//------------------------------// // 5: A Makeover of the Soul // Story: Seeing Sanguine // by Winged Cat //------------------------------// Sanguine let her eyes roam Rarity's establishment - the Carousel Boutique, Rarity had called it on the way over - as Rarity and Pinkie Pie ushered her in. This was the house of an artist of fabric, no doubt. The large room the front door opened into was a proper studio, decked out in lavenders and purples such that Sanguine's first thought was whether this place had been set up for Twilight to hide in. Scattered around were what Sanguine could only describe to herself as "beauty stations": wide buckets flanked by drawers in front of a mirror, where a pony could be primed and primped. Velvet curtains obscured parts of the room; a bit of observation noted drawn curtains that could obscure the stations - it would be easy to host a little fashion show in here, and perhaps that was the point. Over here was a mannequin next to a platform in front of two mirrors and room for more, a setup to let a pony self-observe from multiple angles. Over there were racks of clothing and bolts of fabric. Stairs going up were in the back - roughly the building's center, Sanguine guessed. Doubtless this shop doubled as a home, with the bedroom and other places essential for living tucked on the second floor or even further back. Belatedly, Sanguine realized the other two ponies had entered behind her and closed the door. "So this, ah, 'makeover of the soul'. I don't have to take my heart out and put it on a sacrificial platter or anything?" "Oh, no, no, no my dear! That's not what I mean at all." Rarity put a smile in her voice even as she closed the window blinds, one after another. This darkened the interior, but not too much to see easily. "Besides, necromancy can be so..." "Evil?" Pinkie offered. "Unclean? Corrupting? Icky?" "Well yes," Rarity sighed, "but the word I was looking for is 'gauche'. Anyway. The functional word is 'makeover', as in a change of image. In this case, self-image." Privacy assured, Rarity now looked at Sanguine, measuring her reactions. "You believe yourself as destined to live a life of bloodshed and murder, but I see possibilities, options. For starters - you believe your talent is only useful for harming the living, am I right? As in, right now, you can see a dozen different ways to break Pinkie's and my necks?" Pinkie stopped in her tracks and stared at Rarity. It was her habit to try to liven up any situation, to cheer up anyone in need of cheer - ponies, griffons, dragons, even changelings a few times. But despite years of practice in the festive arts, she could not think of any way to make happy the topic of her and her friend's quick and probably slightly messy demise. Sanguine just blinked, thinking along similar but far more muted lines. "How can you ask that so calmly?" Rarity grinned. "Just humor me, please." "W-well, okay? I try to ignore it, but umm..." Sanguine looked at Rarity, then Pinkie, then around the botique. "Now that I think about it, I only see five ways, using what's on hand. Do you want me to list them?" Rarity waved a hoof. "No, that is quite alright." She did not add that her stomach had been purged enough for one day. Keeping potential berserkers calm required careful management of the conversation topic. Although the consequences were perhaps a bit more personal and dire this time, it was not a situation she had not faced before. "And trust me, we appreciate your restraint in not demonstrating. Anyway. See that mannequin over there?" Sanguine's eyes drifted toward the indicated object. "Yes?" Rarity puffed a flash of anger into her voice. "KILL IT." Without hesitation, Sanguine pounced upon the defenseless clay statue, extending one hoof to transfer all her momentum into her target's neck. The mannequin's head snapped off and sailed into the stairwell leading upstairs. Rarity's eyes followed its flight. "Impressive. But consider what you didn't do just now." The red pegasus drew in a shuddering breath, then another, then shot Rarity a look of mixed venom and pleading. "I killed it, like you said. D-don't, tell me to do that again." Rarity blinked, danger flags raised. "Whatever do you mean?" "Don't say that word, when giving me an order," Sanguine half-growled. "Please." Rarity scrambled for a way to defuse the derailment. "What? But...you don't have to do everything I say, dear." Sanguine just looked at her, as Pinkie warily stepped up