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// Chapter 7: Resident Cheval 
// Story: Recherche 
// by Crescent Pulsar 
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As Marshall followed Twilight Sparkle to where Rarity could be found, he began to mentally review what he had learned about Rarity from the princess, along with the concerns that the aforementioned princess had expressed about her, which hadn't crossed his mind during the party because said party had been distracting on so many levels.

Aside from Rarity's aspirations as a fashion designer, she also had ambitions in the worlds of high society and royalty. When he had first heard about her dream to marry a prince, and — therefore — becoming a princess, he had thought it childish at first, something that a little girl would dream about until reality woke them up. However, much like Twilight Sparkle, he suspected that there was something else going on with Rarity, once he had been given more context on her actions and behavior.

For instance, when Twilight Sparkle had first met Rarity, she had said that it had been her dream to live in Canterlot. So, it was no surprise that it was also one of her dreams to open a boutique there as well. Perhaps, had Rarity not had certain obligations that kept her in her hometown, she might have closed her boutique in Ponyville to lighten her workload, since the location of the new boutique alone would have been more than enough of a justification, what with the old one being in a relatively small and remote place. Instead of doing that, she had stayed in Ponyville and branched out her business.

While that alone wasn't enough to worry about, it was once framed by what Twilight Sparkle had learned from Sassy Saddles, Rarity's manager at the Canterlot Boutique, when her concern for Rarity's well-being — and Rarity's dismissals of there being anything wrong — spurred her to seek more information on the situation elsewhere. Apparently, Rarity had once commented that she had always intended for her boutique in Ponyville to be her home base. That pretty much contradicted her desire to live in Canterlot, since it would have been a lot more convenient and sensible to work in a boutique there, had said move taken place.

It wasn't just Rarity's work situation that Twilight Sparkle had been worried about, either. She had also been concerned about the fact that Rarity was the only one — among the bearers of the Elements of Harmony — whose friendship really got in the way of what she desired to do with her life, or forced her to make sacrifices. Twilight Sparkle had been upset that she hadn't noticed it before, and it was only upon reflection that she had caught a hint of it: such as when Rarity had admitted that she had made Twilight Sparkle's dress during said pony's birthday party, in front of a host of upper class ponies; which she wouldn't have realized if not for a prior event, when Rarity had held a fashion show with the dress designs that her friends had requested for the Grand Galloping Gala.

He had to admit that the situation had his interest piqued, in addition to making him worry a bit. While he didn't know Rarity all that well, he could get behind someone who was willing to sabotage their own future and/or livelihood for their friends — especially when the desires of said friends were rather frivolous by comparison. Well, he didn't recommend taking such a drastic action, but the character behind it was admirable enough.

Still: what was going on? What did Rarity really want, if she was willing to sacrifice what — they assumed, at least — was important to her? While friendship was certainly important enough, there had to be a limit to how much someone had to accommodate for it. The problem, at least for him, was that he hadn't known Rarity nearly long enough for him to have any kind of inkling to the way that her mind worked. The only consolation to that, if one could call it that, was that her friends weren't in much of a better position, despite knowing her much longer.

He supposed that he would just have to do some... hooves-on detective work, in order to get to the bottom of things. It wasn't the sort of thing that he would have imagined himself doing in his current situation, where he got to go to a magical world in another universe, but he figured that he owed a debt for being able to do that in the first place, at the very least. That wasn't to say that he wouldn't put any of his heart into it, of course: it's just that his relationship with Rarity was still in its infancy, never mind the stage of his relationship with her friends.

When they had reached a section of the town where there were no roads, in addition to an abundance of space between dwellings, which tended to not be of the more common half-timber frame and thatch roof variety, Twilight Sparkle suddenly said, "Oh, yeah," and proceeded to regard him over her shoulder with a somewhat sheepish expression while she continued to walk. "I should probably tell you how to get back to your own body."

"That would be nice to know, yeah," Marshall lightheartedly replied.

