Rarity warily trotted through an abandoned quarry. Recently she had received a letter from an admirer saying how she much would very much like to meet her... At a quarry. Normally Rarity would decline being too suspicious or busy, but the letter had such admirable penmanship and felt like the writer was genuinely interested in conversing. With a day off Rarity let the curiosity get the better of her, and traveled out... into an abandoned quarry. That's just it, isn't it? Is that why she was so curious?! To see what kinda high class pony was doing in an abandoned quarry! Her furious curiosity aside, she followed the map on the letter, all the landmarks she'd passed already, tipped over crane, rock that looked like a butt, and now she stood before where the arrow pointed to, a massive cave mouth on the side of a cliff. She cowered at the sight of the cliff, even more so what kinda of pony lied inside it. 'Come now Rarity, you've come this far. If you turn back now, you'll never know. Then again if you turn back now you may also save your life... No! I simply must see who sets a meet up spot in a quarry for sweet Celestia's sake! Rarity slowly crept inside, her eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness, she let out a small gasp when she saw the sudden drop off right in front of her. She stared down the ledge, it was so dark it was hard to tell where it stopped. "I didn't know this particular meet up would require a flashlight, or a ladder." Rarity said to herself.
"Ahuhuhu, yes I should've included that in my letter," a voice echoed to her response. The hairs on Rarity's mane stood up, she quickly jerked around to pinpoint who said that.
"Where are you?" Rarity quivered.
"Oh, do watch your step!" the voice shouted.
"Wha-" Rarity began, but her question then turned into a scream of panic as she fell off the ledge. She fell for what felt like forever, to what she suspected would be her death. She could have accomplished so much with her life, she had caught the attention of many handsome stallions and clothing companies, but never had she taken up the offer of dating or a better job. She could've been actually been somepony, but now she was about to plummet to her death due to some whackjob requesting to meet in a quarry! Instinctively she braced for impact when she felt herself hit the ground, but only this wasn't the ground, she was suspended in the air by some sort of sticky rope. She started laughing, reassurance that she wasn't going to die afterall, at least just yet. She felt the rope jerk, something else had just landed right behind her. She tried to pull herself out, jerking wildly to pull herself free of the rope.
"Oh stop struggling dear, then again they're so cute when the struggle, ahuhuhu~!" the voice cooed. The voice was strangely soothing to Rarity, almost like her own, but with a higher pitch, and... was tinkly the right word? She felt a section of the rope give out with a muffled snip, and another snip, snip snip! Eventually she was dangling from her hind hooves. "There's ground directly below you, once I snip this last rope be sure land on your front legs," she told Rarity. A final snip and she was free, the ground only a few inches away, she landed on her front legs, then her back legs. "What nice form you have, very elegant." Rarity could still barely see the silhouette, it knelt down and poked what looked like am mushroom, and instantly it flared with a blue light. The whole cave lit up before her, as well as her admirer. Her six armed, five eyed, two legged admirer in a stylish . "Now now, before you go an comment on my different body structure. No I am not a pony, I'm a spider monster, but a friendly one. I won't bite, unless of course you want me to, ahuhuhu~! Also I must say I love the purple hair, it really suits you."
"ab... uh... wasa..." Was all Rarity could scrape together as a response. Her spidery companion cupped her hand over her mouth laughing, like watching a new born pup struggling to walk. Rarity cleared her throat, trying to collect herself, "W-well I can certainly say your taste in residential affairs is... peculiar. So is the way to get down here as well."
"What, you mean the five foot drop? That was by your own accord hon, there's a step ladder over to your right." the spider asked. Rarity whipped her head around to see where she fell from. It looked even less than five feet. And of course, there was a step ladder from the cliff to where she was. Rarity face hoofed, making the elegant monster giggle, "Come, we'll discuss things over tea," she said, motioning Rarity to follow her.
Rarity sat before a nice antique table, it looked almost totally alienated from the cave it resided in. Everything felt out of place, a dark dank cave decorated with Christmas lights through the walls, stalactites creeping from the ceiling, an oddly royal looking queen sized bed, various neatly kept furniture items, and of course the endless amount of webs filling the corners of walls and completely filling the ceiling. As if a furnished room from a prestigious kingdom was relocated in a spider infested cave. Rarity's new spider friend sat down opposite from her, her five obsidian dark eyes fell directly onto Rarity. Never had Rarity never felt more terrified and at ease in her entire life. "So," she began "Do you like the place?"
Rarity faltered, did she really want her honest opinion, or a blatant lie of a compliment? She settled for, "It's certainly... unique."
"I'll take that as a compliment, afterall a woman would want to be anything but plain, ahuhuhu~. Oh, how rude of me. I forgot about the tea." Her three sets arms clapped twice, which I guess you could technically say was six claps, suddenly two large spiders scuttled in from a shadowy corner with what looked like trays balanced atop their back, two cup and a tea pot on one tray, various forms of baked goods on the other. She took both trays and sat them down on the table, she gently petted each of them, they then scuttled back to where ever they were before. "My little ones sure are resourceful, sure not appeasing to look at from someone such as yourself, then again you have a rather monstrous helper of your own, do you not?"