to the mannequin and carefully felt the neck stump. Rarity sighed in relief - inward only, this was not the time to let Sanguine see her sweat. The pause was enough to excuse a topic bridge. "But we digress. You killed 'it', yes. Was it alive?" "Well no, of course not. It was just..." Sanguine blinked as realization dawned. "...an 'it'..." Rarity nodded. "I think you start to get my point, but just to be sure." She levitated the detached head back into the room and placed it at the end of a sawhorse, then pulled off the legs at that end, resulting in two legs and a long wooden beam ending in a mannequin head. "Wouldn't you say this looks like a long neck?" Without prompting, Sanguine charged the modified sawhorse and headbutted the beam, effortlessly snapping it. Rarity allowed herself a victory grin. A stray thought considered that this would be the exact moment Rainbow Dash would have hoofpumped, or Pinkie if she was aware of Rarity's plan, but Rarity was by necessity more reserved - even if her friends sometimes thought otherwise. "Bravo! Now it'll take a lot more, ah, 'creative' exercises, but this is one option: stretch your talent into something less reprehensible. You'll always feel the pull back, but you have that handled. The life of a junkyard operator, smashing unwanted things into parts small enough to recycle, might seem unglamorous but wouldn't you agree it is a step up from what you thought for certain your life would be just a few minutes ago?" "I...I..." Sanguine sat down next to the sawhorse wreckage and blinked back tears, looking at Rarity again but now with gratitude. "I don't have to...?" "Psh." Rarity waved a hoof dismissively. She pictured herself grabbing Sanguine's regrettable line of thought that had her chained to a cruel fate, gently yanking it free, and tossing it in the refuse. But words could do the deed far more reliably than hooves, so words she employed. "Cutie marks may be 'destiny' but the only ponies truly in control of our fates are ourselves. And this isn't the only option available to you." "There are MORE ways I don't have to kill?" Sanguine's eyes widened in amazement. Rarity could think of three off the top of her head, but to focus on them would lose that an even broader perspective was possible. "Well...yes, but actually I was thinking of a way to embrace it but still put it to good use. Tell me, what do you know of griffon culture?" "Err, noth...ing?" Sanguine racked her brain, but no relevant knowledge presented itself. "Hrm. Do have a discussion with Rainbow Dash before you go if this option interests you; she spent some time in that place. They eat meat - supposedly only from non-thinking animals." Rarity could not keep a note of distaste from her voice - but she was a pony, some things were to be expected. As thoughts of griffons crossed her mind, she remembered to remind one customer who had wanted a gem-studded leather purse that she still needed to provide the latter material: the Carousel Boutique would not stock dried animal skin so long as Rarity was running it. "Therefore, they have employment for butchers. You would stretch away from just neck strikes, but I imagine that may feel, well, closer to your calling?" "You mean I'd be exiled." Rarity frowned. Sanguine could see the worst in anything, in her current mood. Rarity might not have the talents of Pinkie but this just would not do. "Oh, not at all! You could come back and visit at any time! Even if you might not want to." "It...is a possibility..." The red pegasus smiled widely, tears now rolling freely down both cheeks. "I don't have to kill ponies. I don't have to kill ponies. I, I really don't." Rarity could not help but smile too, as she noted that Sanguine's emotions were positively a roller coaster right now. Best to fixate her on the ups, and pay no attention to the downs. "No, dear, you don't." "Ooh, ooh, I know," Pinkie interrupted, having just finished putting the mannequin's head back in place. She must have used epoxy or something, but Rarity smelled no adhesive nor had she seen Pinkie dip into her supplies - another mysterious Pinkie method, apparently. "You could be a wandering adventurer, like Daring Do! Take out any monsters that won't be reasoned with, like those timberwolves!" Rarity had long since given up attempting to figure out how Pinkie's mind worked, a feat that apparently gave even Twilight headaches when she attempted it. "Now let's not get carried away." The unicorn walked