Twilight Sparkle smiled slightly at that and began to explain how it could be done. To summarize: he just had to relax his body, clear his mind, and imagine a representation of himself as it moved from one body to the other, through whatever connection he chose to visualize as an aid. That basically meant that he had to find a comfortable and quiet place to repose, so he wouldn't be distracted by his body or environment. Just to be thorough, she also said that he could return to his human body if his current one was sent back to the Mirror Pool, or "expired," but jokingly — and somewhat awkwardly — added that she wouldn't recommend the latter. Beyond that, he was assured that whichever body wasn't being used would be in such a state that it would have the same affect as sleeping, so that was one less thing to worry about.

By the time that Twilight Sparkle had finished her explanation, he noticed which building their current course was taking them to. He had noticed the building quite a ways back, because of its size and appearance, but he hadn't been sure that it was going to be their destination until Twilight Sparkle had taken a direct route to it, when he could not see any other place where they could be going.

The windows indicated that the establishment had at least two floors, but the amount of space above them suggested that there could be as many as three or four. The walls of the ground floor, aside from the muted pink and purple border at the bottom, and the helix-striped poles that were distributed at regular intervals, were mainly periwinkle in color, with bluish-white designs around the windows. The "second" floor's coloration was a reverse of the first, except the border at the bottom used the same colors and a different design, and the poles were thinner and unattached to the walls. The windows on the first floor were large and oval in shape, with awnings of various shades of yellow and orange, while the ones on the floor above were smaller and lacking awnings. Since the width of the round building drew inward with each successive floor, there were two sloping roofs, both of a pale pink and purple checkerboard design.

Well above the door was a sign of notable size, with its middle set upon the eave, which displayed a picture of a carousel horse. It wasn't until then that he realized what the "second" floor's overall design was trying to depict, which inspired a fair amount of confusion. After all, it seemed kind of strange — but not totally out of the question — for ponies to ride other ponies. Perhaps he was just looking at it the wrong way, since it would undoubtedly be strange to see a carousel where humans rode humans, even though it certainly wasn't unheard of for humans to have other humans ride on their back. Since it was more natural for ponies to carry things on their back, technically speaking, it might not be all that unusual for them to use their own likeness for a ride if it was common enough, instead of using another load-bearing creature.

Once they were standing before the door of the establishment, Twilight Sparkle turned around to face him and stated, "This is the Carousel Boutique." Then, with a somewhat apologetic expression on her face, she added, "I'd like to take you directly to her, but... Well, she might get suspicious if I'm present."

Marshall nodded his head in understanding. "She won't be hard to find, will she?"

With a shake of her head, Twilight Sparkle said, "Not at all. If you don't see her in her 'inspiration room,' which is the second door on the left, down the corridor that's beside the first stairway that you will see, then you can find her in her bedroom, at the top of the second stairway that's at the end of the hallway."

Before Marshall had finished repeating that information to himself in his head, he was surprised by Twilight Sparkle when she gave him a quick, one-legged hug, who smiled and said, "Thanks for doing this."

"Uh, sure..." Marshall awkwardly replied, since he wasn't accustomed to receiving hugs from the opposite sex, aside from his mother and grandmother.

After he watched Twilight Sparkle fly away, in part because a flying horse was still a marvel to him, he released a sigh and turned his attention to the door. He was of the opinion that it was a bit premature to be thanked, especially since he had no expectations in regard to his performance. Not only did he not know how much — or well — he could help Rarity with her work, but his social skills were fairly lacking for his other task, however optional it may be. Still, despite his doubts, he was still being tickled by the flame that had been lit by his discovery of magic, so he was feeling adventurous enough to pursue a mystery.

With said pursuit in mind, he used his newfound magic to open the door, which took him a couple of seconds to figure out. Then, before he could fully cross the threshold, he had to stop and gape at the interior of the main room, with all of its varying shades of pink and purple assaulting his eyes, along with the sheer amount of curtains being employed, which mostly seemed to be used for decoration instead of having a more practical purpose. If what he was seeing wasn't something out of a little girl's princess fantasy, unless something sparkly was required for that image, then he didn't know what he was looking at.

