Carousel boutique was never a particularly busy place. By its nature it only saw customers who had a pressing need for fashion, and in a town where clothing was only worn for specific purposes or special occasions -particularly during the warmer seasons- Rarity never had a lot of local customers coming through her door to bother her, allowing the white unicorn to focus entirely on her creations, which she would then mostly sell through other boutiques throughout the nation of equestria, like Hoity Toity's boutique in Canterlot, or the various clothing stores in the trendy parts of Manehattan.
Right now, she was working on the final of a set of 6 dresses. It was a deep blue, which shaded to pinks and golds down near the lower edges, vaguely like a sunset. The fact that it was draped off an alicorn shaped ponequin attributed to who it was destined for, the brand new princess of Equestria, Twilight Sparkle. Despite being made of the finest of fabrics-the kind she'd just developed herself-and beautiful colors, the design of the dress was fairly simplistic, whereas Rarity's own and the other girls had much more flamboyant designs, all based on their personalities as ever, of course. A princess did not need to impress with flash, but austere regality, and that was what the dress Rarity was making for her radiated.
The Grand Galloping Gala was approaching, and after two years of passing on going to the event, Rarity and her close circle of friends were going again.
Yes, they were going to the most boringly pretentious gathering of snooty nobleponies in the Equestrian social calendar.
Again.
Knowing full well what was in store for them.
The only reason any of them were going was because this one was Twilight Sparkle's first as a princess of Equestria, and save for her being deathly ill, there being an invasion or an eldritch abomination trying to take over or destroy Equestria, there was no way she could NOT attend.
Funnily enough, there actually was an eldritch abomination attending this grand galloping gala. A reformed one, anyway. Celestia had convinced Discord to be there to showcase his proper manners for the important dignitaries from in and around Equestria. Rarity seriously hoped that Fluttershy could keep the creature under control simply by their friendship. With the elements of harmony securely mounted back on the crystal 'tree' they had originally come from, there was nothing to really stop him from going rogue.
With that thought, Rarity's mind wandered to a certain jewel bedecked chest sitting upstairs in her sewing room. Her friend's dresses might be virtually complete, but her real present wasn't even so much as begun.
The bell from the front door rang it's cheery little sound, and Rarity put down what she had in her telekinetic aura. “Co-ming!” she called out before pulling the curtain over the work area and trotting out to the main floor. “Welcome to Carousel Boutique,” she said, beginning her special greeting. “Where every garment is chic, unique, and magnifique!”
“I say, you certainly do have a fine establishment, Miss Rarity.” A very refined masculine voice said. Rarity opened her eyes and gasped.
“Fancy pants!” she said, a smile lighting up her face as she saw her Canterlotian friend standing just inside the doorway.
“Oh indeed, those photos in clothes horse hardly do this place justice.” A cultured feminine voice said, before the magnificent figure of Fleur De Lis, Fancy's wife, stepped out from behind the unicorn stallion.
“Well it certainly is a grade above the rest of this podunk little town.” Jet Set, Another unicorn stallion Rarity immediately recognized said, stepping in. “Are you sure you want to shop here, darling?” he said as Upper Crust, his wife ,stepped in.
“Well I'm willing to give it a look. Since everypony else is.” she said.
Rarity's eyes went wide, her jaw threatening to go slack as no less than twenty married pairs of extremely wealthy noble ponies stepped into her shop in a stream. The mares of the group immediately went to peruse the showcases set up around the main floor while the stallions loitered closer to the entrance.
“My, very elaborate designs, I must say.” One of the noblemares commented after a minute.
“And so many gemstones, the cost in materials must be astronomical!” another said.
“Impressive to find such style outside Canterlot... or Manehattan.” another said.
“Oh, well thank you-” Rarity was just starting to say when a loud gasp drew everypony's attention.
“Oh my stars, this is GORGEOUS!” Upper Crust utterly gushed, letting out a fillyish squeal.
Every noblemare in the shop suddenly flocked over to see what had garnered such attention from
Rarity gaped, then smiled, then had to hide a blush as the ladies started to gush over what had been discovered.
Then her face went blank. Why were they over in the work area?
“Could you do this in another color?” one asked.
“Oh, this would be perfect for me, if only it came in sapphire rather than emerald.” said another.
“So many diamonds! Oh it's lovely!” said another.
Rarity charged over.
Her friend's dresses. Somepony had drawn the curtain back from workspace and they were all staring at them.
To a resounding set of gasps and offended complaints, Rarity galloped over and forcefully shoved the ladies away from the curtained sconces.
“I'm terribly sorry, those pieces are not for sale.”
“Whyever not?” one of the mares asked. “I'd be more than willing to pay any price for that absolutely stunning Sunset gown.”
Biting her tongue at the profits she would've been able to make on turning those personalized dresses into lines, she took a breath and said “It's for a personal friend, all of them are. They're custom fitted and-”
“They're for the new princess and your mutual friends, aren't they?” Came the voice of Fancy Pants from just off to the side.