over to her bolts of fabric and began examining them, looking for inspiration. Pinkie's mind had, in fact, been following a similar track as Rarity's, just with more focus on making Sanguine happy. "Uhh, Rarity?" "I'm sure our guest can see the practical difficulties with such an arrangement," Rarity continued, picking up bolt after bolt in her telekinesis and letting them orbit her, crossing one another to let her see how they went together. "Raaarity!" Rarity grimaced briefly. Pinkie would get more insistent until Rarity acknowledged the interruption, so she acknowledged it. "What is it?" "I think she's thinking about it." Actually Pinkie was fairly certain it was the foremost thought on Sanguine's mind just then. Rarity paused the bolts in their orbit and looked across the room, to find Sanguine staring wide-eyed at Pinkie. "Don't tell me you're seriously considering..." "It, makes, sense," Sanguine gasped. "It makes sooo much sense. It feels right. Monster slaying." "Whaaat? But, but..." Rarity's mind scrambled to actually cite the practical difficulties, which she had assumed would be evident and thus in no need of listing explicitly. It did not take long to find one. "How would you know when and where the monsters will be?" Sanguine kept looking at Pinkie, but only because that was where her eyes were pointed when her mind began racing. "I had a feeling, coming into Ponyville, that NOW was when I needed to be here. I thought that was just because of Celestia's order and I shouldn't delay, but now...and she's had me go to a couple other places; it wasn't long after I arrived that trouble came. And then when I got to Fluttershy's, I kept feeling something from the forest." Rarity considered the new course. She supposed there was no harm in indulging an exploration: even if it did not work out, Sanguine might seize upon a related but more practical endeavor. "...well. If you are seriously considering that then I will insist that you have long talks with Rainbow Dash, Twilight, and Zecora. They would know the most about that sort of life." "Ooh, ooh, and Fluttershy too," Pinkie offered. "What would Fluttershy know about monsters and strange animals and..." Rarity trailed off. She opened her mouth to speak, closed it, opened it again, closed it again, then finally continued, "Well played as always, Celestia." One did not rule for a mostly peaceful and prosperous thousand years without much talent, Rarity had long since accepted. She wondered once again if those rumors were true, of Celestia having grown bored of chess after repeatedly winning despite starting with just king and queen. "I'll talk with them. I promise!" Sanguine grinned. "You two have given me hope! How can I ever repay you?" Makeover accomplished, Rarity adjusted her mind for her next task. "Don't fret it. This and your dress are on the house. Speaking of which, somewhere back here I have a bolt of special fabric: water, mud, grease, and I imagine blood just slide right off it. Unfortunately it is a simply dreadful shade of yellow that simply doesn't go with anything, but as I doubt you'll be accessorizing much, that shouldn't be a problem in your case." The bolts around her resumed their flight but now in course from one pile to the next, as she searched for that specific bolt. Sanguine tilted her head, looking over the fabric bolts. "That seems like an awfully specific thing to have." "When you've been in business as long as I have, dear, you pick up odds and ends here and there," Rarity reassured her. "I have made garments for everypony from the homeless right up to Princess Cadance, and of course Princess Twilight." Sanguine blinked. "Twilight's a what?" she whispered, danger flags suddenly waving in her mind. Pinkie grinned. Anticipating that Rarity would soon have Sanguine's new clothes ready, she began nudging Sanguine over to the Mirror-Enabled Multi-Angle Mane-Mark-And-Everything-Else Measurement Mezzanine, as she referred to it, or "that platform with a couple of mirrors" as Applejack and Rainbow Dash had jointly named it in response. "Aaand you're hoping our new adventurer friend will one day team up with Daring Do and then your dress will be on the cover of her latest book." Rarity let out a single chuckle, contemplating that while Pinkie might have seemed an idiot at times, she was quite perceptive and, Rarity had to admit, brilliant in her own way. "The thought had crossed my mind, yes." If the others were willing to let the topic of