With some trepidation, because it felt rather weird to be surrounded by so many things that were of a stereotypically-feminine nature, he took a few more steps forward and closed the door behind himself. As he looked for the stairs, since that was his best reference point with the directions that had been given to him, he also noted other details about the shop.

To his left were several stations that looked like vanities, though he couldn't be sure because of the wooden buckets set in front of each desk; that is, until he noticed that they weren't hollow, which made them look rather out of place as far as seating arrangements were concerned, since everything else looked so fancy and feminine. To his right was a round platform, beside which stood three mirrors, and a nearby stool suggested that Rarity did some of her tailoring while an outfit was being worn, in addition to customers being able to get a good look at themselves while wearing an item of interest. Beyond the platform was a swinging door, like the kind that he'd seen being used by a cafe before, and where it led to was a mystery to him.

He also noticed a couple of mannequins that were set aside here and there, although he supposed that they might be called "ponnequins" — or something — by the ponies. There was also a garment rack, of the variety that could be wheeled around, that had a couple articles of clothing hanging from it. Of course, since there were so many curtains, it was hard not to notice that many of the curtains had a pink, scalloped trim, while a few others simply had a pink stripe near the bottom edge, or were pulled aside in front of other curtains, with pink tie-backs that had tassels on the ends.

Since he didn't see any stairs from his current vantage point, he began to move further into the room, all while trying to ignore how out-of-place he felt within it. The notion was kind of funny, once he thought about it, since he was currently inhabiting a copy of Rarity's body, who should feel right at home at the Carousel Boutique. Considering how often he would likely be visiting the place, he supposed that he better adjust to his surroundings quickly, regardless of what his culturally-engendered notions had to say about it. It wasn't like anyone that he knew from his homeworld was going to know anything about his activities, anyway.

Eventually, he spotted a stairway at the back of the room, right behind the area that the swinging doors led to. Once he was standing in front of one of the two poles located at its base, which had yellow and yellow-orange segments intertwined in a helix configuration, and could see the corridor that he was supposed to go down nearby, he paused to spare the hallway a glance. At the very back, and on the right, he could see the second stairway that Twilight Sparkle had mentioned, in case he had to seek Rarity in her bedroom. Beside it was a door that appeared to lead outside, and directly across from it was a cased opening leading into an unknown room.

After that brief distraction, he entered the corridor and made his way to the second door on the left. Along the way, he noticed two closed doors on the right side of the corridor, as well as the fact that the corridor turned right instead of coming to an end. Unlike the other rooms in that part of the corridor, the first one on the left had a cased opening instead of a doorway, so he was able to glance inside and find out that it was a laundry room in passing, although he may not have realized its function if he hadn't watched the cartoons that had been made way before his time, since that's how he had learned about washboards.

Finally, he came to a stop outside of his destination. His ears involuntarily perked up and focused on the door when he heard the sound of a sewing machine in action on the other side, which he was slightly surprised to have recognized since he hadn't heard one since his freshman year in high school. Still, he was glad that he didn't have to look any further, since he would feel a lot better about exploring someone else's place if he were joined — and properly welcomed — by one of its residents.

After a few seconds of consideration, he decided to knock on the door with the underside of his hoof, rather than the front, and tried to do it without too much strength behind it, since he wasn't sure how loud it could get, or how much would damage the door. Fortunately, his first attempt seemed to be effective enough, because the sewing machine went quiet, followed by Rarity asking, "Who is it?"

"It's just me," Marshall replied, his voice raised.

"Marshall?" Came the incredulous reply. The door was opened, which revealed that Rarity was leaning over the table that the sewing machine was on, with her forehooves pressing down on the fabric that she had been guiding through the sewing machine. What really caught Marshall's attention, however, were the thick-framed glasses that she was wearing, which were orange and had no arms. "What are you doing here?" She looked up and to the side, as if to check something, before adding, "The party couldn't have ended already."

"It hasn't," Marshall answered, as he stepped into the room and looked around.

