I can’t quite remember all the details about why I went into her shop that night. I think I was looking for her, seeking her with some sort of question I’d pulled from an interesting book. I don’t even remember what book it was, or even what question, but she seemed like the sort that would have an answer.
It wasn’t like I came uninvited or anything. She always said that I could stop by whenever I needed something, and I took that to heart. Whenever I’d visited before, it had never been an issue either! She often came to the castle to talk to me, and when I visited her, I always felt welcome!
I’d been in the shop after hours before, so while it was vaguely creepy as liminal spaces often are, it wasn’t anything unusual. The first time, I was convinced somepony was hiding in the fabrics, waiting to jump out at me. That didn’t happen, of course, and I went upstairs to talk to her as usual.
I don’t know why I hadn’t thought about it before, but it wasn’t like I’d looked up the building plans beforehoof. Why would I? I guess I just didn’t think about it much. Many shops have basements, right? I’d never noticed the trap door behind the counters. Probably kept extra outfits in storage, shop materials, advertisements and promotions, that sort of thing. I saw a light coming from down there, so I went down, my question still on my mind.
You’d call me crazy, just like everypony else, but I thought I heard music coming from down there. Like, a waltz of sorts. The sort of thing I’d expect to hear at the gala, instead of the pony pokey. It was kind of catchy, too, so I swayed along as I descended. Sure, the shop was creepy, but this felt more like her kind of space. I was sure she’d made it her own, too.
When I got down there, it was as I’d expected at first. It was kind of a labyrinth of racks, each stuffed to bursting with hanger upon hanger of froufrou dresses. Some of them were incomplete, some looked to be historical, and a few seemed to be so antiquated they were practically falling apart. I wove my way through the rows of racks, wondering how she found anything in there. It wasn’t neatly organized like her shop, and I’ll admit, that was kind of bothering me. Even Flurry Heart’s bookshelves before she learned the Dewey Decimal system weren’t this horribly messy.
It was around a corner bloated with lace and tulle that I found the first one. It was a mannequin, just like the ones upstairs in her shop, but this one wasn’t quite as pretty as the other ones. Its pose was wrong, and that’s what hit me first. It must have been really tricky to stuff a dress onto that one when it was posed as though it was cringing in a corner. It reminded me of how Fluttershy looked on Nightmare Night, though this one was a unicorn. A dress had been shoved over its head, but hadn’t made it much further down than its neck.
I stood there for a little bit, puzzled. Why would she order an inconveniently shaped one? Her mannequins in the shop were always so nice, too. I’d been pulled along to other shops when she was convinced a new wardrobe would help my anxiety, and all the other mannequins seemed so generic compared to hers. Some of hers were unicorns, some pegasi, some earth ponies, and all had different body shapes. They made dresses look good on any sort of weight, height, and shape a pony could take!
I’d never really thought to wonder why other shops didn’t buy mannequins from the same place she had, but perhaps they were just expensive. Maybe this one was meant to display a costume, or be part of a particular window display.
I pressed on. Around a few corners with rotting fabrics and moldy shirts another one stood. This one was a pegasus, leaned up against the wall. It looked to be mid-leap. Wouldn’t it be hard to suspend that sort of mannequin from the ceiling? I wasn’t sure it’d balance if it was on the floor. Maybe that’s why it was in storage?
There was another one around the next twisting bend, faceless but not without expression. While the first one was afraid and the second one was in flight, this one was in an aggressive stance, the wind-up right before a powerful buck. I’d seen the pose in Applejack multiple times, and I had no clue how one would even begin to fit a dress over this one. Something unnerved me, though, about this one. It didn’t have a face, just a blank muzzle, but I could almost feel its gaze, a stony glare as its head turned to aim a kick that would cave in my rib cage.
