still make any requisite alterations obvious, sizing the originals up will not be difficult,” Rarity said, having been busy consulting her previous designs while the other two had been talking - she had not really been paying attention.
“Damn Rarity, it’s like you do this for a living or something,” Jack said.
“Quite. Now if you’d be so kind as to hold your arms out for me, Jack.”
He did so, and Rarity flexed her magic to start on the measuring.
The moment the tape measure got within an inch or two of Jack whatever magic had held it snapped off and it fluttered to the ground, landing alongside her notepad and pencil, which had also dropped the instant the magic had gone. Rarity, horn sputtering, blinked in shock.
“Oh,” she said. Jack just chuckled.
“Hurr, antimagic.”
Rarity frowned at him and retrieved the tape measure, magic a little wobbly at first but quickly reasserting itself.
“If you knew that was going to happen you could have told me.”
“Forgot,” he said. No-one present believed this, not even him.
Perhaps over-optimistically Rarity tried the same thing again, with the same results. That time it took her two tries to levitate the fallen tape measure off the floor and she seemed a little woozy as a result.
“Oh my,” she said, draping the tape over her neck and putting a hoof to her forehead. “That’s rather more severe, isn’t it? That didn’t happen the last time we did this.”
“I’ve always thought of myself as a Pariah,” Jack said, adding: “Sorry.”
“It’s quite alright. We’re going to have to do this somewhat differently. Um, back in a moment!”
Rarity wandered off and out of the room.
“Pariah?” Twilight asked. Jack shrugged.
“Human reference. I make a lot of them.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“They kind of remind me of home,” he said, apologetically.
“Oh,” said Twilight, who could not come up with anything else to add to that.
Rarity wandered back into the room, bringing a not-insignificant stepladder with her which she proceeded to set up beside Jack. Once satisfied that it was set and stable she climbed it, the sight of which delighted Jack who could not fathom how a race of quadrupeds had ended up also inventing stepladders.
Or tape measures, for that matter. Or teacups. Or half the things they had invented.
Or saddles.
Probably not worth getting too caught up on, he reckoned.
“I haven’t had to do this in a long time!” Rarity said with a breathless laugh, wobbling slightly at the top until Jack steadied her.
“A misspent youth climbing ladders?” He asked, winking. Rarity actually winked back, and Jack’s delight only deepend.
“A lady couldn’t possibly say. Now, you’re going to have to help me here, Jack, just hold the tape where I tell you to,” Rarity said, tugging the tape measure off from her neck and taking it in her mouth, passing an end to Jack who took it.
“Can do,” he said.
“Twilight, could you be a dear and note down the measurements as I make them?” Rarity asked from atop the ladder.
Twilight - taking up Rarity pad and pencil - nodded with far more grit and determination than the situation demanded.
Once certain that Twilight was ready, Rarity looked to the task at hand.
“Could you be a dear, Jack, and just hold your hand there, please? A little higher - that’s good.”
Jack, as so often in his life, did as he was told and Rarity squinted at the end of the measure she was holding. How she was managing to do all this - maintaining balance while juggling a tape measure between mouth and hooves - was a mystery. Jack was deeply impressed.
“You’ve grown a fair amount since the last time I did this,” Rarity said.
This much was obvious to everyone, presumably Rarity was just surprised by how much Jack had grown. He saw a great opening and went for it:
“Wink,” said Jack, just about managing an actual wink at the same time. His first one earlier had been a fluke.
Rarity deigned not to respond this time. He could understand why. Instead she just rattled off a measurement to Twilight, who duly jotted it down.
It went on like this for some time. Rarity not being able to magically take measurements drastically slowed the pace at which she worked, though her concentration and dedication were immense and obvious. Twilight made notes, and Jack did his part by holding the tape where he was asked to and keeping his mouth shut.
After an excruciating number of minutes of going up and down the ladder and of wrangling a tape measure - and the less said about measuring the inside leg the better - it was done, and Rarity had what she needed.
“That was involved,” Jack said, draping the tape over Rarity’s neck again before lifting her back down to the floor. She squeaked at this, but after the surprise passed accepted it gratefully.
“It was, rather,” she said while doing her best to fix what parts of her mane had fallen out of place during the process, gratefully receiving the notepad from Twilight when she came in to pass it over.
“Can already feel the inspiration tingling up and down your spine?” Jack asked, stepping down from the raised, mirrored part of the room. This did very little to diminish his height, and he continued to loom over both of the ponies present.
“‘Inspiration’ isn’t exactly the word I would use, all things considered - I imagine that you’d prefer something - ergh - practical and hard-wearing?” Rarity asked. The last part came out as though the words themselves didn’t fit comfortably in her mouth.
“Well, you know me. I’m a rough-and-tumble kind of guy. But I also have no idea about what goes into what you do, so you do whatever think is best, Rarity. I bow to your considerable wisdom and experience,” he said, bowing. Rarity tapped a hoof to her chin.
“I’m sure there can be a compromise between practicality and fashion,” she said.
This did seem a likely possibility. Certainly, not impossible.
“Undoubtedly!” Jack said.
A general sense of wellbeing settled on the three of them as they meandered back into the first, main room of the boutique, drifting towards the door.
