Present…
It had been months since her most recent visit from this particular client, and like she had made a habit of, she already had many parts of the usual order already hanging in her “Work in Progress” closet. If she could have her way, to stoop lower than her “make to order” policy, she would have made a dozen of the suits exactly like the first one so that this particular stallion could be in and out in nothing more than a few short minutes. But, she had standards and a reputation to uphold, every one of her clients needed to be treated with the upmost respect to their own individual needs and requests.
She sat at her sewing machine, incomplete masterpiece templates lain about before her to be brought together, but only after ensuring that there was no need for any trimmings or additions. Just like there had been no need for those in earlier visits.
Rarity’s bottom hoof kept the pedal down so that power kept flowing to the sewing machine sewed the sleeves to the shoulder of the black jacket. Her customers were allowed in her sewing room. It did not distract her from her work, nor did it encourage her to work faster or sloppier. And as he always had done, her guest stationed himself in front of the table, standing guard at the closed curtain of the window, peeking through the crack while still having easy access to the hall that lead to the sewing room. But unlike the other times this enigmatic pony had accompanied her to the sewing room, she noticed something out of the ordinary, one thing that she would not give a care to if it were anypony else.
Her personal washroom was directly upstairs.
If she was alone, that would be nothing… but she wasn’t.
Having her temporary solution to a problem came back to haunt her, Sweetie Belle was showering just as she ordered her to. She could hear the constant dull moan of running water through the pipes above, somehow overpowering the loud repeating tap that her machine made when it cycled between impaling its needle through the fabric and sharply pulling it back out.
Hopefully it was just her paranoia, but there was a chance that it wasn’t.
Her only way to hopefully mask the sound of her sister upstairs was to keep sewing.
So, with the assistance of magic, she sewed one garment up to a completed state, set it aside, and began on the next one that she had already lined up and had ready to be operated to ensure that the time in which the loud machine was not buzzing was as short as possible.
It was somewhere between finishing the dress pants and the cuffs of the dress shirt when, like a rusted valve, the storeowner heard a loud squeak from the room above being turned three times. Each nail-on-the-chalkboard like sound made her ears flinch and body clench… but then, thankfully, the sound of water stopped.
After what felt like she had been for an eternity, the tailor at the sewing machine took a long sigh of relief and could now finish her project at a more natural and leisurely pace without worrying about masking a sound from a story higher.
In the span of the next hour, Rarity finished all facets and details of the outfit. When complete, she took all of the garments and dressed them onto a stallion pegasus mannequin.
The last thing she had to do was a final check to make sure that everything was complete and that nothing was missed or forgotten when trying to block the sound of her shower.
*THUD*
Her blood ran cold.
Rarity turned her head to the other pony in the room. His ears perked up.
He turned around, “Is there someone else here?”
Rarity shook her head so fast that her sculpted mane began to unravel.
*THUD THUD THUD*
As cool as ice, the guest turned his head back to the door and began to briskly walk to the burlap bag that he had with him.
Rarity’s mind jumped into panic mode and shot after him, accelerating her walk to intercept him while still trying to maintain the crumbling façade that she was calm.
“Sir, Please-”
He opened the bag with magic.
“There is something I must ask about your request-”
A glowing handle began to rise from the bag like a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat.
“Wait!” She threw her front hoofs around his front right leg, stopping in his pursuit of the sounds immediately.
What had she done…
With the object in the bag still only half way out, the navy blue stallion turned his head slowly and focused on the mare that had almost thrown herself in his way.
The rain kept pouring outside the shop as the two shared a silent moment staring into each other, one with fright, and the other with the mysteriously determined and focused look that he always had.
Rarity slowly got back up to a full standing position and cleared her throat, fighting the interrogative stare of the stallion she had grabbed.
“Please, the hour is late I would prefer to get your order done as soon as I can. So, please, can we return to the current matter?”
Another thud. Both ponies looked up, and then down at each other.
Rarity gave a nervous smile “My… Kitty. She loves to knock over my possessions.”
Another second of awkward eye contact. The last minute client looked into her eyes, more or less peering into her soul, tearing apart her lie and finding the sister she was hiding away upstairs. Luckily, the guest nodded and changed his direction to the mannequin.
The object that he had been pulling out of his satchel was dropped back in and then the string was pulled tight.
Past…
For every reason that Rarity could think that this new customer could be a pony of wealth power and influence, there was just as many excuses as to why he could just be a normal pony. There was no concrete proof as to who exactly this pony was, none that she could find from his habits or his short and bare answers at least.
But, of course, there was one thing…
From when he had undressed, he walked back out with a bag full of something. What it was, she did not necessarily know. Of course, being that he had come in for a fitting and emergency suit, he probablyv had planned on having a way to store all of his valuables safely.
For some reason or another, Rarity’s guest was outside of the current room that she was in, and plopped on a counter by an open window was that bag. It was an aged and worn white color. It had many signs of use and its string was pulled tight, leaving the cloth oyster’s mouth closed and hiding its pearl away.
Rarity turned away from the bag and instead went to her fabric collection. First picking out white for the jacket, Dark blue for the vest, and cream for the shirt, and grey for the pants.
Grey for the jacket and pants, black for the shirt, and red for the vest.
Dark blue for the jacket, charcoal for the vest and pants, and light blue for the shirt.