The room was rather... messy, for lack of a better term. He could see some organization to it, which indicated that Rarity wasn't simply being a slob, but there had to be a better way of making things as accessible as desired. Aside from the various hazards — for him, at any rate — on the floor, there were several tables with various items on them, including such things as bolts of cloth, a number of rolled-up parchments, spools of string and fabric, implements like scissors, writing utensils and measuring tape, and several other things that he couldn't readily identify. In addition to that, there were several mannequins in various stages of dress and undress, a tall, rectangular mirror, a small hutch with a couple of books on it, and a bulletin board hanging over a desk, which had several notes and concept sketches pinned to it. The only thing that seemed to be out of place, and inspired a longer look, was the canopy bed.

Rarity cocked an eyebrow and inquired, "Why did you come here, then?"

"Well," Marshall began, as he returned his full attention to Rarity, "when I heard that you had left the party early, I made the excuse that — as nice as it was — the party was too much, too soon," which was true enough, as far as his feelings were concerned, though not to the extent that it could have been the reason for his leavetaking, "and I said that I was curious about how a pony could do what you do." Which was also true, aside from the fact that he hadn't expressed anything of what he had just said to anyone until that moment: even after magic and cartoon ponies had been confirmed as being real, he had trouble envisioning how Rarity would go about doing what she did.

Rarity looked off to the side, where most of the tables were, with an unreadable expression on her face. "There isn't much to see, I'm afraid. I've had to compensate a lot because of how little of my magic is free to access, so all I can show you is a mere shadow of how I usually work."

Since he didn't know how to respond to that, Marshall decided to address it indirectly as nonchalantly as he could manage, via the opening that he had been given. "Can I help? I mean, it's obvious that this takes a lot out of you."

When Rarity's gaze returned to him, her expression was a little less unreadable, in that he could only guess that she was looking a bit tired. "Twilight put you up to this, didn't she?"

The brief look of puzzlement that had appeared on Marshall's face before he could suppress it, in addition to his silence, made her sigh and set her glasses upon the table as she stepped down from it. As she moved around the table, she answered the question that could be seen in his eyes. "Twilight is easy to read. When she had suggested that I give the others at the party a heads up on when to expect you, and — if necessary — to make any last-minute arrangements, I could tell that she had an ulterior motive." She came to a stop in front of him, and smiled wanely. "Of course, you wouldn't be the first one who has tried to help me; some of my friends didn't even bother with being subtle about it."

Not knowing what else to do, and not having much in the way of social adroitness, Marshall decided to abandon subtlety, since it appeared that some of his predecessors hadn't bothered with it anyway. "Why won't you accept their help?"

"Because it would be another matter if the time constraints or workload were out of my control," Rarity patiently replied. "But this," she went on, who paused for effect as she swept her gaze across the room, "was my choice. Just because they're my friends that doesn't mean that they should feel obligated to help me on a part-time basis, for an indefinite amount of time, when I make this kind of commitment; they have their own lives and responsibilities, after all." Her expression softened, in order to convey that she didn't have any hard feelings toward her friends as she added, "In truth, it's not that uncommon for me to work this hard, but it usually goes unnoticed if it's only for a couple of days at a time."

After a moment of careful consideration, Marshall decided to ask one more question, hoping that it wouldn't put her off. In an attempt to avoid that, he included an additional question, one that was of an innocuous nature. "Why did you make this kind of commitment, then? Are you a workaholic, or something?"

Appearing to be amused by his method of inquiry, she swept her mane aside and breezily said, "I want to be remembered as one of the best in the business, of course; become a legend, if possible. There's no way that I would be able to achieve that if I spent too much time resting on my laurels."

While Marshall accepted that as a reasonable enough explanation, something about it didn't sit right with him. He didn't know if it was something about what she had said, and he was picking up on it unconsciously, or if it might have something to do with what had happened at the party earlier, but he had the impression that something had been missing from her response.

He couldn't be sure if the feeling was even related to Rarity's motives, but he reasoned that it wouldn't hurt to stick to the original plan by trying to help her out, for one day if any. At least, it was better than trying to figure out what else to do with his time, since he wouldn't feel like he deserved to do much of anything fun and/or interesting unless he believed that he had made enough of an effort with his current objective before accepting defeat.