“I should have something ready for you in a little over an hour, I’d think, just to keep you decent,” Rarity said. Jack gave a whistle.
“An hour? That’s pretty fucking impressive, Rarity,” he said, but she waved it off.
“Well, it’ll just be something rough-and-ready - I can hardly bear to see you in that, uh, what is that?” She asked, waving a hoof at the curtain wrapped around Jack’s waist. He gave it a tug and pulled up a little tighter.
“This is a curtain,” he said.
Rarity wasn’t wholly sure what answer she’d been expecting, but this wasn’t it. Now that she looked at it she could see what it was, but that didn’t make it any more tolerable. She tried to put a brave face on things, though.
“Quite. Well, yes. Your actual new clothes will take a touch longer,” she said.
“How many things are you going to be making, just to ask? Roughly.”
The prospect of her dropping whatever it was she was doing to fill out a whole wardrobe for him made Jack uncomfortable. It was a bit too rich for his blood. Some jeans, sure, or whatever else she put together, but anything more than that seemed like a waste to him. Pearls before swine, hard-wrought fashion before some dickhead.
“Oh, enough,” she said, which answered nothing and only raised further questions. Jack got the distinct impression that trying to pin Rarity down to specifics would be a fool’s errand so he just sighed and shook his head. Generous pony, what could be done?
“Alright, so what’ll I owe you for all this?” Jack asked. Rarity bridled.
“Owe me indeed! This is a favour for a friend, Jack! One coming out of a rough patch and getting back onto his feet. Nothing owed!”
He’d seen this coming, but it still wasn’t what he wanted to hear.
“Hey, look, I like free stuff as much as the next guy but I don’t want you, you know, doing this when you could be doing something that’d pay. I ain’t got anything right now but I can work to get something to you. Come on. It’s just an IOU. You can even lowball it, take a hit if you want. Just something, anything.”
“I refuse,” Rarity said, turning up her nose with a ‘humph’. Jack had a feeling that he would not get very far by trying to press the issue and ruminated for a few moments for a possible solution. No good ones presented themselves, so he settled on a bad one:
“I’m going to sneak around in the middle of the night and leave a sack of money on your doorstep,” he said.
“Thank you for warning me ahead of time, darling, as now I know who to return any unexpected sacks of money to,” Rarity said with crushing sweetness, nose lowering and lashes fluttering. She was laying it on thick, but then again that was the point.
Jack blinked, opened his mouth, closed it again, raised a finger, thought about it some more and eventually said:
“...I am not going to sneak around in the middle of the night and leave a sack of money on your doorstep. It’ll be someone else who does that. A mystery person. And you should keep that money.”
“Of course, dear,” Rarity said. The level of sympathy she put into this sentence was the final nail in the coffin for any hope Jack might have had for paying her. If he’d had pocket he’d have shoved his hand into them and pouted. Given the absence of pockets he settled on just pouting extra-hard.
“This isn’t working out the way I hoped it would, Twilight,” He said, turning to her for support and seeing only that she was trying not to laugh. “Oh come on!”
“Sorry Jack, it’s just - well, you tried,” Twilight said, patting him on the leg reassuringly. He pouted some more before drawing himself up, determined and wagging a finger first at Twilight and then at Rarity.
“I’m not finished yet! Uh, Rarity, you got any chores you need doing? Jars opening? Things taken down off high shelves? Batteries changed in smoke detectors?”
“I’m quite sure I’m quite alright, thank you Jack,” she said. Jack’s shoulders slumped.
“Ugh, there’s no just winning with you people. Fine, I’ll accept this for now. But I’ll have my revenge one day.”
For a given value of ‘revenge’, obviously.
There wasn’t much else to add after this. Jack hung around by the door while Twilight and Rarity had a non-Jack related conversation that ended up running longer than either intended, eventually culminating in an agreement to meet up at some point in the near future.
“Sorry about that,” Twilight said as Jack held the door for you.
“You do have a life outside of me, as hard as that might be for me to believe,” he said, following close behind and nodding goodbye to Rarity as he did so.
Once back outside again in the fresh air and sunshine - there were some things Jack did rather like about Equestria, these being foremost amongst them - he stretched and rolled his neck. All that standing around for measuring hadn’t been the most fun of things.
When he was done with that he reached down beside him and groped around lightly until his hand found Twilight’s head, whereupon he ruffled her mane, much to her chagrin.
“Thank you again, by the way,” he said and Twilight paused briefly in fixing her hair to peer up at him and smile.
“You really don’t need to keep thanking me.”
He shrugged. Forever shrugging was Jack.
“Yeah. But I want to. Thanks.”
Jack tried reaching out to ruffle her again but Twilight was onto him this time and dodged out of the way. Jack grinned and so did she.
“It’s fine. Now, you want to grab breakfast or something?” She asked, jerking her head off in the direction of Ponyville proper. The two of them started walking.
“You know me, I’ll eat anything. Literally anything. Point at something, I’ll eat it,” Jack said. He wasn’t wrong, either.
“I was thinking maybe starting with something basic like toast and seeing if there was anything else available.”
This Jack considered, concluding:
“That would also work.”