Chapter 3: Collateral Damage
Rarity was softly humming her favorite tune while she worked on a new dress she had designed for Rainbow Dash. She knew she would probably have to trick the bullheaded flier into wearing it but there was no way the alabaster unicorn would let all those opportunities, the beautiful prismatic mane coloring opened up, go to waste! It was already a shame the colorful mare despised wearing anything but a Wonderbolt uniform at all, but that was certainly not something that would or could stop Rarity.
In the end, even the most unthankful mare she had made a dress for had admitted she looked pretty in it eventually, although she had to be a bit more persuasive to get them to admit it sometimes. The feeling of success, the designer drew from this, was always worth the effort she had to put into tricking them into wearing the dresses, just like it would this time but doing so with Rainbow Dash always made her heart beat faster. When the pegasus finally wore the dress she knew she looked beautiful, even if the athlete tried her hardest not to show it. There was always a certain spark of joy in her magenta eyes and Rarity loved to see that.
Sadly, her progress with the dress wasn’t nearly as great as Rarity had hoped since she had to attend to the customers that visited her boutique during her working hours and she had only started today. The unicorn was just finishing another hem of the dress as the familiar sound of her doorbell caught her attention as well as her annoyance.
The designer rewarded it with a begrudging glare. Much to her disappointment the bell appeared unfazed. Sighing in defeat, the unicorn left her sewing machine and went to greet the pony who had entered her shop.
“Welcome to Carousel Boutique, where every garment is chic, unique and magnifique,” Rarity announced with the routine of a well-versed salespony.
Her eyes fell on the young earth-pony stallion with a white coat and orange mane that had entered her shop. By the looks of it he probably was just in need of a new suit to impress his date or attend a more formal event. Hopefully it wouldn’t take long to satisfy his need of new clothes so she could return to her newest project.
“How may I help you?” she asked with a beaming, yet false, business smile.
“Well, I would like to buy a new suit…” he answered hesitantly.
Great. A shy one. The white unicorn would have to take the leading role here to get rid of him soon… Fortunately she had enough practice to do just that.
“Then I can certainly help you. What do you need? Formal attire for an official meeting? Or a more fancy one to woo a mare? Aaah… It seems to be the latter. Am I right?”
“Y-Yes,” the stallion stammered. He was obviously a bit intimidated by the rather energetic sales tactic.
“Well then. May I take your measurements? I might have something in store for you.”
Rarity grabbed her measuring tape from her neck and lead her customer to the small pedestal and gestured him to step onto it. She quickly took the necessary measurements and made her way to the storage room in the back of the shop. The unicorn swiftly browsed through the stored suits she never sold for various reasons, or made just in case she didn’t have enough time to make an entirely new one, to find something for her waiting customer.
Soon enough she found what she had been looking for and pulled it out its cover that protected it from dust. After a short check if the suit would fit she brought it the back to the salesroom and showed the clothing to her waiting customer. Praise Twilight’s obsession for organization!
Most of the time it was incredibly frustrating but right now, as the designer handed the garment over, she was thankful that the purple unicorn had insisted to reorganize the storage room. Else, it would have taken much longer to find something fitting.
“Here you go. A casual, yet elegant attire to accentuate your features. Does it meet your taste? Would you like to try it on?” Rarity bombarded the poor stallion again.
After he tried it on he decided to buy it and even stay dressed up like that. He probably had the date on the same evening. He quickly paid for the suit and left in a hurry. The alabaster unicorn on the other hand was relieved he finally left. She knew she had to be friendly to simple customers too but there was still less motivation in it than when a high-society pony came by and ordered a pompous outfit.
Well then… time to continue my work on Rainbow’s dress. Perhaps it would be a slow day from now on. If the white mare was that lucky, she would have the dress ready by the evening.
She opened the door to her inspiration room, fetching some of the materials she needed for some details she had planned for the dress as a cool breeze hit her. It was rather pleasant, considering it was pretty warm today but where did it come from? Looking around, she saw nothing that gave her a hint so she just picked up the fabric she came for and left again, closing the door behind her.
Back down at her sewing machine she shooed her cat, Opalescence, away who had unfortunately decided to take a nap on said tool and continued to hum her tune and finish her newest fabulousity. It would be such a magnificent sight to behold!
