The Appointment
"Miss Pins!" called out a stallion. I jerked the tankard of cider I held in my golden magic, reflexively catching the globule of ejected liquid and squirting it back in.
I sat at an open air table outside The Hey Burger Joint, directly across from the southern bailey gate of Canterlot Castle, near Canterlot University. From here I could pony watch as the lunchtime parade of pastel ponies steamed by. The clatter of hoof-traffic on cobblestones provided a pleasant soundtrack for a contemplative mood. Every so often perfume or pipe smoke would waft on the cool spring breeze.
The garish red enamel table I sat at had been molded from an unidentifiable pore-less substance. The yellow of the chairs blazed liked the sun. Their only concession to style were their rounded curves, hinting at a post-modern architectural style barely in fashion when I was a foal and which, these days, looked hideous. I certainly hadn't come here for the style—though I was contemplating getting out of fashion completely.
I looked toward the voice. The unicorn with the brown mane had been a teaching assistant when I'd left school last year. He wore a blue professorial cape and pasteboard hat, the cool-tone of which clashed with the warm color of his orange fur. I smiled. "Buttons and Bows, Berry! You landed the teaching position?"
"Indeed, I did. I'm teaching anatomy and healing magic." He came to my table, beaming. I pulled out a chair while maintaining the tankard midair. I could levitate almost a hundred objects individually; it was part of my special talent. He sat and said, "How are you doing? I expected to see you as a first-year in medical school."
I had expected that question. I sloshed the tankard and flippantly said, "Decided I didn't like the sight of blood," and took a sip of the slightly sweet, slightly dry fortified drink.
He snorted as he waved his pasteboard cap at a purple waitress in an absurdly bright yellow uniform. He motioned his muzzle at my drink and she curved back toward the counter. "It's good, right?"
"Yeah, it is."
He put his hooves on the table top like an earth pony, making a plastic clunk. "I don't believe your 'blood' excuse for a moment. I'm surprised you didn't join the guard with your talent for tossing about sharp objects." His magenta eyes blinked at me and he glanced at the castle, the portcullis, and the white unicorn guard in bronze armor stationed there. His brow wrinkled. "You didn't—"
"Heavens, no! No!" I laughed. I looked at him, really looked at him. With concentration, I could see lines of energy flowing through a pony—in his case, they were yellow—lines that could be blocked by ill health, physical discomfort, and bad emotions. What I liked about Berry was that he was always concerned about people, and always respectful of the female students. A gentlecolt. "I had a disagreement with my advisor, was caught doing an unauthorized experiment that lead to a run in with a dean and a problem with my scholarship and—" I sighed.
"New science and new magic are always resisted by the establishment."
"So you told me. I didn't listen."
We paused as the waitress set down a tray and levitated off his tankard of cider, then my order of hay-fries stacked end-on in a big red-and-white-striped box. She was obviously one of those low-level unicorns that could do only one trick at a time. The smell of caramelized alfalfa, salt, and hot oil filled the air.
I said, "Have some."
"Thank you, I will!" For a few minutes, we sat in companionable silence as we first had a few years ago in the campus cafeteria, him tutoring me while we shared cups of juice. I waited for him to ask the first question because I really did want someone to interrogate me, to help me suss out my plans for the future. Sitting here before an important appointment, drinking—thinking about not going to that appointment—was getting me nowhere.
"You would have made a fine diagnostician."
"Well bless my pointy little nose. You are so sweet. Are you married?"
He turned red and I giggled just the right amount to inform him I wasn't flirting. With a straight face, I said, "I'm certain if I stick a pin in the right place, I can change a pony's energy lines. I know it would be curative. Sure, I can see disease, but it would be more than I could take to be prevented from helping in my unique way."
"I know." He signed. He did know; he'd been discouraged from becoming a doctor himself. "What have you been doing instead?"