She looked down her wall of sample colors, thinking of more combinations to use for a standout custom three piece suit, but as she looked down the length of the wall she saw the bag again.
She was a lady, she had no business in “snooping” in her clients business… but the fruit of knowledge was too appetizing for her.
The owner of the Carousel Boutique, walking on silent hooves, gingerly snuck her way across the room to the unguarded bag.
She looked around, making sure that nopony would find her doing such an unethical act, and then lifted the mouth of the bag in a way that it was facing her.
The bag was a bit heavier than she expected it to be. Using magic, she pulled the sides in outward directions and let her expectations take her away.
It was an ID that boasted his relation to a noble house!
It was full of diamonds!
It held a wreath of golden olive leaves!
It was full of gold!
It was a menagerie of knives!
Rarity shook herself, making sure she was not daydreaming.
She wasn’t.
What she found was not what she expected or wanted. Bladed objects and pointed instruments of varying sizes were cascaded through the bag. Judging by how shiny they looked, it seems that they may have been recently cleaned.
Rarity began to shake; she used her magic to slowly lift one of the objects out of said bag to make sure she wasn’t seeing things.
Rising by the tip of it’s hilt, a handle wrapped in brown tape slowly rose out of the bag, beyond the hilt, a large, pointed and serrated purple blade. She didn’t need to test this, she knew how sharp this was. She had seen this composite of elements before, but not in this manner. A friend of hers was the foster parent of a dragon, that very dragon would frequently assist her in projects or chores. This was not metal; this was a carved dragon’s scale!
A green glow swatted the weapon out of her hooves and back into the bag. Immediately, the string was pulled. Standing right before her, almost as if he appeared out of nowhere, was her guest, staring straight into her.
Terrified for being seized in the act, she quivered slowly.
She had only felt this type of fear one time before in her life. A certain day long ago when her father returned home from the hospital and had to explain to her why mother was not with him… and that she may not be able to meet her new sister after all…
“They’re mine.” The bag was jerked out of her magic. The new customer stood and stared unblinkingly into her eyes, not like a lover, but more like a disappointed parent who caught their child reaching into a cookie jar for one too many times. He didn’t try to explain, nor joke, nor make up a story about his possessions; he just put the fear of Celestia into the young dressmaker.
“I…I...I’m sorry…” She lied, “I…I ha- have a bag just like this… I did not mean to intrude on yo- your … things...” She nodded her head and backed up submissively from her customer and back to the fabric combinations that she had been selecting earlier.
As she moved across the room, she quickly began to regain her posture, but could not settle her mind.
You were not one to go snooping around in a guest’s things. I am sure there is a logical explanation for why he would carry such things on him. Maybe he is a salespony. Yes… A salespony who specializes in a variety of knives! Ranging from personal grooming equipment to cooking, utility work to gutting young tailors who are too curious for their own good.
She shook the thoughts out of her head. She had a job to do first and then assumptions later! She had a duty to serve her customers!
She turned around again as her client stopped at the suggested colors and gently cleared her throat. “Now, judging from your coat, I believe that the best course of action would be to make a white jacket, a dark blue vest, a cream shirt, and grey dress slacks. Would you agree?”
Kind of like whenever she had other customers in this part of the process, her customer looked at the suggested colors and then at the wall of samples before them, trying to find a better combination or a way to substitute one of her picks for their own favorite color. Other than the occasional suggestion to save a stallion’s ego about being dressed by a filly or request to have a different combination, she was always right. She had a way of making things beautiful; after all, it was her tal-
“I would like a black jacket, grey vest, cream shirt and black dress slacks.”
Rarity did not expect an entire reworking of her wardrobe.
“Are you sure? Because I believe what I have would be better for you.”
“Do the colors clash?”
Rarity thought, and he was indeed right about the colors not clashing… but it did not stop her prodding.
“No… But it seems to me that combination would not be right!”
“Why?”
“Well…” she thought of the correct words to answer that question, “That color pallet seems to be rather… ordinary. A pony of any coat color could wear that safely.” She had an inspiration of charm grow inside of her brain, “And let’s be honest. A handsome stallion of your build needs to look extraordinary!”
“Thank you.”
Rarity’s mouth turned to a smile, “So are you going to go with my suggestion?”
As nonchalantly as equinely possible, the answer came at an all-time mild.
“No.”
Rarity grumbled, “Well… The customer is always right.”
She took the requested new fabrics and scissors to her workstation and prepared to get to work. She slipped a pair of glasses onto her nose and said, “This may take a while, dear. If you would like, you may leave and come back later or find a magazine to pass the time.”
The guest, who was standing by the window and looking out turned around and cleared his throat, “I would like to make a… special request.”
Rarity used her hoof to push the glasses up. “Oh, what would that be?”
“Compartments and pockets within the vest and jacket, if you would, please.”
A pamphlet of folded papers was dropped before the artisan, she opened it up and inspected them. Enclosed inside were, surprisingly detailed, needlework instructions with exact measurements as to where stitches were to be made. “Sewing for Eggheads” tutorials were less detailed than this.
The request was… odd, but then again she had just learned that her new customer carried an arsenal of knives in a bag… So anything goes now.
“I will be able to do this… but I must warn you, with the extra supplies and work required; it will cost you.”
Her guest had already taken his spot at the window again and was looking out at the darkening day, “I can afford it.”