One by One

by DreamWings

Four.

The sombre white unicorn looked around her latest outfits with a sigh of pleasure. This was what she liked to do in her spare time; this was the perfect way to relax and forget one’s troubles. Fashion was her calling in life, she knew it was, and she had become quite popular in the industry since the success of her patented Pony-Style line. She created dresses to astound and suits to inspire, cotton and fabric wielded into pleasurable attire. She had a true gift and she would use it for the world.

At the moment she was working on an extremely important dress for an extremely important client: her sister. Her sister had recently joined the ranks of all of the famous stars and role models, becoming a popular singer who toured around the county just like a young Sapphire Shores. Rarity knew that she was going to be brilliant, and a brilliant outfit should be created to match.

She reached across for her measuring tape with her hoof but her hoof remained empty. The measuring tape was not on the table? Then where on Equestria was it? She peered around at the clutter overpowering the spaces of her room, her ‘organized chaos’ as she described it. Where could it be and in which pile could it have slipped under?

Each pile, although seemingly messy to another pony, was placed in a specific order. Her fabrics in one pile, cotton in another etc. etc. But now she really couldn’t see where anything could be. Measuring tape couldn’t just vanish right in front of your eyes, it was impossible. Of all the things that could happen in her Boutique losing important materials and such was the absolute worst thing, though this was the most common occurrence out of all the problems she’d ever had.

Once upon a time Sweetie Belle, her star struck sister, would have happily obliged to wander around the room and sort out her belongings while she, Rarity, carried on creating; but now Sweetie was not here to do any of the clearing and so Rarity must take over that job once again. She didn’t like to do it much; it always was such a hassle to sniff around the floor like a common mutt just to find something as small as tape. If only there was a way of doing it without getting one’s hooves dusty or tired. ‘Oh wait’ she thought ‘I can just use my magic to find it. Silly Rarity dear, how could you forget a thing like that?’
Sparks flew around the large protruding horn on her forehead, blue lights circled the white point as she turned to busy herself in her search. She stayed standing where she was bringing over all sorts of objects to her eyes within a cloud of dazzling magic.

Hairbrush? No. Oh, but she could do with using this, after all she’d only managed to brush her mane two full times today, there was no use in simply having 200 strokes and no more. She gave a tug on her flowing purple mane with the brush and perfected her signature curls towards the ends. She looked perfect now and the mirror reflected her perfectness wonderfully. Now, back to the search.

Candy? Pinkie Pie, her dear friend, must have left this the last time she visited her shop, which was quite disturbing to think about since Pinkie hadn’t been in her shop for at least three weeks. Three week old candy was simply revolting. It was quickly taken outside to the trashcan. Rarity didn’t want to have the smell coming through from her inside bin. After the instant dismissal of this object she began rifling through the piles again.

What this time? Wool. Rarity stared at it with a loss for words. She had never knitted anything before, she hadn’t even simply tried, so how had that managed to sneak into her workshop? She glared at the wool and the ball stared blankly back. It was preposterous that she should own such an old-fashioned tool. The wool was discarded with a simply chuck behind her shoulder.

This procedure of finding objects carried on for a long while and by the end she was still at a loss as to where her measuring tape could be. The room had become even messier by now and everything had been strewn across the floor in a mad frenzy of digging between piles. She would have to clean that up…eventually. She turned back to her desk and jiggled the locks to peer into draws and such but still no tape could be found anywhere. This was ridiculous; she had never been so unorganized that something could disappear right in front of her eyes.

Her friends or clients could have taken it last time she’d had visitors of course, but she did not get visitors often these days. Her usual custom was to go to the houses of her clients to sort out all of the orders and in that way they would never be deterred by her unusual filing system in her work room. Her friends in Ponyville did not often visit these days. All of them were far too busy to come and see the mare anymore. It had been a hard time with nopony to speak to but Rarity had managed quite well. If they wanted to not speak to her then she would respect that decision, even if it did aggravate her that she would be ignored.

She sighed again, but this time in a much more upset way then she had before. She was proud of her sister and proud of all of her friends and what they’d accomplished but she couldn’t help but miss them. Everypony seemed to be coming and going so often these days, and what with all of these ruthless killings Rarity couldn’t help but feel the loneliness drowning her even more.

There was a pony that she could talk to about her problems and fears; one that she’d often rely on in these troubled times, which seemed to happen more regularly recently, but now she could no longer speak to her either. Mrs Cake had been such a blessing to the younger unicorn; she had been so much like her Mother that Rarity had felt closely connected to her ever since her Mother had died a year or two back. Mrs Cake had been happy to speak to Rarity, and Rarity had been happy to speak to Mrs Cake, it had been a good relationship between them.

Rarity would tell the older mare all about her worries of her business and of Sweetie’s departure rattling her slightly when it had been announced, and in turn Mrs Cake would mention her fears of Pumpkin moving away to Canterlot for her acceptance into Celestia’s school for gifted unicorns, and Pound’s dreams of flying with the Wonderbolts coming true in the fact that he was moving away to be trained at the prestigious Flight Academy heralded by the top fliers Spitfire and Soarin. Both mares had worries about their family and both would express it to each other. It made them feel better. And now that was all over.

Rarity shuffled through the paper on her desk, peering through all of the images that had been drawn of this latest design. It looked pretty good, pretty good indeed, but it could still do with a few additions. Her magic encircled the pencil on her desk and she began to draw over her pictures, working intensely on this one design alone. It was imperative that this outfit was perfect. It had to be perfect.

A small object appeared behind her head as she worked, quickly stringing itself around her pretty, pure neck. The mare grasped for breath and tried to swing her head round to look at her assailant. She could not look. The tape was too tight around the bottom of her head. Her windpipe became crushed inside of her body and burst within her neck. One final tug on the weapon and the lifeless corpse of the fashionista fell to the floor in a huddle.

The shadow of another pony moved over to the desk and tied the tape around the neck of the mannequin wearing the sequinned outfit. The pony gave a smug smile, turned around and wandered out of the shop with a clang of the hanging bell.

Four.

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