Sweetie Belle was always amazed how it got so dark so soon during the winters in Ponyville. When she was just a filly she would be driven crazy by how fast the day would change to night, even though the clocks would say otherwise. She used to love the snow. She loved how it would make everything look so pretty, like a cold extension of her coat reached out and covered the rest of the world. Long ago, as she was looking out one of the windows of Ms. Cheerilee’s class, she made a promise to the frozen specks of her coat dancing in the wind. She promised that when she was old enough to not have to go to school, to not have to go inside when it got dark out, and old enough that she didn’t have to follow other ponies rules, that she would always find time to go out and enjoy the wonders of winter.
But times change, and ponies change with them. As Sweetie Belle leaned up against the counter of the Carousel Boutique she remembered the promise that she had made to the snow outside the window, and knew that she had broken it. It was a simpler time back then, before Post-Secondary Education, before she understood why she needed money, before her cutiemark, before a lot of things. It would have probably brought her younger self to tears to know that when she had earned the freedom to go out in the snow as she pleased, that she would choose to stay inside instead.
As the arms of the clock above the door of the shop ticked their way to make a full circle, Sweetie Belle could not help herself but to think of closing up the lonely shop and spending the night with nopony but a bag of chocolate covered pretzels, a gossip magazine, and her sister’s Sapphire Shores albums. The hypnotic clicking of the clock began to put her into a trance as she imagined her nearing freedom to do absolutely nothing. Her head became heavy in her hooves, her drooping eyelids hung partly open like a love-sick schoolfilly. She even began to lick around the metal of her braces, trying to steal a salvaged taste of imaginary chocolate.
The bell chimed above the door. Sweetie Belle jolted awake, trying to stand while at the same time trying to regain her balance, but succeeded in only dropping her head onto the counter before scrambling beside the register. She was about to greet the new arrivals, but her recollection of the pony standing at door turned the words from “Welcome to the Carousel Boutique” to “Hi Ms. Cheerilee!”
Cheerilee, now with considerable girth to her midriff, entered into the store with a small earth pony filly close to her side. “Hello, Sweetie Belle. It’s good to see you,” she said before hanging the scarfs of both her and the pony with her onto a hat rack.
Sweetie Belle stepped around the counter to meet her old teacher and asked, “What brings you here tonight, Ms. Cheerilee?”
“I was trying on my dress for my sister’s wedding, and as you can see,” she pointed at her swelled midsection, “I need to have some alterations done. I don’t suppose Rarity is in tonight, is she?” Sweetie Belle was about to answer when her old teacher looked out the door and called, “Big Mac, are you coming in or what?” Within moments, an echoing response of “Eeyup!” came from outside the door, and a large red stallion with a garment bag draped across his shoulders galloped inside and closed the door behind him.
“Rarity happens to be out of town on business,” Sweetie Belle said. “She left earlier, but now that I think of it she did tell me that you might be coming in. Fluttershy will be in tomorrow. But, since you’re here, why don’t you step into the back and I can take the measurements so you won’t have to come back tomorrow. Would that work, Ms. Cheerilee?”
”That sounds fine,” The brooding mare said, taking the garment bag off of Big Mac’s shoulders and heading for the back fitting rooms. She passed by the counter and gave a look to her past student and whispered, “Oh, and dear, it’s Mrs. Cheerilee now.”
Sweetie Belle blushed and said, “Oh, sorry. Old habits, y’know.”
While his wife made her way to the back of the store, Big Mac did what any reasonable husband would do in this situation and sat down at a bench on the far wall of the store. He sat the foal beside him on the bench, becoming as unobtrusive and inconspicuous as possible.
As Sweetie Belle waited for Cheerilee, she took the time to gather the pins and measuring tapes in order to instruct the store’s other tailor on what the client wanted. After giving what she would have guessed was enough time, Sweetie Belle headed towards the private rooms of the store, but before she did her eyes wandered over Big Mac and his accomplice sitting on a bench. The foal was being good, sitting silently and being very well behaved, but there was something about her that struck a chord deep inside the recesses of Sweetie Belle’s mind, like a long lost memory of sitting in the store for an eternity waiting for the adults to finish their business with nothing to pass the time.
Without a second thought, Sweetie Belle turned around and walked back to the desk with the register and opened the cash drawer and a cabinet underneath it. Quietly, Sweetie Belle crept up to the little earth pony and set a piece of paper with holes punched in it and a plastic needle with yellow string on the seat beside her. “Do you want to do some sewing?” she asked. The pony looked up at her, waiting to make sure that she was the one being spoken to, and when sure of it, she nodded. The instruction on the paper were simple, just a number of steps to follow the needle through to make the outline of a dress for a printed pony, but to the filly on the bench she may not have comprehended it, yet at the same time Sweetie Belle didn’t care as long as she had something to do.
Next to the sewing supplies, Sweetie set down a small golden coin and, although it was to the foal, was more directed towards the pony beside her, said. “And if you get hungry we have a little candy machine in the corner- if that’s okay.”