I stood ten fries on end; they were like darts and my talent didn't know the difference. Like dancers in a complicated ballet, they wove themselves into a knot. I took a bite. I put down my drink. I'd only sipped it for all the half-hour I'd sat here. "Fashion. An application of my talent. I can sew with my needles better than most seamstresses with a machine, but needlework is mindless work—sewing, cutting, the most of it—though it did teach me to respect ponies who design and build clothing. I can look at a pony and judge how comfortable their clothing is."
"The energy lines?"
"Right. My first job was assisting a seamstress in a hole-in-the-wall boutique, one who had trouble with her designs. She would have benefited from your anatomy class. I pointed out where fabric rubbed or constricted circulation, but she didn't understand. I wasn't with her a month before she closed shop."
"And that didn't drive you back to school?"
"Scholarship or a job, and I lost the scholarship." I shrugged. "The seamstress recommended me to a stallion suit-maker. He had a sense of line and a feel for fine fabric. His tailoring was top-notch, but he wasn't selling because he wasn't getting traffic. I helped run the shop. He suggested he lower his prices. He sold more but didn't make much more and soon couldn't afford me."
"The joys of retail. I've worked as a grocer and have sold hardware."
"Fashion Plate, one of Penny Royal's customers, remembered how well I helped him to pick out and tailor a suit for the Gala. He offered me a job as a model assistant and shopper for Cosmare."
"The fashion magazine?"
"Yeah, the one. Spent a lot of time in the stockroom, learning about every imaginable type of clothing and fabric. The models liked how I could make the most bizarre clothing fit properly with some quick needlework. Quite a few fashion designers noticed my picks often showed up in the magazine. In practice, I spent too much time trying to ignore stockroom politics; some hoity-toity's tantrum landed me on the street."
"But a boutique owner remembered you and snapped you up?" He finished off his tankard and sat it on the table. "So good."
"Isn't it? In Canterlot, fashion is like the rain. It changes with the seasons, and washes down the drain when the weather changes. Few new boutiques or design houses succeed, and the established houses aren't hiring. I've worked for ponies too caught up in their art to see the cost, in the colors to create comfortable clothing, or in saving their bits to create variety. It feels immodest to say I've been well loved. What good is it? I've been unable to prevent businesses from failing!"
"So you feel you're bad luck."
I started laughing out loud.
Berry had always been perceptive; he saw my pain and looked embarrassed. "You always were the type that wanted to help."
"And now I've received another offer." I tilted the tankard to my lips and took a big gulp. The alcohol immediately warmed my stomach.
"And you don't know what to do?"
"I—"
I put down the tankard. I felt instantly glad I wasn't facing east toward Ponyville Way—so I could stare unabashedly. An elegant white unicorn mare trotted by. She wore a dainty saddle-dress of green and pastel blue macerated cotton, stiffened by an odd fabric that resembled chiffon. Like-colored jewels glittered, sewn along paisley curves in white thread. Artistic darts and creases lifted her dress above her flank to tastefully reveal her cutie mark: three blue diamonds. She'd constructed the saddle of vegetable leather, antiqued in gold with brown accents. The couturier wore a pastel pale green sunhat with a floppy brim and a single peacock plume. The colors of its eye went perfectly with the purple of her coifed mane and tail. The amount of hairspray both required was obvious, but not obtrusive. Red lines of energy danced along her body, demonstrating that the clothing fit her so perfectly it may as well been self-levitating.
"Her?" Berry said, following my gaze. I looked at him looking at her, and saw a surge along his energy lines. The mare was beautiful, but in my opinion in a practiced intentional way. She wore more makeup than somepony twice her age would, though she did make it work, and work well. She demonstrated poise, if not natural beauty. The brown stallion, hitched and pulling her wagon of packages, certainly looked like he thought her beautiful, hanging on her every word. Soon I lost sight of them in the Canterlot city traffic.
Berry looked back at me and raised an eyebrow. "Ok. Despite setbacks, you seem to have done pretty well by yourself."
