Harp-Struck

Chapter Three: Getting Suited Up

The sound of the boutique bell rang as the top of the door hit it, the noise frightening the life out of me in the process.

Jaysus, that’s much louder in real life! I stiffened when I heard the clip-clop noise of approaching hooves on the marble-looking floor. Then she emerged from behind the red curtain of the back room, her eyes closed as she projected dramatically.

“Welcome to Carousel Boutique! Where every garment is chic, unique and magnifique!” She then opened her eyes to see not a pony, but a human stood before her, in all its tattered glory – which was to say none at that point. Rarity gasped and recoiled in an equally dramatic way. “Oh, oh my.”

I bowed to her politely. “Good afternoon, madam R-” I stopped myself. Probably best to let her introduce herself, I don’t want to start explaining and have her faint.

“G-good afternoon. Pardon my asking but... who or, what are you?” She blushed and her eyes sank as soon as the last part left her lips, I could tell she was probably ashamed of herself for being so direct.

“Oh, my apologies, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Winged Sheath and you’ve probably gathered I am not of your species, I am what is known as a human in my world, but you may call me whatever you wish.”

My introduction gave Rarity time to regain enough composure to put together a response. “‘Winged Sheath’, that’s a rather noble name. I am truly sorry about the blunt nature of my question. I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting a human before.”

“That’s quite all right, Miss. I would be surprised if you hadn’t asked me.”

Rarity seemed comforted slightly by my assurance that she hadn’t caused any offence. “Well allow me introduce myself. I’m Rarity or Miss Rarity if you prefer.” She held out her hoof to shake, but I knew exactly what she was doing.

I kneeled down to her level, took her hoof in my hand and politely kissed the top. Her cheeks flushed at my gesture and I could tell she was supressing the urge to swoon. “Pleasure to meet you, Rarity.”

“My, my. What a gentlestallion you are,” Rarity tittered.

“It’s gentleman for my species,” I chuckled nervously, correcting without thinking.

“'Gentleman'? What a lovely variation.”

After the pleasantries had been exchanged, I unbuckled my guitar from my shoulder, giving my collar bone a rest and hung it up on the low hanging coat hanger. As soon as I was done Rarity noticed the remains of my tie and realised those were no tribal robes. They were the remains of a suit.

She let out a scream as her eyes finally took note of my scorched clothing.

“W-what is it?”

“Oh, do forgive me, Mr Sheath for asking but, what happened to your poor suit? At least it looks like a suit. How in Equestria did such a fine garb end up in such a bedraggled state?”

I looked down ashamedly at my tattered apparel, cursing the device for the umpteenth time, in my head of course, there was a lady present after all.

“Ah, well here’s the confusing bit. Let’s just say I had a bit of trouble during my journey here–” I showed her the device on my tattered sleeve “–the trip burned my clothes and damaged the ones I am wearing now. I suppose I got quite the warm reception upon my arrival.” Rarity giggled and put her hoof to her mouth in a ladylike fashion to stop herself from laughing too hard. “So upon finding that I was in need of new attire I thought there’d be no better place to go than the famous ‘Carousel Boutique’!”

Rarity’s cheeks reddened again. “Oh thank you for the compliment, darling, so I take it you’ll be wanting a new suit then? But first I must ask where you plan on going while you are here? I don’t want make you to stick out like a sore hoof.”

I paused a moment to contemplate where to go and to where to find ‘her’. Hmm I’d best start at the top of the ladder before moving down the rungs in this situation. I thought, plus I wanted to see what fine things that city had to offer. “Well I thought I’d try Canterlot first.”

“Then like me you are a Canterlot pony at heart, well human for you,” Rarity giggled, as she went over to a shelf and retrieved a tape measure from the top. “Now, arms up.” She floated the tape to my chest and I jolted slightly as the aura floated around the circumference of my ribcage, the sensation almost static-like. “Mm-hm,” She murmured as she noted the measurement on a notepad she had procured. The tape then lowered to my waist and then back up to my neck. “Would you mind removing your shoes for a minute, Mr Sheath?”

I untied and removed them without question and she measured my feet. Surely she wasn’t going to make me new shoes was she?

Rarity scribbled the measurements onto her notes and levitated the tape measure back onto the shelf as I put my shoes back on. “That’s that, now onto the garment itself.” Rarity floated a sheet of sketching paper to her in her horn field and set her red working glasses over her eyes. She then enveloped the sapphire blue aura around a stick of graphite and turned her attention back to me. “Now I’m going to ask you a few questions and you pick what you want out of the options all right?” I nodded and she scribbled something on the parchment before looking at me again – I could only assume she was drawing the outline of my form.