“Ah...” Rarity blushed at being caught. “Yes, yes they are.”
“Oh! I see...” Fleur de lis said, then looked at the dresses again with a smile. The other ladies, however, looked at the curtain concealing the dresses they'd been oogling seconds earlier with an expression of horror. The ultimate faux-pas was to show up to a ball wearing the same dress as one's superior, or someone of otherwise greater social importance. The newly crowned alicorn princess of magic and the knights of harmony were right at the top of the social ladder in that respect. It would be terribly embarrassing to show up in the same dress as one such as they, and in the world of Canterlot's elite, an embarrasment could be a very damaging thing to one's position.
“Ah, yes... I think I'll just... peruse the rest of your repertoire...” Upper crust said sheepishly, before vacating the work area, followed quickly by the rest of the high class mares.
* * * * *
“You're sure?” Rarity asked the noblemare before her.
“I'm positive.” was the response.
“But if I could just-”
“Miss Rarity, I have decided that i wish this recreated in more flattering colors, and with heavier gemstone accents. If this is beyond your capabilities, I will have to take my business elsewhere.”
“But that dress is perfectly magnificent, you said so yourself!” Rarity's eyes darted from side to side.
“Miss Rarity, if there is one thing a noblemare does not do, it's 'buying off the rack'.”
“They're all unique pieces! I don't do repeats!” Rarity said.
Upper Crust came over just then. “Miss Rarity, these dresses are all lovely, really, but I agree with my friend, some of these colors just don't go with our coats. We really do need them done up in an appropriate pallet.”
“I simply must have mine in emerald.” another said coming over.
“Amethyst would work perfectly with my color.”
Suddenly there were so many voices all competing to request new dresses, it made her head spin.
“Alright! Alright!” she exclaimed, silencing them. “Just.... form a line and I’ll take down your orders.”
The noblemares were suddenly all smiles as she led them to her front counter.
An hour and a half later, measurements taken, fourty nobleponies left the boutique satisfied, and Rarity waved them off from the door. As soon as they were all out of sight she closed and locked the door, flipped the sign in the window to closed, and gallopped over to her workroom and opened her gem chest.
Only to find it empty.
“Did I... honestly, just take a group of orders for gem encrusted dresses... due in a month, with no gem supply? Again?” she asked herself.
She glanced at the order forms.
“Yes... yes I did.” she said.
She yanked the fainting couch over and fell back onto it as she... well, fainted.
* * * * *
Gems. The basis of her talent with fashion. If she hadn't been a seamstress, Rarity would most likely have been a jeweler. Gems abounded in Equestria. They'd lived there for over a thousand years, and even well worn quarries still held many vibrant stones close to the surface, though some would argue that the gems actually formed in the soil of equestria at a far, far faster rate than anywhere else in the world. The fact that these stones usually appeared pre-cut gave some credence to that particular theory.
Normally, one would think that having gems come out of the ground already cut into fantastically faceted shapes, ready to use in garments and jewelery would be a dream come true, and generally, it was.
However, when you had some extremely demanding clients insisting on incredibly rare, fine cut forms for their dresses, one quickly discovered that jewelers who usually didn't have to do so much work on their pieces would charge exorbitant prices to have gems ground down into 'unnatural' shapes. Her personal accounts weren't so extravagant that she could justify the expense, not as it stood.
Thankfully, rarity knew a jeweler in Manehattan, a talented Gryphon male named Vincent who, for personal friends, accepted gem shards in payment for making cuts, tuypically off the very gem he was cutting.
And Rarity needed a lot of custom cut gems, if these orders and her usual luck with gem hunting was any indication.
Gems to cut, gems to trade, and gems to use as they were. She needed more than ever before, even when Sapphire Shores had ordered those jewel bedecked costumes for her concert tour, she'd never had a greater need. There was only one place Rarity knew of where gemstones were that plentiful, however...
Rarity sighed as she came upon the hidden cave mouth, covered over with rough wooden construction, and a pair of gates set into the wooden wall over said cave mouth. She could practically smell the unwashed fur and reeking breath of meat eaters that did now know dental hygiene even from out here. No, scratch that, she really could smell it from here.
Summoning up her resolve, Rarity marched forward, came to the heavy wooden gate, and reached out to tap her hoof on it several times.
A slot opened several feet above Rarity's head and a pair of yellow eyes peeked out, glancing left and right. Seeing nothing the gate guard glanced down, and let out a yelp, before the eye slot slid shut nigh instantaneously.
Rarity rolled her eyes, then knocked again. The slot opened very slowly, until one eye was just able to peek out.
It looked at her for several seconds, the eye widening and the pupil narrowing into a pinprick.
“AAAAH! Whiny pony!” it screamed before the slot slid shut hard enough to be considered a 'slam'.
Rarity rolled her eyes. “We went over this the last time I was here, my name is Rarity. Now open the door! As much as I wish I didn't have to, I need to speak with you.”