So, in a rare display of stubbornness, he evenly asked, "Does that mean that I can help?"

"What?" The usually-eloquent Rarity replied, who was clearly confused by his yet-to-be-known reasoning.

Marshall was already racking his brain for something more than what he currently had to argue with, but chose to start with that before Rarity had the presence of mind to shoot him down. "Well, being more productive would help you with your goal, right?" He saw her mouth opening to speak, so he quickly continued before she could. "I know what you said about your friends, but you've allowed them to help you out before, right?" He knew that he needed something more to convince her, while he had her thinking, and was relieved when something finally came to mind: what Twilight Sparkle had told him only a few minutes ago. "Plus, what I do in one body won't affect the other, and I would usually be asleep at this time anyway, so I won't mind spending some of my free time helping you out."

Rarity stared at him critically for a time as she mulled his words over, which made him feel uncomfortable. When she came to a decision, she curtly said, "Please follow me, if you would," and began to walk past him.

She led him out of the room, to the nearest door on the other side of the corridor. When her horn was enveloped in a magical aura, the door opened and the darkness beyond was chased away by an overhead light, which revealed a sizeable storage room. There were bookcases, including those with slanted shelves and cubby-holes, marked bins within the aforementioned cubby-holes, chests, baskets, tables, wall shelves, and stacks of spools, all of which contained the materials and tools of Rarity's trade. Unlike the room that they had just left, the organization made browsing its contents on hoof a lot more convenient despite the overall clutter.

Once they walked far enough into the room, Rarity stopped and began to levitate rolls of fabric — no more than two at a time — out from where they were being stored and set them down on the floor, in front of Marshall, who noticed that all of the ones being chosen were some shade of blue. Once there were a total of fifteen rolls laying before his hooves, Rarity turned to him with a faint smile and asked, "Can you tell me which one is cornflower blue?"

Marshall stared at her, his eyes slightly wide, upon realizing that he was being tested. While he may have made a good argument regarding the offer of his services, Rarity could avoid suspicion — if that happened to be her intent — if she was given a good enough reason to reject him, even though she was within her right to reject him regardless. That meant: if he didn't want to miss out on an opportunity to learn more about her, by having a good reason to spend time with her, he had to pass her test.

Which was easier said than done, since he had no earthly idea what color cornflower blue was. "Corn" made him think of the color yellow, but that clearly wasn't the kind of color that Rarity wanted him to pick, out of the bunch that had been presented to him. Still, despite how hopeless the situation seemed, there was still a one-in-fifteen chance of picking the right color; it was just a matter of deciding which one to choose.

His heart began to race as his gaze continued to rove over the selection of colors, and it felt like perspiration was gathering upon his brow. However, after he scanned the fifteen rolls from one end to the other several times, he noticed that his gaze seemed to gravitate to the sixth one from the left. When he allowed his eyes to focus on it, he began to get the impression that it was the one that he should pick. Since he didn't have any better way of choosing the right one, and considering what he had experienced since being transported to a new body, world and universe, he decided to trust in what he was feeling and pointed to the roll in question.

When he looked up to see what Rarity would say, she had the look of someone who had seen something unexpected. However, it didn't take her long to collect herself, at which point she cleared her throat and said, "That's... correct. Now," she made a gesture toward the rolls, "can you tell me which one is velour?"

Marshall was a little irritated that there was more to the test, especially since he had gotten the impression that it hadn't been planned that far. However, he could already feel his attention being drawn to one of the rolls, so he decided to go along with it, in order to confirm that what he was feeling wasn't just his imagination. So, he moved closer to the roll that he was being drawn to, which was the second one from the right, and pointed at it.

This time, Rarity worried her bottom lip and took significantly longer to respond, which he assumed to mean that his choice had been correct, at the very least. Now that he was more sure that he had a broader connection to her than what had been demonstrated at the party, and — thus — more aware of it, he got the feeling that it wasn't worry that she was feeling, but a mixture of things that he couldn't readily identify. She was hesitant and resistant, for certain, but he was able to glean that much with the aid of his eyes.

