The Unicorn's Apprentice
Rarity stood attentive as the fabrics swirled around her in a sea of colors. A bright and vibrant strip of red fabric weaved its way around a coat of dark faded navy blue, intertwining itself into the stitching. Five large gold buttons spread themselves into a perfect pentagram, followed closely by a brilliant white silk to become the liner in the the fold of the jacket. The white unicorn rubbed her eyes, exhausted from all the work she had been doing. Rarity started early in the day like she always did, but the order she was working on forced her to work well into the night. Twenty six dresses styled after Royal Guard parade outfits and seven stallion coats had to be ready in three days. However outrageous the order, though, it was a fashionista's job to make these outfits stunning.
Outside the open door to Rarity's studio, Sweetie Belle shuffled by, clearly exhausted and carrying two rolls of fabric. She paused and reached a hoof up to wipe the miniscule sweat from her forehead. With her sister working hard on such a large order, Sweetie offered to help Rarity instead if hunting for her special talent as a Cutie Mark Crusader. She hoped to help make the dresses, but instead found herself cleaning up after Rarity.
Inside of her studio, fabrics were thrown everywhere and papers containing sketches, along with a couple of books, were on the floor. It was utter chaos. Sweetie had spent the last three hours repetitively rolling up the fabrics and putting them in the closet downstairs and was getting tired of it. She grumbled inaudibly as she walked past, but stopped for a second to see her sister work.
Rarity concentrated harder as the jacket weaved itself together. Slowly at first, the thread stitched into the folds of the blue cotton, followed by the white liner and finally the gold buttons. The thread wound up being bit too long, so a levitating pair of scissors gracefully flew up and snipped it at just the right spot. As the scissors floated away, the jacket floated magnificently in the air. Sweetie Belle's eyes widened as she watched her sister's finished product. This was the reason she wanted to be a fashionista as bad as she did. Rarity looked so amazing as she inspected the jacket for flaws, graceful and elegant but focused on her work.
Without warning, the jacket zipped around the room to twenty four fully dressed ponyquins and forced itself around one wearing only a midlength dress of white and red. A bright flash of blue light momentarily dazed Sweetie Belle, but when she got her eyesight back, she saw Rarity give a huge yawn while inspecting the dress. Tired, she haphazardly stumbled up to her room, yawning the whole way while Sweetie Belle continued her work aiding her sister.
When she walked back to the design room, she gave a slight pause at the dress Rarity had just been working on. She gazed at the wonderful designs and pretty colors and felt a sudden urge to try to make a dress. However, she stifled the urge, forcing herself to go into the room covered in fabric.
Upon entering the studio, Sweetie Belle gave a huge sigh of unhappiness. She didn't know if it was possible, but it seemed there was even more stuff to clean up than when she left last time. Tired and frustrated, she collapsed into a heap on the floor, burying her head into a pile of a soft purple silk. She stayed motionless for two seconds before an idea struck her.
What if she could get help? She wasn't good at using magic, but she knew she would learn in time.
A single ponyquin stood silently in the corner, still and covered in random strips of color. It had the same shape and size of a full grown pony, perfect for the job Sweetie was attempting to do. The green eyes of the unicorn filly stared at the lifeless figure and a grin spread across her face.
Standing up and focusing her attention on the ponyquin, Sweetie Belle desperately tried to bring it to life. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth, forcing herself to concentrate on the ponyquin. A couple of sparks came from her horn before a eerie green aura began to surround it.
Steadily, the aura formed around the ponyquin too, causing it to begin to twitch and wiggle its legs. Sweetie, utterly bent on concentrating on the ponyquin, gave it her last best effort to try and bring it to life by focusing as hard as she could. The green aura surrounding both her and her target became even more pronounced, glowing with a mystical green energy and caused Sweetie to levitate slightly while the ponyquin to move even more. Then, unexpectedly, the aura burst into a flash of light, causing Sweetie Belle to lose her concentration, falling to her hooves as the ponyquin to leap down from the stand.
Sweetie Belle stared with awe at the animated ponyquin, unsure of what to do. It remained just as motionless as before, not even reacting to her magic. However, instead of being on a pedistal, it was standing on its own legs. Sweetie took a step closer to investigate when the ponyquin did the exact same move. Sweetie froze instantly and so did her moving inanimate object.
Without taking her eyes off of it, she took another step forward. Again, the ponyquin mimicked her movement. Sweetie Belle watched the oddity when she had a crazy idea. She moved her front hooves twice and the ponyquin followed suit. She tested moving her rear legs, and yet again it mimicked her.
Slowly, Sweetie Belle moved her legs in a walking motion, watching the ponyquin do the same. Satisfied with how it moved and grinning excitedly, she turned and began to walk away. The sound of soft hoofbeats from behind told her the ponyquin was following. Her grin turned into a squeal of happiness as they went to a particularly messy corner of the room.
Sweetie leaned over in mock effort to lift a roll of green cotton, but the ponyquin actually picked it up and placed the roll on its back. Stunned at the movements, she motioned to another roll of fabric, this time violet denim. Amazingly, the ponyquin picked that up as well. Indescribably happy, Sweetie Belle lead her new assistant out of the room to the closet where all the fabrics were stored. She pretended to toss in the rolls and the ponyquin bucked them inside easily and followed her back to the studio.
Sweetie Belle danced happily around as she led the ponyquin, who also walked with a peculiar spring in its step. A huge smile sat upon her cheeks as she stopped at the door to the studio. She watched the ponyquin march in and waited in silence. The ponyquin immediately began to gather fabrics and Sweetie squealed with happiness again.