I stumbled back, jarring a cart of fashion paraphernalia, which made a clang that echoed throughout the basement. Something was entirely wrong about these mannequins. Not just wrong, as in who would buy these sorts of things, but wrong, as in unerringly lifelike. I poked the side of the bucking one, almost certain I’d be at the wrong end of a skull-crushing kick, but it was soft and cottony, plush like the rest of the mannequins.
The question I’d entered with was the last thing on my mind. I had to know why she had bought such a thing. A sickening feeling was rising in my gut as I practically ran through the maze of couture-gone-wrong.
I don’t know what I’d expected at the end of the route. Maybe I’d hoped to see her standing over a catalogue, crossing out options and circling others. Maybe I wanted her to be bent over her sewing machine, trying to make some mannequin that’d fill with stuffing a bit better. Or maybe I’d hoped there was a villain, Chrysalis or something, puppeting her into making things that had my subconscious tingling.
I hadn’t expected a cauldron, or a few caged animals that remained disturbingly silent. I stepped into the circle of light, hesitantly, inching my way over to the imprisoned critters. I took a deep breath in and gagged a little before lighting my horn. They were unmistakably cockatrice, about one or two per cage, and most definitely dead. They smelled like they hadn’t been dead for very long, since the sickly sweet scent of decay hadn’t spread far past the cages.
The cauldron burbled merrily away next to a record that was winding down with its sweet melodic waltz. I peeked inside of it. It smelled faintly of wax, with something else that I couldn’t quite place, like laundry, left out to dry in the sunshine. I’d have been able to explain it away as laundry if it hadn’t been a deep crimson hue, and as thick as gravy.
A book was lying open next to the record player as the music slowed to a stop. A slip of paper was sticking out between the two pages. I squinted at the pages. It was a modeling manual, the sort they’d give beginners to practice posing with. I vaguely remembered her asking to borrow it, but it’d been a while ago and I hadn’t needed it back. Out of curiosity, I picked up the bookmark and flipped it over in my magic.
It had a recipe printed on it, the name long since rubbed away, calling for cockatrice feathers, a thread from the fabric of spacetime, a siren’s tears… standard for ancient dark magics, but strange for her to possess. I looked up. A calendar was tacked to the wall. Every few days, there was a name listed. A few of them I recognized from the missing pony posters from the town hall, but most of them I hadn’t heard of.
And then the music started up again. I looked up just as the pale blue glint of magic faded from the needle.
Crap.
“You’re a little early, Twilight darling, but if you’d insist, I’m certain I could squeeze you into my schedule. Why, I had no idea you wanted to start your modeling career so soon. You should have told me!” Rarity chuckled, sidling up next to the cages, idly plucking a few feathers from one of the carcasses.
My heart pounded in my chest. The sickly waltz spun in my ears as I felt the first tingles of her magic wash over me. I couldn’t move my hooves, couldn’t cast anything, and when I tried to shout, no sound came from my throat. Spiderweb-thin threads of moisture coiled from within the cauldron, forming a woven lattice that closed in around me.
“There, there, now,” she lilted, a more complicated spell forming at the base of her horn. “Don’t struggle. It’ll only hurt for a moment, and if you fight it too much, you’ll be of no use to me.”
I took a gasping breath as my limbs went numb, her magic guiding them into position a split second before they locked into place. The air left my lungs in a whoosh as her spell pressed my rib cage as though one were deflating a balloon. Spots danced in my eyes, and I could feel them water up for a moment before my vision blurred, as though I was trying to look through a thin blindfold.
I couldn’t see, but I could still feel her hoof as it brushed a stray piece of lint from my side. It seemed to sink in a little further than it should’ve, but it didn’t hurt, and I could still hear her relieved sigh as she tenderly propped me up on the floor.
“Don’t worry, Twilight,” Rarity murmured as she caressed my cheek. “You look perfect, and they’re all going to love you. I’ve never had an alicorn mannequin, and I’m going to help you become a star! After all,” she whispered, her mane tickling against my smooth cloth. “That’s what friends are for, yes?”