Collars and Cuffs Tailoring

by Melancholy

With a Capital Pink

Chapter 4

She was Pink. Not pink, but Pink. It was impossible to describe the kind of Pink which Pinkie Pie was without the capital Pink.
Links couldn’t disentangle these thoughts of pink from his mind as he stared at the pony whizzing around his shop floor. She had come in a half hour earlier on the back of a wagon and had sung a song all about how happy she was the meet a new pony in town. That had been kind of nice, he’d only met two other ponies so far and one had mistaken him for somepony else.
Applejack had left just after the rain stopped, thanking him for his kindness and even paying a little extra for the work on the doll, despite his insistence it had been adequately paid for already.

Then she had come. After the song and dance routine she had begun bombarding him with questions, where was he from? Did he like dresses? Had he ever met the princesses? She had apparently, on multiple occasions too. It was all rather fast for him. Still, he didn’t mind the attention, he was enjoying having somepony to talk to while he worked. He had honestly been worried about making friends in this new town but it seems his fears were misplaced. Everypony he had met so far had been really kind. From the pony he had bought the shop from to the Pink pony in front of him now. That was what made Ponyville special, he mused, in the cities nopony had time for the common pony on the street, but here they all knew each other and cared about what went on in each ponies lives. That was a point, if Pinkie knew everypony in town (which she had mentioned several times) then maybe she knew who this Rarity was that Granny Smith had mistaken him for that morning.

“Rarity? GASP! You don’t know who Rarity is!?” Why was she famous or something?
“Well duh, she kinda is!” Pinkie threw her hooves up in mock exasperation before diving face first into a pile of his fashion magazines tucked into the corner. Somehow she managed to swim around for a bit in the small stack before surfacing with a particular copy in her mouth. “T’ish one!”
The issue with Hoity Toity? He took it from her and flicked to the page she indicated. It was a double page spread about a white unicorn designer from...Ponyville? So this is Rarity, and she lived here? How had he missed this, setting up in the same place as an already well known designer!? Nopony would come to see him if there was already another designer in town.

“Oh don’t worry your fancy pants about it,” Fancy Pants? She even knew Fancy Pants!? Was there anypony this Pie didn’t have a hoof in!?
“That sounds dirty,” Pinkie giggled, “I mean don’t worry about working here with Rarity on the block. She’s really good and does a lot of work for famous ponies sure, but you have your own talent to show off and I’m sure it’ll shine out just fine.”

That made a lot of sense. Links managed to get his breathing under control and relaxed. Sure it would be fine, by the look of it this Rarity only did clothing for mares, so he had a whole half of the market to himself. That was a really good way to look at it, was this the same Pinkie Pie who had walked in earlier? Links took a look up from the magazine he was holding to find Pinkie standing on her head with a scarf wrapped around her eyes. Her hooves were crosses like she was meditating and her mane was spread all over the floor like a puddle of pink floss.

“Muummm, candy floss, I could really go for some right now.” How had we come to candy floss?
“I know!” Spinning on her head she brought herself upright in one fluid motion. It was like watching a cross between ballet and break-dancing. “We should go over to Sugar Cube Corner and get some!” Suddenly he was being dragged by the tail right out the door. Out the door!? Links dug his hooves in, he needed to lock up, change the sign, pack his things away, he couldn’t just leave on the spot. Yet, he did want to go. This energetic mare must be rubbing off on him. "I haven't rubbed you anywhere!" He could take some time to get to know Ponyville and the ponies who lived there before getting stuck into his work. He didn’t have any custom orders yet anyway so it was just copies or rough design work.
“Ok fine,” Pinkie let him go and allowed him to lock up the Collars and Cuffs. “But hurry up, time is candy!”

-------

“Ok everypony, we need to wait until he’s properly in the room before we yell surprise.” Rainbow Dash still wasn’t sure how Pinkie had roped her into organising the big party reveal. She was lurking up near the ceiling of a darkened room in Sugarcube Corner which was almost overstuffed with Ponies. Pinkie had really gone all out, even Big Mac had turned out, and he wasn’t very big on parties.

It seemed everypony was interested in the new tailors in town, they had a fairly high example to work off with Rarity making her home here after all. In fact, the White Fashionista was conspicuous by her absence. Twilight had said something earlier about her acting a bit off. Well that wasn’t unusual for Rarity, she got into more moods than Pinkie got into cakes. Actually that sounded kinda dirty. Rainbow biffed herself round the head to knock the disturbing thought out right as the unmistakable sound of Pinkie approaching came in through the window.

“So you see the Cakes are really great ponies and you should totally try out their Marzipan Mascarpone Meringue Madness. That cake has won awards you know.”
“Ok get ready,” Dash whispered, positioning herself above the door.
The door swung open and two ponies walked in, Pinkie doing all the talking, as usual.
“Oh don’t worry about it being dark, that’s just so it’s all the better to surprise you with. Yes, surprise silly. I SAID," her voice took on a slight edge, "SURPRISE!”

“That’s our cue! SURPRISE!” The lights came up to the sound of the resounding cheer and illuminated the room packed with ponies and party paraphernalia. Rainbow Dash dropped down to cover the door, it wasn’t unknown for some ponies to get spooked and try to bolt. As she caught the back end of the new colt in town though, something tugged at the back of her mind. An old memory, all awkward and unsure came bubbling to the surface.
It couldn’t be, that was a long time ago, but could he be “Links?”

Comments

[the other sans]

Shit's *dons sunglasses* about to get real.
memeorama.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Aww-Yeah-Meme-Rage-Face-On-a-T-Rex.jpg
The plot thickens... RD knows this pony? Well get on with it!

[Chill Mists(Chilly)]

Interesting. Though the writing is a bit awkward when there is text and then characters reply with speech. I am enjoying this story though.

[Melancholy]

507787 So someone noticed.......
Yes I appreciate it may be awkward, I can only ask your forbearance while I experiment with the effect.
507365 A rather....extreme reaction?