The Mask of Silver

Minuet Shimmer plowed through all the ponies to get to school, not caring to say excuse me. She was in a rush to get done with school, so that she could go shopping for a dress, maybe materials to make a dress, it would half to be something other then white, because her color was white, and it also needed to ho with her mane, which by the way was velvet, dark purple, and scarlet. She was an earth pony so she didn't need to have one with wing holes or anything.

Minuet quickly got to her desk which was conveniently in the back row. She sat down, pulled out her books and tapped the floor impatiently waiting for the teacher. When she finally did come, she greeted the class and got right to math. Most everypony was listening, but after a while, Minuet drifted off into dream land; of dresses and music and her falling into the arms of a strong stallion, she imagined herself playing a wonderful symphony, on piano, her favorite instrument. She, tho pony with no friends, surrounded in handsome young stallions, all admiring her beautiful locks.

But then reality came tumbling back like a boulder, she had no friends, she was an orphan, and she spent every day dusting statues and scrubbing floors and such. But to stand out, she had to wow everyone, find a dress or make one,and she was very much willing to pay three quarters of her coins to look beautiful for the ball.

When School had ended and the bell rang annoyingly, she quickly put away her books back at the orphanage, got her money and headed out the door, it was Friday, the day she had the afternoon off. She only had to clean in the evenings. She would very much prefer to go shopping with a friend to help pick out styles. But she didn't, so she just went alone. The first thing she did was get a list of all the clothing stores in Baltimare. She retrieved it from a magazine page and cut it out. The first on the list was:

Finest Fabric.

So Minuet shimmer walked down the streets of her friendly town and looked for the address of her first stop. She came to it sooner then she thought, and was soon going in through the doors.

“Hello, how are you today?” asked a plump pony of purple and green behind the counter, “How can I help you today?”

“I'm looking for a dress, a very fine dress, I'm going to wear it to the grand ball”

“Oh I’m very sorry miss,” said the pony, “Were all out. Everyone was so excited to go that they bought all of them. You can order one when the next bunch comes in.”

“No,” said Minuet, trying not to look to disappointed, “I'll see if anywhere else has any.” and with that she walked out of the store, and she crossed out Finest Fabric.

“Next on the list:” she said to herself, T. S. Elegant. Most formal dressing you'll ever see come on by in the evenings and afternoons.

Minuet crossed out that too, she did not want formal, she wanted...well, she didn't know exactly what she wanted, but she was going to look anyway.

             ~~~

After searching almost everywhere, Minuet was put out. All the stores either had none she wanted, or were all out, so in the end she turned up just buying fabric and lace and stuff, she would half to make it herself.

Minuet Shimmer started to walk home, she had basically no training in making a fancy ball gown, and she had no idea what it would look like, she had picked out velvet, navy blue, white, and cream color. She didn't know if those went together or not, but she just was in a rush.

When she got to the orphanage and tucked away the fabric under her bed, she got to her cleaning as soon as possible, fortunately for her, she only had to clean the shelves and mop the floors. She got a duster and went to the nearest shelf, it was full of five sets of encyclopedias, one red, one blue, one green, one yellow and one white.

She dusted it quickly moved onto the next one and two.

By the time she was on her last shelf, she felt like she could sneeze the orphanage down. The shelf had a statue of a fine, mare, with her nose in the air, and it had small little pictures in the shelves of old ponies. She started to dust the statue slowly and sneezed a couple times, but when she accidentally knocked overt one of the pictures, she bent down to pick it up and bumped into the statue. It tipped top one side, but she caught it before it fell over and set it down. But then something caught her eye, a glimmer of silver behind the shelf. She figured it was piece of glass or something, so she pushed the shelf away from the wall with her shoulder very carefully and then reached blindly behind the shelf.

Minuet waved her hoof to and fro behind trying to feel anything sharp or hard. But then when she noticed that she could not feel anything, she started to pull it out. But it got stuck.

“Ugh.” she sighed pulling harder. It was tuck harder then she thought.

Suddenly it popped free and she fell on her back, but as her hoof came out, it brushed something cold and a little soft. “Aha!” she said triumphantly as she pulled it out. But what she saw wasn't a piece of glass or anything like that, she gasped as she looked down at it, how did it get there? She ran the small thing in her hooves, feeling it lightly, was it hers? Could she keep it? There, in her hooves, that she had found behind the shelf, laid a silver Mask.