For The Best Dress!
Spike hummed a merry tune as he marched proudly through PonyVille with Rarity. Today they would be searching for 30 Rubys exactly, which were to be used on a special custom dress order for miss RoseBlossom. Rarity had promised in her order that she would get it done as soon as she possibly could, so she thought it would be best to start gathering materials today. Starting with the gems, which would be used to decorate the upper half of the dress. Raritys hooves crunched against the gravel path as they walked, which was especially loud in Spikes ears, yet he didn't mind, he was more focused on the bold, fashion loving mares elegant face.
"So Rarity" Spike asked nervously as he looked deep into her deep blue eyes.
"yes Spikey wikey?" Rarity replied without looking down at the little purple dragon.
"would it be to much to ask if I could just-you know eat any extra gems we May or May not find?" Spike questioned Rarity, giving the purple maned pony his best puppy eyes. Rarity was still looking in the direction of her destination, but replied anyways.
"why not? But please spiky, try not to eat he Rubys, remember we need those for the dress!" She smiled kindheartedly
"I understand" spike acknoledged what she had said. No eating the Rubys. Got it.
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Spike beamed at the sight before him, gems all kinds of glorious gems! They would have no trouble "finding" extras, they were all right there in front of him, but first he would have to focuse on the task at hand, find the rubys. He could already see five of the red gems sticking out of the cave walls, he grabbed his basket and delicatly picked them from the century old stone, tossing them in. Rarity had entered a seperate tunnel, and with her expert gem finding skills, she was able to find eight using a new magic spell she had been practicing, her horn would emit a large blue bubble which would burst and brighten up any type of gem she wanted it to in the surrounding area. This was unbelievably useful, as it helped her spot gems much quicker than she usually would, as caves like this one were often quite dark, and brooding.
"Man it's warm down here" The gems glistened under Spikes lamplight while he traveled through the cave system in search of more Rubys, by now he was about twenty minutes into his mission and he had found ten, his basket was slowly filling up, and he would only have enough room for a few more.Once it was filled to the brim he would head back to the entrance of the cave system and travel down the tunnel Rarity had taken.
"Sigh" Rarity blinked the water out of her eyes, By this point Rarity had found a total of 14 gems, which were shoved at the bottom of her white saddle bag. She had grabbed a few extra emeralds, to repay spike for coming down to search for Rubys with her, they were one of his favorite types of gems after all, also hoping that he might be willing to come another time, as she often has trouble finding all the gems she needs for her dresses alone. The only sounds she could hear in the unsettling cave was the dripping of water that had formed on the ceiling, the clopping of her own hoof steps and her very own heavy breathing. It was surprisingly muggy down in the cave, unlike cold, which most ponies would expect. Beads of sweat had formed on her forehead. Wiping the sticky liquid from her head with a hoof. Rarity came across a cluster of three Rubys, which she grabbed with her magic aura and gently placed in her other saddle bag. Rarity gasped, inhaling her own saliva as she looked up at the wall that she had grabbed the ruby cluster from, behind the Rubys, there had been a gem, one that she had never seen the likes of before. It was the size of her hoof, and was almost translucent, when her horns light hit the magical gem it emanated colors throughout the cave. Her eyes widened at the mere sight of it, grabbing it using her magic, rarity examined the gem from all sides. She felt a wave of pure greed wash over her, she must keep this gem hidden from the others... After all it's probably worth a fortune, the quality of it was stunning, the crystal was almost alien to her. Rarity took in its stupendous beauty, her mouth a-gape.
"Rarity?" Spike asked sheilding his eyes from the light that came from her tunnel "Rarity?" He chimed, louder this time. Spikes basket was now full, and for the past ten minutes he had been walking through the complex cave looking for the mare. She must have traveled quite far into the tunnel for him to have not found her yet, it was surprising how far Rarity could walk in such a short amount of time. At this point spikes basket was practicly overflowing with Rubys, they probably had enough of them to make a second dress, the though made Spike lick his lips. "More for me then" he murmured to himself patting his belly. "There you are Rarity!" Spike called out to her, from were he was standing he was only able to see the end of her wavy purple tail. Rarity jumped at the sound of spikes tiny voice, she took the gem and tossed it in her saddle bag, waiting a minute before she turned around to face the little dragon.
"Hello Spike er finished already sweety?" She she cracked a nervous smile, hoping he hadn't seen the magnificent light of the gem from the tunnel behind her.
"Yeah, and I got extras!" Spike smiled his tiny teeth glistening with gem fragments.
" we should probably get back to the boutique, she could feel her ear twitching, Spike looked a little unsure of why Rarity was acting this way "yeah-um I'm all for that" spike replied turning around, and beginning to make his way out of the cave "You ok?" He could tell Raritys breathing was was slow and heavy, it was the the most prominent sound in the cave, and it put him on edge more than anything else.
"Y-yes spike I'm perfectly fine- lets just keep walking ok?" Rarity sounded fairly irritatted, which made spike assume that she was far from fine, but there was no way he was going to revisit that topic with the way she was acting.
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Rarity and Spike had finally reached the boutique and Rarity seemed to be more impatient than ever to make this dress, she grabbed the basket of gems Spike had collected, forgetting completely about the emeralds she'd collected for Spike
"I'll see you er soon spike" Rarity waved goodbye to Spike and slammed the botiques door behind her.
"Well she was in a hurry" Spike said to himself, unphased he began making his way back to the library.
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"I must find out what this is!" Rarity ripped the majority of her Gem Encyclopedia books off her shelves and set them down on her. Sewing table with a crash. Opal leaped off the couch she had been lounging on from the intensity of the noise and shot into the other room. Rarity picked the first book on the top of the pile to read, she sifted through the pages of the first encyclopedia and found nothing similar to the gem that she had placed on the side of the table, she did the same with several others. Nothing. The next three somethings may have looked similar but nothing with such a clean natural cut like this one! She blew the thick layer of dust of the last and oldest of her encyclopedias. Nothing, yet in this one there was a page missing one that looked to have been messily torn out by some pony.
"UGH" her vision went blurry with tears which streamed down her face as she looked at the missing page. "It's to stupidly ironic!" Rarity yelled in frustration.
"You ok in here sis?" Sweetie Belle pranced into the room, as her usual cheery self.
" Sweetie I'm FINE " a strange grimace spread across Raritys face.
"Ok um- I'm gonna go hang out with Scootaloo and Applebloom bye!" Sweetie said quickly, backing out of the room with a very notable forced smile on her face.
Rarity probably looked absolutely insane.
The thought of this made her snap out of something, she could feel it, but it was impossible to determine what.