Silently but with the glee of a filly casting her first successful spell, Sweetie danced into the room, kicking her legs around and trotting as happily as she could. She circled a freestanding roll of orange satin and pranced straight to to a dresser on the far side of the studio. She easily jumped up onto the dresser and planted her rump happily on the top, all the while continuing to bob her head to the phantom music she was listening to in her head.
The ponyquin marched past her in a triumphant manner, head held high and three rolled up spools of various colors perched upon its back. Sweetie smiled widely as it trotted out of the room and to the closet before she gave a yawn. She hadn't noticed it yet, but casting the spell had worn her out, just like her sister, Rarity. With her eyelids getting heavy, Sweetie nestled her head upon a comfortable roll of silk and let herself fall asleep.
As she slept, Sweetie Belle dreamed she was older, near Rarity's age and she had a cutie mark consisting of a dress with a needle winding around it. She was also apparently an expert at magic, summoning rolls of colors out of seemingly nowhere.
She waved her head around and the colors began to unwind into long stripes of fabric. Scissors materialized around each strip of color and began to snip them into various shapes. The tailored fabrics then weaved together in a mess of colors while Sweetie Belle whipped her head around, forcing them to compress into a ball. In an instant, they exploded outwards, several colors intermingling as threads and needles began to snake up from the floor to them.
The threads quickly tied itself through each of the needles and, once they were ready, dug into the fabric. The needles moved quickly, stitching the colors into pieces of clothing. The fabrics wrapped themselves into each other and the needles angrily tore into them, stitching faster and faster.
One by one, the colors weaved together to form several beautiful dresses, each one different from the last. One was a gorgeous red and black evening gown while another was a poofy blue party dress with a third becoming a formal dress of magenta and plum. Sweetie smiled widely as the dresses circled around her, waving her head around as more dresses began to form behind them. She continued to wave her head gleefully until a large thump broke her revelry.
Sweetie Belle woke when her head hit the hard dresser top in a spotless room. She looked around, happy and terrified at the same time when she saw the studio. The room had no more rolls of fabric in it, but almost every piece of furniture was missing, as well as Rarity's sketches.
Sweetie spun to the door and saw her animated ponyquin march by with two of the dresses Rarity made earlier that day slung over its back. Her eyes shrank and she leaped down from the dresser, chasing after the ponyquin, who had just finished stuffing them into an already overflowing closet.
Sweetie positioned herself in front of the ponyquin as it returned to Rarity's studio and braced herself. She focused on making it stop, but the ponyquin bowled right over her as if she wasn't even there. She was easily pushed to the side as the animate ponyquin entered the room.
Stunned, Sweetie got up and ran over to the overflowing closet. Not really thinking, she bit down onto one of the dresses and pulled. The ponyquin had evidently been putting a lot of stuff in there, because the dress never moved bedged from between a desk and a stool.
Panicking, Sweetie released the dress as the ponyquin stuffed a chair into the bulging closet. She chased the ponyquin into the studio where it began collecting other dresses. Biting onto a pair of scissors that were lying on the floor, Sweetie charged in and stabbed the ponyquin repeatedly until it stopped moving, becoming as rigid as it was before she cast the spell.
Once she was done, Sweetie Belle trotted slowly out of the room, exhausted and trying to think up an explanation why she had stabbed a ponyquin with scissors that Rarity would believe. Unknown to the young unicorn, the green magic of her spell flowed into the air from the damaged ponyquin and drifted to the others strwen about the room.
Slowly, every ponyquin in the studio, some still dressed in Rarity's dresses, began to move and hop down off their stands. As one, they each picked something up,and began to march like their predecessor. Sweetie sat on her rump and heard a soft pattering coming from somewhere. Confused, she turned around only to have twenty ponyquins stomp proudly past her on their way to the closet on the far wall.
Now realizing she'd never be able to explain this, Sweetie ran to the closet and attempted to pull stuff out of it as the ponyquins packed more furniture and fabric into it. She heard pieces of furniture creaking and breaking and she tugged at one of Rarity's dresses. Several ripping noises sounded and Sweetie fell backwards with part of one of the dresses in her mouth.
Her eyes began to tear up and she ran to the front door. She wanted to get Twilight Sparkle to help before Rarity woke up, but a line of ponyquins pushed her back as they still collected items from the boutique and made their way to the closet. Unable to get to the door, Sweetie spun around and tried to dart for the window before another group of ponyquins pushed her back.
After being trampled, pushed and shoved, Sweetie Belle landed in the bare studio. All the pictures, dresses and furniture were gone, including the dresser Sweetie had fallen asleep on. Too upset to try and stop the fiasco outside the room, Sweetie did the only thing she could do. Her eyes misted and a steady stream of tears rolled down her cheeks. She had messed up her first successful spell, destroyed the boutique, ruined Rarity's business and probably lost her sisters love forever. She kept crying, sniffling and wailing until a door creaked open down the hall. Rarity ran out of her bedroom dressed in only her robe, her mane disheveled and no makeup on. She saw the overflowing closet and, without a word, turned to glare at the army of ponyquins.
Rarity reared her head back before a bright blue light flooded Sweetie Belle's vision. The light got brighter and even shook her and the room she was in. The light flashed two more times before Sweetie woke up, lying on the messy floor of the studio. She looked up to see her older sister smiling gently at her. The room was still in complete chaos and the ponyquin in the corner apparently hadn't moved an inch. It took Sweetie a while to realize it was all a dream, leading up to Rarity saying she was tossing and turning, crying while she slept.
Later that day, Sweetie was inspecting the room after she and Rarity had cleaned it. The ponyquin still stood in the corner, motionless and silent. Wondering if it really was just a dream, Sweetie neared it cautiously when, without warning, the head spun to look at her. Sweetie jumped into the air, completely scared and she ran out of the room, calling for Rarity.