"She found me by my reputation."
"Like I said—"
"She's one of the bearers of the Elements of Harmony."
He stood up, rearing, his muscles rippling pleasingly in his hind legs. I got a good look at his smiling book cutie mark. "Nooo—" he said, breathlessly. He shook his head and faced me returning his hooves on the ground.
"She's the element of generosity. Friends with Princess Twilight Sparkle, but born and apprenticed in Ponyville. What would she know about running a boutique in Canterlot? The princess is probably helping her out. Rarity has a good reputation thanks to some Bridleway work and a Fashion Week competition in Manehattan, but that doesn't mean she can deal with Canterlot snobbery or run a business patronized by the elite." I sighed loud and long. I pushed away the tankard and deflated until I rested my head on the table, despite the condensation there. "Academia seems rather attractive, suddenly. You did well by yourself, Professor Berry."
"If you knew the politics I deal with weekly, you'd think differently, Miss Pins."
"Really?" I asked, looking right, moving my eyes not my head.
"Yes. Do you think you did anything wrong? Do you think the failures you've endured were all you're fault?"
I blew out my lips. This was where I'd been mentally when he called my name. Yes, I wanted to earn bits, but I didn't want to hurt anypony doing it. I couldn't bear the thought of being part of another failed boutique. "Yeah, I do," I said. "I didn't stand up to my employers when what they did went against their dreams and hurt their business. I didn't want them to dislike me. I worried about my job."
"And lost it anyway."
"And lost it anyway, yeah. Pins and needles, lost it. Every. Single. Time!"
His reddish magic formed under my chin and lifted me back up until I was sitting. "Well, don't do that, then."
"Ha."
"No, I mean it. From what I saw in her wagon—"
"You actually looked at her wagon?"
"Ha-ha. Yes, I did. She's opening a new boutique?"
"Yeah, two streets west of here, in the jewelry district. The façade resembles the house-sized round tents royalty use for camping when traveling overland. It even sports outdoor fabric drapes. You'd think it wouldn't work, but this mare has taste, I'll concede that."
"Have you learned enough to guide her to success?"
"Nobody ever learns enough."
"Right answer. What could you have done for the others that you could do here?"
"My time at Cosmare taught me that the successful design houses balance design with publicity, and plan out every single clothing line, further planning out production and introduction. Nothing left to chance."
"Do you have a plan?"
I smiled. I had developed a plan for the last two establishments. The first plan I never broached to the owner. As for the other, though I had brought it up, she'd seemed uninterested and I hadn't pushed.
Berry reached into his saddlebag and tossed some bits to jangle on the table, enough for the both of us. "Then it's settled. Go to your appointment with a plan and push her toward success. I'll bet she hires you. Gotta class to prepare for." He put on his pasteboard hat and started trotting away.
"Berry!"
He stopped and looked over his shoulder.
"I'll see you sometime."
"In class, I hope." He tipped his hat and disappeared into the traffic.
I looked at myself, trying to imagine me through his eyes. Skinny. I had typical southern height and petite elongated bones. But my warm yellow- and hot-purple-streaked orange hair clashed with my cool-toned powder blue coat. Unclothed as I was now, but for a silver reflective bow tie, I represented a fashion nightmare. Had I really planned to go like this to an appointment with an up-and-coming fashionista? Even the purple balls atop the pins of my cutie mark screamed maladroit.
I found myself rushing through the crowds. Not long after, I purchased a Lemon and Lions purple-and-black, gold-studded saddle-dress. Ms. Rarity liked saddle-dresses, right? I paid too much for it, but it mellowed out my colors and looked quite sassy.
Sassy.
Perhaps Pins could just be my nickname when I introduced myself? A name could be a mask. I'd studied enough psychology to know that when you pretended to be someone else, you could sometimes do things you normally couldn't do.
Sassy Saddles. Paisley and poplin, I did like that name!
I had a plan.
Stick a pin in it!