Twilight's status pass, Sanguine was too - for the moment. She wiped her still-wet cheeks after stepping onto the platform. "You mean A. K. Yearling will want to write me into one of her books?" "We-ell, only after you meet Daring Do." Pinkie smiled at Sanguine. Sanguine paused mid-wipe. "I don't get it." "She means," Rarity explained as she finally found the bolt and carefully levitated it out from the others, "that Daring Do is a real pony. We've met her. The books are...edited, shall we say, but true enough." "No WAY!" Sanguine gasped. "Yes way," Pinkie replied. "Buuut she's the kind of pony you're going to have to meet yourself." "Indeed." Rarity moved the bolt to a counter and began getting out tools. "She likes her privacy - despite allowing publication of her adventures - and we respect that. You'll just have to meet her on the job, assuming you do take up an adventuring lifestyle." "Hmm." Sanguine let her thoughts whirl for a moment, looking at Pinkie's reflection in one of the mirrors. "Do you...always do this?" Pinkie tilted her head. "Do what?" "Greet even the most loathsome, revolting situation with a smile, and just..." Sanguine fished for the right words. "Blow it away with good cheer?" Rarity began overlaying patterns on the cloth. "Well I can't honestly say that I do." "But I sure do," Pinkie counterparted, standing behind Sanguine so as to seem on one side of her in one mirror and the other side in the other, so it would be like two Pinkies cheering Sanguine on. "It doesn't matter what sort of pony you are, you need to smile. So many ponies get silly about that, so I remind them. And Rarity's just being a grouch: she wouldn't be in business if she wasn't making her customers happy." "I suppose." Rarity discarded one pattern and set down another. "So Sanguine, have you thought of a new name?" The customer of the moment blinked, turning her head to watch Rarity work. "Huh?" "'Sanguine Spray' caused you grief." Rarity rejected the second pattern, considered a third, and nodded in satisfaction. "We were going to change it, remember?" "Oh, yeah. U-umm..." Sanguine felt into her heart. Her heart's answer reached her voice at the same time it reached her mind. "Actually, I'd like to keep it for now." "You still want it?" Rarity looked up momentarily. "Don't keep it just as a chain to who you used to be." "No, that's not it," Sanguine explained. "You've offered me new visions, new mes I can be. I'd like to see if my name can be part of it." Rarity smiled and returned to her work, getting scissors in position to begin cutting. "I suppose. 'Sanguine Spray' does bring up a number of possible visions, not just blood." "Yeah!" Pinkie nodded, walking over to pick up and put away the broken sawhorse. "Like being at the shore of a sea full of pomegranate juice, getting ready to take as biiig a sip as you want! Or maybe cranberry juice." Sanguine ducked her head and muttered, "Is she always like this?" "Not at all," Rarity muttered back, guiding the scissors around the forms. Sanguine winced. "I just set her off?" "No, she can get MUCH worse," Rarity commented, as if noting how a gentle shower was less than a blizzard. "Especially when her Pinkie Sense goes off." "I can heaaar you," Pinkie called out, task complete. "And my Pinkie Sense was going off all the way over here!" "Oh, bother. Do I need to shelter the boutique against a rain of frogs again?" Rarity was only half joking. "Not this time! My heart's warm, and I felt all tingly inside in the good way!" Pinkie smiled so brightly, it was almost as if the window blinds were open. Rarity and Sanguine looked at each other and simultaneously asked, "And that means...?" "I'm about to make a new friend!" Rarity cocked one eye as she put the scissors down and examined the cut fabric. "You must feel that a lot." "Well, not EVERY day, but yeah. It's a good feeling!" Pinkie looked directly at Sanguine, walking back over to her. "A new..." Sanguine blinked, composure beginning to collapse. "You barely know me. You know what I've done. And you'd still call me..." Pinkie grinned. "Yuuup! You're trying to do good; you just didn't know how. And now you do! That's a kind of pony I like to call 'friend'!" Sanguine hugged Pinkie as if clinging to a life preserver. An equal mix of laughter and sobs came from her as she buried her face in Pinkie's mane. Pinkie just hugged back, holding her as Rarity began putting Sanguine's new garb on her, pinning and sewing to make adjustments.