Finally, with a resolute expression on her face, Rarity looked him straight in the eye and said, "Show me how many of these rolls you can manipulate, individually, at the same time."

Normally, Marshall would have been nervous about performing such a task, like he had at the beginning of the test, but now he had a reason to feel confident despite the fact that he only had experience with levitating one object at a time. So, he didn't waste any time thinking about it, which led to him willing his influence over all of the rolls and raising them into the air. Unlike with the stones in the cave and the plate of apple pie, their combined weight was such that he actually noticed it, although they didn't feel so heavy that he felt anything that translated into strain.

He didn't need to be told that holding all of the rolls with the same aura wasn't what Rarity was looking for, partly due to said pony's unconscious cues, so he began to isolate them into separate auras. The process started slowly, but once he had peeled the first one away from the group, and got a feeling for it, his pace increased dramatically. By the time they were all separated, he began to marvel at how he was able to distinguish each individual roll, and how he managed to control them all and not drop a single one for any lack of attention.

Suddenly, he got the impression to set the rolls in a line and arrange them by shade. When he turned his questioning gaze toward Rarity, he saw that her expression had softened, and could feel that her hesitation and resistance had left her. She offered him a reserved smile and nodded her head, so he returned his attention to his latest task, relieved that the "battle" between them appeared to be over. With her non-verbal guidance, and actively keeping his awareness open to it, he was amazed at how easily he could direct all of their movements at the same time, until they were all lined up on the floor from lightest to darkest.

With that business out of the way, he relinquished his magical hold on the rolls and turned to face Rarity. "So, does this mean that you will let me help you?"

Rarity nodded her head. "If that's what you really wish to do. I just wanted to be sure that you could actually do the work, you understand."

Marshall accepted that explanation for what it was, since he felt that what she had said was true, yet it made him wonder what the fuss had been about beyond that. He could understand why she wouldn't want to disrupt the lives of her friends, but not to the point of resisting outside help as an automatic response. Hopefully, now that he had secured a steady means of spending time with her, he could either get to know her well enough to figure out what she was hiding, or, well... get that information straight from the horse's mouth.

"Frankly," Rarity animatedly continued, "I'm amazed at what you're able to accomplish with this connection of ours. It's like I'm communicating with you, only it's without words."

While Marshall shared the sentiment, he believed that there was one problem about their connection, especially if he was the only one who experienced it: being able to pick up what Rarity was feeling, and sensing the veracity of her words. It was the sort of thing that could bite him in the rear if he didn't say anything about it and Rarity discovered it later, which was a scenario that he had seen in far too many works of fiction for him to dismiss out of hand. Of course, if he told her now, she might feel that it was too much of an invasion of privacy and decide that it would be better if they kept their distance.

Well, between definitely maybe, by telling her now, and maybe definitely, if she finds out later, he supposed that the former would be for the best: even if he lost his chance to help her out, at least she wouldn't think any worse of him — her opinion may even improve. So, it was with some reluctance, and the drooping ears that accompanied it, that he said, "Say, uh... Can you also pick up on what I'm feeling?"

"Yes, I can," Rarity replied, her expression and tone serious. "I was wondering if it was the same for you, and whether I should say anything or not." After a brief pause, she proceeded to smile, and Marshall could feel that he had made the right decision. "I'm glad that you didn't hide it from me."

Marshall nodded his head self-consciously. "Are you okay with it, or...?"

Rarity turned pensive for a moment before responding. "I'll admit that it's a bit disconcerting, but we don't seem to be able to read each other's mind, and we don't notice what we're feeling if we're suitably distracted. If we both promise to never take advantage of what we do exchange, then I won't mind your company."

Finding that stipulation to be agreeable, partly because he felt that he had nothing to hide, Marshall smiled and stated, "I promise that I won't."

"Good," said a pleased Rarity. "I promise, as well."

With that settled, the rolls of fabric were returned to where they belonged, and they left the storage room in a good mood. Considering what he had been able to do with the aforementioned rolls, with Rarity's aid, Marshall was honestly looking forward to seeing how she worked, and whether or not it would be more enjoyable than the dreary job that he had back on Earth.