“Now to start off, what is your favourite colour?”

“Royal blue,” I answered, my old suit was that colour before the device decided to add a few shades of black with tatters to match.

“Mm-hm, okay onto the jacket, you are going to Canterlot so a normal jacket will be out of the question, would you like a tailcoat or frock coat? I sometimes make the tails too long but that shouldn’t be a problem for somepony of, oh. Someone of your stature.”

“Um, the second one, please.”

Rarity nodded her head. “Consider it done, Mr Sheath. Now, regarding the neckwear I’m afraid a cravat is the only option here, but I can give you a choice of brooches for it,” She floated a red box over to the table a foot or so away from me and opened it. “Have a look to see which one you like the look of.” I walked over to the table to see a variety of pin brooches of all gemstone types. I picked up a blue sapphire one and studied it closely, it had a rather strange gleam to it. I was surprised I could even keep my composure holding a gemstone without going ‘crystal crazy’, a few years playing a certain video game does that to you.

“I’d like this sapphire, please.”

“Ah, an excellent choice, the colour will go with the outfit. And last but not least, would you like a hat?”

I shook my head. “No thank you, Rarity. I am not really in favour of hats, my apologies.”

“Oh it doesn’t matter, darling; there is no need to apologise. Everypony and human has their own unique tastes, we can’t all like the same thing.” Rarity scribbled for a moment before floating the sketch over to me. I must say she drew my human form quite well given it was the first time she had ever drawn a human sketch before. The outline of the suit looked amazing, sure it was only a rough sketch, but it gave a sort of ‘tip of the iceberg feeling’ to it, since the real thing would be infinitely more fabulous. “Well, does it look all right?”

I nodded. “If this is what the rough sketch looks like I can’t wait to see the finished article.”

“Thank you darling.” Rarity smiled before bringing a chair over for me with her magic. “Now sit yourself down, Mr Sheath. I will return in just a moment.” The fashionista unicorn floated the sketch back over to her hooves and trotted off behind the red curtains to the back room. I sat in silence for a few minutes waiting for her to return. Well it was silence if your ears didn’t take note of the clattering noises coming from behind the crimson draped doorway. After a further four minutes, Rarity emerged with a battalion of fabrics, buttons and a small wooden crucifix shaped stand in her horn field.

Closest thing to a human mannequin I suppose.

Rarity set down the myriad of floating objects behind a dress curtain, pushed her sewing machine out beside it and took a seat at the workstation. I could see her, but the makeshift mannequin was hidden from my view, she obviously wanted to make it a surprise. She beckoned me to sit beside her before she began threading a blue thread through the machine’s needle. After a moment of thread fumbling, she levitated the first of a pile of fabrics and began cutting. Rarity looked back at me as the tools began to take on a life-force of their own in her magic, all of them setting about cutting and sewing the fabrics together.

“Now how about you tell me a little bit about yourself? I do enjoy a friendly chat while I’m working.”

We spent the next half hour or so sharing each other’s stories as her magic continued on her project, the finished parts of the garment floating into the curtained alcove, adding suspense as my mind tried to picture it fitting all together. She was quite surprised to hear I still attended school, until I told her that education continued until the coming of age in my world and how certain qualifications were required to take on different careers. Which then led me to compliment her on the fact that such shilly-shallying was not needed in Equestria and how better their society was for it since one-upmanship, or one-ponyship in this case existed only in the more high society areas. But even then, they rarely cared for social standing in the grand scheme of things according to Rarity, although it didn’t stop their snooty airs in the slightest.

“Well, Rarity I must say it’s nice to see another being who shares my accent, I would wager you don’t get many ponies sounding like this outside of Canterlot do you?” Rarity shook her head and smiled.

“It’s even better to hear a human who does, but then again that’s my opinion. The way one speaks rarely matters, it’s what’s inside somepony that counts.”

I nodded in agreement. “Truer words were never spoken.” Rarity floated the last of the fashioned garments behind the curtain before standing up and trotting over rather excitedly over to the curtain’s cord.

“All finished, prepare yourself, Mr Sheath, to witness the seamstress Rarity’s first human project!” The excited designer lit up her horn and flung back the curtain. “Ta-da!”

It was at that point my jaw changed its mind about staying attached to may face so to speak, as it dropped down below my waist in sheer awe. Sitting before me, was one of the finest suits I had ever laid my eyes upon, a suit that made garments from Bond Street to Savile Row look like Middle Ages peasant rags.