Back up in the inspiration room, the dark creature pondered how it should get out of there. It had quickly discovered how the ponies changed their appearance. It wasn't nearly as interesting as it suspected, though it was a new concept for it to cover so much of your body with something that was specifically designed for this purpose. A name for these things came to its mind. Clothes.
Now however, it was locked in the room where the white pony seemingly created the clothes. It had followed her as soon as the other one left the building. Unfortunately for the curious creature, the unicorn didn't stay as long as it suspected and so it was surprised by her quick departure and only heard the door slamming shut when it was inspecting the room and its contents.
So how could it get out without drawing much attention? It could have just blasted the door open with magic but that certainly wouldn't be received very well. No one likes it if a stranger sneaks into their home and starts wrecking the furniture without a warning.
Something else came to its mind. All the creatures it had seen here had limbs. The animate shadow didn't have any since it could move without it but the ponies he observed had used them to interact with the objects around them. The unicorns had also used their magic, of course, but not entirely. Perhaps the creature could be useful to have something similar? Learning to control the telekinetic powers the unicorns possessed would take quite some time. It was probably wiser to get limbs. Though… it could be something more useful than hooves... It remembered the little dragon it saw in the first house it had been in. His claws seemed to be much more versatile than hooves.
Mind made up, the shadow creature focused its magic to expand its form a bit and dispatched two pieces of solid darkness from itself. Concentrating even more magic in them it started to form the fizzling pieces into claws that strongly resembled dragon claws, albeit thinner and proportionally much longer. Their owner adjusted them for a while until it was satisfied with them. The claws were pitch-black as the rest of it and covered in black fog. While the body parts were floating free, aside the main body of the creature but still moved as if they were attached to it with arms. If pressed close to its body, they would blend in and be virtually invisible since no part of the creature except its white glowing eyes had clear outlines due to the dark mist it being emitted.
Finally it looked around to try to open the door, now that there was an option to do so without using brute force. Also the side effects, its transformation had on the room, became present. It did have a certain beauty now but there was no doubt its resident wouldn’t be too happy about having icicles hanging from the ceiling and most of the objects within the room…
The excessive use of this kind of magic had sucked all warmth from this place and chilled everything close to the caster to its core. The dark being reconsidered the ingenuity of its plan. Lacking any other options however, it eventually opted to stick with the plan, despite the obvious hole it had and proceeded to inspect the door. Soon it had looked through to the mechanic of the door and was about open it when it heard the sound of hooves coming up the stairs. The plan became less and less rewarding by the minute…
Just a minute before, Rarity discovered the dark blue thread she was using for the prismatic dress was almost used up. Letting out a slightly frustrated groan she put the dress aside to make her way to her inspiration room which the alabaster mare also used to store most of her fabrics. Normally it wouldn’t be a big deal but she had to go there for the seventh time today just for the sole purpose of fetching materials for exactly this one dress.
Also, why was it suddenly so cold in the boutique? It was a warm and sunny day and Sweetie Belle was crusading with her friends so what in Tartarus could be responsible for this? As it became colder the closer she came to the door to the room, the bad feeling she had about this became a lot worse. Practically freezing due to the frosty temperature, she hesitantly reached out with her magic, unsure if she really wanted to take a look inside. Maybe there was something dangerous inside.
After a short minute of weighing of her chances, the designer put on a winter mantle she pulled out of one of her many wardrobes, braced herself and pushed the door open to be greeted by an icy breeze that stole her breath.
As soon as she recovered she stared dumbfounded, with her mouth agape, into the icy pit that once was her beloved sanctuary of creativity. Normally the white unicorn would have dragged her fainting couch out of nowhere to play her role as drama queen she loved so much, but right now there was no audience and a serious problem at hand so she saved that up for later. When her thoughts returned, one dominated her mind. Twilight had to know something about it. She was probably the only one who was capable of doing anything about it anyway. Regaining her initiative, she rushed out of her shop to call her purple friend to aid.
The creature of darkness that caused her trouble didn’t wait to see what the unicorn did after opening the door and rushed out of the room in panic instead. It would have never thought the cloaking veil spell would be so important once. As it hastily made its way out of the building it decided it was very urgent to find a way to either redeem itself or at least lay the blame on someone else, once it made contact with them. Filled with worries and fears about hostile reactions that could be aimed at it, the animate shadow fled through the streets.