Big Mac looked down at the two and said, “Eeyup.”
With all the approval she needed, the little pony jumped off of the bench and galloped, coin in mouth, to the small red candy machine and put it in.
With that taken care of, Sweetie Belle retrieved the measuring supplies and made her way towards the back rooms to measure her old teacher. But as she opened the door she heard the bell chime once more, and as she expected, there was a pony standing in the doorway. She looked at the clock above the door, and sure enough they were still open for ten minutes. Hopefully it was nothing, just a question or a simple sale that she could do and then finish her old teacher and close up for the night, otherwise she was just going to have to turn them away until tomorrow. She took a quick breath, smiled and said, “Welcome to the Carousel Boutique. How can I help you?”
The stallion who entered marched over to the desk and threw a package onto the counter and barked, “I need a lot of help!”
It was at that moment that Sweetie Belle realized that it was going to be one of those customers. She felt the urge to roll her eyes, but her sister’s strict training halted the urge. Sweetie Belle returned to her spot beside the cash register and said, “Oh, that’s too bad. What’s the matter?”
“Well, I got my wife a present from here,” he slapped a paper receipt onto the table. Sweetie Belle glanced down and saw that it was from the store. She didn’t really mind to see what it was or when it was purchased because all she cared about was averting the problem for now. “and when she washed it, it shrunk! Now, my wife’s crying at home and YOU need to fix this right now!”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Sweetie Belle said. She reached into a drawer for a pen and sticky note and brought it up to the countertop, “But we’re closing in ten minutes and the tailor isn’t going to be in until tomorrow.”
Either Sweetie Belle hadn’t given the new arrival a close enough look, or his mood had just gone from bad to worse, but at this time it looked as if he had gone absolutely livid. The skin underneath his fur, possibly a little flustered from the biting cold, had gone as red as a tomato and the veins of his neck began to bulge out from his coat. “No! That’s unacceptable. I want it done now.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I’m not allowed to do that.”
“Well what are you good for, then!” he spat.
Granted, Sweetie Belle could understand how her reason sounded like an excuse, but this was the truth. Rarity and Fluttershy were the best seamstresses in Ponyville. While the former would be available at most times of the day, this happened to be a rare occasion. Fluttershy, on the other hoof, only worked part time and helped with normal orders when Rarity was either preoccupied or overwhelmed. Either way, Sweetie Belle wasn’t a tailor, and a quick reflection on Cutiemark Crusading would remind her of her ventures in sewing.
“I just work part-time to help with checkout and errands.”
“What are they here for, then?” he asked in a tone that was meant to patronize her.
“Measurements,” she answered in an equally condescending deadpan.
The customer spoke again, keeping his angered disposition and poison laced words to ridicule the teen, but Sweetie Belle had tuned him out. Not because she wanted to, even though if given the choice she would have just ignored him and let the fire of his little tantrum burn off all of his wrath, but because in the corner of her eye Sweetie Belle noticed Mrs. Cheerilee had tiptoed back into the storefront, only half of her girding on, and hurriedly ushered the little pony with her into the back. Sweetie Belle watched them until they closed the door to shield them from the hostile temperament before she returned her focus to the customer.
“-So I’ll come back tomorrow, but I want this fixed and I want my money back.”
”Oh great, what did I miss?” Sweetie Belle asked herself. Citing the memory of her sister’s return policy, she took what she had pieced together based on what she had heard and asked, “When did you buy the dress for your spouse, sir?”
“Four months ago.”
Sweetie Belle internally rolled her eyes,”Great…” she thought. “Sorry, but that’s past the return policy. Either way, we’ll see what we can do about the inconvenience, but that’s against store policy.”
“That’s a bunch of bull! I know about how you work. I know a pony who used to work for a rinky-dink joint like this. All you do is try to sell any piece of crap to make a quick coin. I showed it to my friend and he said that this was a piece of junk and you knew it!”
Either from the blatant and utterly stupid claim that a local tailor would try to rob its clients, or the anecdotal and possibly imaginary friend who could deduce that the work from the hooves of a tailor that that serviced royalty and celebrities alike was trash, Sweetie Bell couldn’t help but roll her eyes. But as she momentarily dwelled on it, the statement dug deep into her nerves. She knew that the abuse of the word “you” was just a generalization, because she wasn’t allowed to even touch a product until it was to a client’s liking. But there was something about it that finally stuck, that this pony was so intent to make her the cause of the problem that it had finally compromised her emotions. This was what Rarity had always warned her about, what her sister had wished that she never had to experience, the one thing that nopony could prepare for. She was alone, and she was in the midst of the most dangerous customer interaction of them all, damage control.
“Sir, I assure you that-”
“I want your manager, I want a seamstress, and I want the owner right now!”
“As I’ve already said, that’s not possible, our owner is out of town and won’t be back unt-”
“You better make it happen! This is unacceptable!”