"What are you... do you mean Spike?" Rarity asked.
"Ah, so that's the young dragons name. Yes, rather resourceful, and very loyal. One of the many things we have in common are helpers," she stopped to have another one of her little giggles, "I'm Muffet by the way Miss Rarity. I must say it's a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance, I'm sure you could say the same~."
"Ehehe..." Rarity nervously laughed, "How do you know so much about me?"
"My spiders occupy many households for either reconnaissance or to live on their own. From time to time they come back and share stories of pony's houses they've stayed in. Until one of my great great great great granddaughters informed me about you and your house. Genuinely interested I ordered several spiders sentries to keep tab on you to see your actions and just what kind of pony you were. When I saw we had a lot in common I sent out a letter for us to meet, hoping we could become closer." Muffet ended with a smile.
Rarity was so confused in so little time. Wasn't this considered stalking? Just how old was this spider? Did all the spiders she killed in her house have any correlation with Muffet? And just what exactly was there in common between her and Mrs. Five Eyes?! Rarity thought it best to avoid all those questions to not appear rude, or cause Mrs. Muffet to put her back on the web. Instead Rarity asked a question that hopefully wouldn't antagonize Muffet, "How exactly did you end with with a cave being your home?"
"Oh, that's a rather long story, I don't want to bore you with details so I'll try to be frisk - I mean brisk. Sorry, I was thinking of someone." She took a generous sip from her cup before beginning. "My original cave that I lived in was quite massive, it had many tunnels and hidden passage that my spiders often resided in, however one day one of my sentries reported an entirely different cave connecting from mine. Saying it lead to a possible new realm with equine figures. Horses and ponies I thought were always so majestic and elegant, far more than the bumbling monster I grew up around. So me and a small party of my most trustworthy thirteen thousand spiders explored the passage, leading to this cave. Sadly the quarry members didn't take kindly to the baker-dozens of thousands of spiders they saw pouring in out of one of the crevices, so they fled the premises. I hate setting up on someone else's property, but this place provided such appropriate shelter for me and my spiders. So that's why we ended up staying here." Rarity toyed with her cup as Muffet finished up, too scared to taste it. "However I called you down here for more than just a meet up. I have a request."
Rarity's eyes widened a bit, just what could this spider possibly want from her? "And that is?" Rarity asked, floating one of her baked cookie goods up to her mouth.
"Making me my own custom clothing!" Muffet said, clapping her hands together. Rarity spit out her cookie, not from Muffet's request, far from it. But that fact that there were TINY SPIDERS IN THE COOKIE! Muffet giggled, but more of an awkward giggle, "Sorry, I figure you don't prefer your baked goods with spiders then? I'll keep that in mind for our next scheduled meet up."
Rarity continued her immense disgust by scraping the remaining crumbs off her tongue. And what exactly did she mean by that? 'Next scheduled meet up. Oh no, most certainly not. Rarity had been to some cringe inducing and awkward invites, but this one by far takes the cake!... or spider cookie! Between the fear and discomfort Rarity was feeling, she never even wanted to think of this place again, let alone come back!
"Of course there would be a matter of payment, a very generous payment." Muffet once again clapped her hands together and four of her spiders appeared with pouches on their backs. Muffet took the sacks and opened them with each hand, dumping the contents fall upon the table. "I know I should really maintain my manners, but when you have such funds as I, you tend to want to show it off, ahuhuhu~."
Rarity's eyes darted around the table, there had to be more than five-hundred bits here! Only that weren't bits, they were much larger, even shinier. "Is this... Is this gold?!" Rarity replied, truly astonished.
"Indeed it is. And there's more where that came from if you make the designs I wish to possess. I figured making you hoof it all the way out here, almost 'dying' from a five foot drop, and the whole spider cookie thing was a bit traumatic, these funds should more than cover it."
"Oh quite certainly," Rarity laughed, bringing up the tea to her mouth.
"Oh hon, I wouldn't drink that if I were yo-" However Muffet's warning was too late, Rarity got another mouth full of spiders. Without hesitation Rarity again spat out a stream of spiders from her mouth. Muffet only sighed and clapped her hands together, another spider crawled out with yet another apology payment.
Muffet packed the last of the blueprints into a satchel for Rarity. "There, these shouldn't take you too long to get these made, should it?" she asked. Far from long, Rarity thought, the satchel was brimming with over hundreds of designs for dresses and other forms of apparel for Muffet. Rarity didn't think of it like that however, she thought it as more of a landfill of gold to be made! Perhaps stop the boutique all together and simply just make clothing for Mrs. six arms.
"Well we'll see. I still haven't gotten your body structure down, but Rarity isn't a pony who shy's away from a challenge."
Muffet clapped her hands together and giggled, "You really are quite adorable. Tata darling~!"
As Rarity walked away, she began to think how much herself and Muffet really were alike. 'She did have a bit of a point, we're both polite, charming, and elegant. However, I hope that's as far as we get in terms of comparison, Celestia knows I don't want spider minions...'