The sound of several latches and bolts being slid shut sounded, even as she could hear the sound of heavy paws running up the tunnel towards the entrance.
“What she doing here?” another voice asked. Fido, the largest of the beasts that had actually spoken to her during her misadventure here.
“Quiet! She no hear us, maybe she go away!” Rover, the most vocal dog, she could never forget his voice.
Rarity snorted, then knocked again. “I know you're there!” she said, knocking again. “Open up, I need to speak with you!”
“Rrrrgh! Go away Rarity! We not want you anymore!” Rover said, actually using her name.
“As if I’d want to stay in a place like this, I have a business proposition you obstinate canine!” she exclaimed.
The eyeslot opened. “A what?”
“A business proposition. A partnership, a deal, a mutually beneficial pact, whatever you want to call it. But I refuse to discuss it through a closed door!”
The eyeslot closed.
“She want to work with us? Why?” Fido asked, clearly audible outside through the claw width cracks between the planks that made up the door and the wooden wall closing off the cave mouth.
“I don't know.” Spot, the tiniest of the dogs, said.
“Last time she here she give us all headache, she not want to pull carts, she not want to dig...”
“I can hear everything you're saying in there.” Rarity called out. “And I still refuse to do any of that. However, I will help you find the gems in your cave, I just need my freedom and a certain amount of the gems dug up.”
The eyeslot slid open again. “Ah-hah! You want our gems again! How this good for us?”
“That's the part I wish to discuss, now if you'd just open the door-”
“No! Last time you take every single gem you help us find with you, why we want let that happen again!?” Fido barked.
Rarity wanted to groan in frustration. “I'm not going to take everything! I'm trying to be reasonable here! If you'd just calm down and listen to me-”
“What going on out here!?” A new voice behind the gate rang out alarmingly clearly on rarity's side of the door. A distinctively feminine one. She wondered for an instant just how loud it must've been on the other side, especially considering that she could ear all three of the diamond dog pack leaders whimpering on the other side of the door, she cringed in sympathy.
“Whiny pony is outside....” The voice of the smallest dog whimpered.
“Whiny pony? Who care about whiny pony? You want make sun and moon ponies angry at us? Open door and let whiny pony talk before she complain about us and we all end up food for worms!”
Rarity blinked. Sun and moon ponies? The alicorn sisters? What was going on here?
There was the sound of a door bar being removed before the gate opened and the female diamond dog stepped out. She was white with random brown splotches across her body, like some varieties of pit bull. She even had a huge bulky head as like the breed she seemed to represent. She was shorter than Fido, but like him was wearing a vest, though hers was closed so that it covered the obvious visible features that denoted her a female. She was followed by the three male dogs that she recognized from her last stay here, Fido and the other two whom she hadn't caught the names of. They were crouching and hiding behind the female.
“What you want pony? We not not go near pony town. Not break treaty. You think we take anything, or any pony, you wrong, I make sure pack no go near pony town!”
“Treaty?” Rarity said, mind blanking.
“Yes! Treaty we make with sun and moon ponies to not destroy us, after these three take pony for finding gems!” The female diamond dog threw her heavy paws up in the air. “Ugh! Stupid ponies...”
Rarity blinked, then chuckled, a smile spreading across her face.
“What?” The female dog asked.
“Oh, it's just that I happen to be the very pony that those three took to help them find gemstones.”
The female diamond dog opened her mouth to say something, but rarity's words sank in before she could speak. Her pupils shrank to pinpricks, and her jaw fell open.
Pressing the advantage, Rarity smiled. “I also happen to be on a first name basis with a princess of equestria, who is very close to the ponies you signed this treaty with.”
The female gulped convulsively, starting to shake almost as much as the males behind her. But where they were simply afraid of being stuck in close proximity with Rarity for any length of time, this female was smarter, and had broader vision. Her fear was a mortal one. Offend this pony, and bring down the wrath of the heavens upon them.
“Ah... so... what does pony want?” the alpha female asked.
Rarity sighed. “Firstly, dear, my name is Rarity, and second, I'm here to discuss business.”
The female's head tilted quizzically at her, and her shaking diminished. “Business?”
“Yes, something mutually beneficial.”
“So, Rarity wants something from us?” the female asked.
“In exchange for something of value to you, yes.”
“Lies! Whiny pony take whole carts full of gems and gave us nothing!” Spot yapped.
“You kidnapped me, and forced me into bondage. I earned all those gems you forced me to find. Now, I'm offering you payment. There's a difference.” Rarity retorted.
Now she had the female's full attention. “Payment? In what?” she asked.
“I have quite a lot of bits, but if they're not acceptable I can exchange for other goods I suppose.”
“Goods?” the female asked.
“Oh, you know, food, clothing, medicine, raw materials. I noticed you diamond dogs use a lot of iron, wood and um... leather?” rarity said, grinding to a slow, confused halt at the expression of pure glee on the female dog's face.
“Oh, we do business, Rarity, we do much business...”