“The-”
“I don’t care about your policy because your policy is a sham. ‘No refunds’ what a joke. Do you like getting ripped off like this?”
“Y-”
“Either I get a refund or I’m going to tell everypony that this place is just another rip off joint. You got that!”
“Yes, b-”
“Now I can tell you’re just trying to be a “yes-pony”, but this is a bunch of crap and I won’t stand this-.”
“Grrr, stop interrupting me.” Sweetie Belle thought. “Yes, sir. But I’m trying to sa-”
“I WASN’T FINISHED! You shut up when I’m talking to you-”
“SIR!”
The sudden boom from between the two made Sweetie Belle jump. She regained her position, but it was at that moment that she realized that her eyes were burning and she felt as if she was about to cry. Once upon a time she did have a hair-trigger cry reflex, but she thought that she had grown out of it. She wiped her hoof across her face and realized that she had been sweating so much that her makeup was bleeding into her eyes. What shocked her even more as she looked at her makeup-stained hoof was that she she was shaking, and she couldn’t seem to stop it.
Sweetie Belle heard her late arrival shout again, but this time she was only getting the indirect effect of the blast. She turned her head, and she didn’t know how she hadn’t noticed it before, but Big Mac was standing at the counter. He stood with his legs locked straight out and his neck tall and erect, using his presence to tower over the unruly entrant like a mountain, yet at the same time spoke with such a gracefully calm tone that it could only be described as a whale gliding through the cold ocean depths.
“Sir, you need to leave, now.”
“What? No. Shove off. This is none of your business.”
“No, it became my business when you started wasting my time.”
“Well this came before you, so go sit in the corner and wait.”
“She did all that she could do for you. Now it’s time to leave.”
“No, don’t try to come to her rescue. This doesn’t apply to you.”
Big Mac stepped forward again, looking straight down at the pony who he had challenged while making him crane his neck up. “This applied to me when you came in here and got between me and my pregnant wife from getting home in a snowstorm. Now, unless you can behave yourself and say something civil to the young lady, then it’s time to go.”
“Either back off or let’s take this outside and settle this like stallions!”
“Whoa, calm down no-”
A crack filled the Carousel Boutique as the stallion socked the farmer right in the mouth. The big red stallion recoiled back from the blow as his attacker shouted, “Don’t bucking tell me what to do!”
Sweetie Belle dove for cover behind the counter before crying out a yelp so high that her voice cracked. While the professional thing to do at this moment would be to try to get between the two and prevent the engagement from further escalating into an all-out brawl, Sweetie Belle couldn’t help but cower underneath the desk with her hooves over her head as if she was practicing a tornado drill. Hidden like a turtle in its shell, Sweetie Belle was trembling before the forces of fate with her eyes tightly closed and hoping that, somehow, Celestia descend from Canterlot and save her. Blinded by cowardice and bound to the spot by fear, she couldn’t see what happened next -though it wasn’t that she wanted to, but it didn’t mean she couldn’t hear it. Although she would rather choose ignorance, Sweetie Belle was forced to listen to heavy heaving, like somepony’s chest was being used like an old accordion. Then, she heard the sound of elastic scratching against the countertop, like that of the customer’s garment bag being dragged off the desk, a scraping of hooves against the tile floor, and then the bell above the door rang once more.
Then there was silence. Like the quiet that lived inside the eye of a hurricane, time seemed to stop inside their tiny corner of the world. Sweetie Belle managed to muster forth enough courage to open her eyes and slowly began to peek over the edge of the counter where she had been standing. Apparently she hadn’t been the only one to have been affected by the tussle within the store, for she could hear the door to the changing rooms creak open, and Mrs. Cheerilee poking her head out to see what had happened.
The bell rang again, and Sweetie Belle looked towards the door to see Big Mac enter once more. Beside the entrance to the Carousel Boutique was a small garbage receptacle, and while Big Mac was standing in the doorway he used his mouth to take the garbage bag out of the container, tied it up, and threw it outside, landing firmly in a nearby snowbank… next to a garment bag and a pony who had his head planted in the snow.
Cheerilee stepped out of the room, bother etched upon her features. Standing in the middle of the store she asked, “Big Mac, is everything alright?”
Sweetie Belle stepped out from behind the desk, still with the uncontrollable shaking from before, but now being able to comprehend what had happened. Out of all the things that had happened within the last twenty minutes inside the store, the only thing that happened to stick out of her mind at the moment was the empty trash can beside the door. So, to break the silence, she said, “Th-… thanks for taking out the tr-rr trash, Big Mac.”
The red stallion walked back to the bench that he had been sitting at before, turned around, and planted his bottom back into his seat. He looked over at Sweetie Belle, the friend of his foal sister, the pony who had given his own foal a sewing paper and a bit for candy, and had her eyeliner bleeding into the crevices around her eyes as she spoke to him. In a strangely comforting way, he smiled in the unusually hollow and aloof way that he would often do, nodded his head, and said, “Eeyup.”