“Well what do you think?” Rarity asked, wanting to hear my verdict. The buttons were golden, the cravat looked worthy of being around a Von Karma’s neck – it even had a silver double breasted waistcoat with what looked like either silver or white-gold buttons. The trousers were surprisingly the right length and the shoes were so shiny I feared that if they caught the sun, they would induce blindness in a matter of seconds – even if the leather was clearly of mock design to my old ones, since animal skins being used for fashion purposes would be out of the question in this world.

“Rarity this, this, this is truly amazing. By Celestia, I have seen a lot of suits in my time, but this doesn’t just take the biscuit, this gets the whole Hearth’s Warming tin. I cannot thank you enough Rarity.” I steeled myself as I asked the killer question. “How much?” But as soon as I said that, the feature that made only her worthy of the element of generosity emerged.

Rarity smiled and shook her head. “Oh no darling, you don’t need to pay. Consider it a gift from me; you are my first human customer after all.”

“Oh no, Rarity! I couldn’t possibly don such a work of art without recompensing you in some way.”

Again, Rarity shook her head. “Taking on such an interesting project is payment enough for me, but thank you, Mr Sheath, it is nice that some other species appreciates fine things rather than just us ponies being the appreciative bunch.” She lit up her horn, enveloped her telekinetic aura around the suit and lopped them carefully into my arms. “Now off to the dressing room with you.” She said excitedly as she showed me over to the double-door alcove. I felt slightly awkward, as my shoulders were clearly visible over the doors due to my heightened stature. “Don’t worry I won’t peek.” Rarity assured as she turned away politely as I began slipping into each step of the apparel, I have to say putting on a suit is a time consuming procedure, so many buttons and tying, but the end result is worth the wait. After a few minutes, I stepped out from the dressing alcove, suited and booted from the neck down. I wasn’t really fond of hats, or any kind of head wear.

My ruff cravat tickled my chin slightly as I spoke. “Well, what do you think?” I asked, Rarity’s mouth had been stuck in an ‘O’ position since I walked out of the alcove.

“Why… why, you look absolutely fabulous, Mr Sheath! My first human project has been a success!” I looked down proudly at my new suit.

“Heh, you think so?” I smiled.

“Now, we need to do something about your frazzled hair. Would you mind sitting here for a moment, dear?” She beckoned me to a chair with a large dress mirror in front of it, probably since I was too tall for the pony sized ones. She procured a comb and a pot of what looked like wax as she brushed my hair back into a similar style to my original cut. Then she poured the wax onto her hooves and mashed it through my hair before floating the comb over it to structure my hair properly while she washed her sticky hooves. “There we are, good as new.”

“How on earth did you know my hair was styled like that?” I admired my now fixed hair, smiling through the mirror at the pony behind me.

“Mmmhmm, Rarity knows these things, darling and I could see how your hair was formed even if it was blown out of shape, so I merely reformed it–” she floated the pot of wax over to me “–keep this, you’ll be needing it, but be careful it’s strong stuff and quite sticky,” she commented looking at her hooves. “Oh I almost forgot,” she lit her horn once more as the sapphire aura glided over three objects over to me. The first was a varnished cane a little bit smaller than the length of my leg, with a white-gold handle. The second and third were two small cards written in a formal Elizabethan looking scripture. Upon closer inspection, they were VIP passes for a very high-class ballroom in Canterlot. I looked at her in surprise as finished reading them. “Just in case you want to take somepony you meet on your trip with you. I am always so busy I just haven’t had the time to go, so I thought you would make better use of them,” she winked.

“Thank you, Rarity,” I suddenly remembered something I wanted to ask her. “By the way, do you know of a Miss Lyra Heartstrings?” Rarity put her hoof to her mouth in thought for a moment before answering.

“That’s that musical pony isn’t it? Yes, the one with a lyre cutie mark, she’ll probably be in Canterlot somewhere performing. The whole of Ponyville was privy to that fact since she was practically ecstatic when she heard the news that she was going to Canterlot to perform with Octavia, she was like a town crier,” she chuckled to herself.

“Any idea where she might be?”

“Well Octavia told me something about a concert in the Royal Albolt Hall she was performing in with one of her friends, maybe she will be there. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, no reason. Thank you, Rarity, for everything, you certainly are worthy of your element, now I’d best be going.”

Rarity nodded happily. “You are most welcome darling and if you find yourself in dire need of another suit, do not hesitate to stop by again.”

“Thank you, don’t worry I will come by again sometime,” I bowed to her, grabbed my guitar from the hanger, clasped the device back on my wrist and opened the door.

“Ta-ta,” Rarity said as I walked back out into the street ready for the high-class metropolis that was Canterlot. The home of class, wealth, snootiness and of course the anthropologist unicorn.

My course was set. Now it was time to unfurl the sails and cast off.