Scooting in Fashion

Don’t wait for somepony else to solve your problems. If something bars your way, buck it away with all your strength instead of crying about it.

I’d happened to be at Carousel Boutique a couple of times before. Miss Rarity had generously provided the studio for Crusaders’ missions of finding out our Cutie Marks. Sometimes we’d be even allowed to spend the night here when our crusade had lasted longer than we’d planned, and that had occurred more often than one would expect.

Truth be told I’d never particularly liked this place. But never before had its environment oppressed me as badly as it did right now. From the tip of my ears down to the bottom of my hooves, I felt a strange feeling resembling that of claustrophobia, as if all those mannequins in rich dresses encircled me, crawling towards me like breathless puppets. I had to watch my hooves to find a space to step on. Then there was a scent in the air. The scent of some acrid perfume. Was that lavender?

“Hello, darling,” the fashionista interrupted my line of thought. Her white coat was as silk as always, catching the sun’s touch and turning its beams into a golden glow playing on the surface of her fur.

I tried to make a curtsy to impress my prospective mentor but I instantly regretted it. My movements were clumsy and rigid so I got tangled in my own legs and was a breath away from tumbling forward.

Miss Rarity let out a gentle chuckle, covering her mouth with a hoof. “No need for those pretentious formalities when there’s nopony but us here,” she said with a smile that turned into a smirk on her face within a mere second. “Although in your case, one would consider it a mockery rather than a gesture of respect.”

Miss Rarity glanced over me for a few moments as if assessing my worth and, after propping the glasses on her nose, turned to trot to the kitchen. Sweetie Belle slightly pushed my flank, signalizing me to follow her sister.

“So, I heard you wanted to work under my guidance,” Rarity said as we walked. I could notice a trace of uncertainty in her voice. Did I already fail to impress her and she was considering that it was a bad idea to let me in? I had to make an effort to threw the thought away.

“I’d be happy to serve you,” I replied, staring down at the floor. It was burnished to such a degree that I could see my stiff face on its surface. It made me even more nervous than I already was by that moment.

In the kitchen, Sweetie and I sat down at the table while Rarity moved away to the stove. Humming a soft melody, she returned with three cups of hot tea in her telekinetic field.

The three of us sipped our tea silently for a long minute. Eventually, Rarity seemed to collect her thoughts. She took off her glasses and spoke up, her voice calm yet confident.

“I want to make it clear, Scootaloo,” Rarity begin, “I have business relationships with ponies, importance and authority of whom are second only to Princess Celestia herself. And, as is often the case with ponies of such worth, they are bound to have their dirty secrets and quirks a common pony would never even think of.”

Rarity paused to take a sip from her cup. She brushed a stray lock of her mane back in its place before continuing.

“Every now and then, some rich gent would want to inveigle his young love by giving her a gift of fabulous value, as let’s say my splendid dresses. All of this is out of sight of his meticulous wife, of course.” Rarity smirked as she spoke. “Sometimes, he would come in, having drunk more wine than he possibly should. And though there’s no such thing that would loosen somepony’s tongue better than a few glasses of a strong drink, they will be happy to tell you about how they hate one another even while speaking to you without a single drop in their throats. Gossip, rumors and hypocrisy swarm around nobility’s tails like flies around mule’s wastes. Those are games of high society and there are two rules I should play by: do everything I can so that my client would leave this place satisfied and make sure every speck of that stays inside these very walls. Let me get this straight, Scootaloo. Can you hold your pretty tongue behind your teeth?”

“Rarity!” Sweetie Belle chimed in, “I told you before, you can rely on Scoots.”

“Please, Sweetie, don’t interrupt me while I’m doing my business,” Miss Rarity replied in a moderate voice, almost tender. However, it had an opposite effect on Sweetie Belle to the one intended. She pouted out her bottom lip and defiantly turned her head away from her older sister.

As for myself, I simply didn’t know how to react. It was a completely different world for me. A world foreign and, to some degree, quite ugly. This isn’t the place for me, the thought circled in my head. What am I doing here?

Of course, I did already know the answer. I did know what would happen if I turned away and walked out. What really mattered was my ability to do the job right, the same way I’d been treating errands for others ponies. Yes, it’s just another job. I can handle it too.

“I’ll do anything you ask. And I promise I’ll keep quiet,” I said, gathering all my determination I had left. “But I don’t have any experience with… well, with ponies from high society.”

Rarity smiled. For the first time since our conversation, she smiled to me with not a strained smile but with a genuine one, her face gentle and motherly warm.

“Oh, don’t worry, darling,” Rarity murmured. “I will make a lady of you.”

Thus began my life under the patronage of Miss Rarity. Although to be precise, it had little to do with her. When Rarity had told that she would teach me, what she had really meant was that she was going to pin everything on Sweetie Belle. As a businessmare, Rarity spent most of her day in the workshop room all alone, making dresses.

Up into the night, when stars began to light up in the dark sky, she would come out from her den only to either throw a sideways glance at me when I held a wrong spoon for a wrong dessert or to stroke my leg when I stood in a wrong pose in a wrong place.

Not that I hated such an outcome. Quite the contrary, spending time with Sweetie was much more pleasant than that with her sister. I could have said that I even began to like what I was doing but it would be a lie.

Firstly, Sweetie was constantly tense while she was tutoring me. It seemed she had taken responsibilities as my mentor quite seriously. She never took easy on me and regularly reminded me that it was not just a stupid game of imitating nobility but an important mission the outcome of which would decide the fate of whole Equestria, or at least my fate, hers and her sister’s.

Secondly, there was something more irritating than Sweetie’s grunts about proper etiquette – my schedule. As rigid as it could be, it left me with almost no time to practice with my scooter. Every weekday I left Carousel Boutique late at night, exhausted and drained like a dry lemon. Having returned home, I plopped down onto my bed – the only piece of furniture in my room that remained untouched by the pony collectors.

Then it was another day. I hurried to school and then back to Carousel Boutique. On weekends, I spent days grinding various names and titles of Canterlot society. Could you imagine that there are one hundred and twenty-four kinds of greetings a pony should say to the gentry, depending on their status, title, age, and privileges? It was driving me crazy.

For the same reason, I was forced to quit my regular job at the post office. With permission of Miss Rarity, I threw a small farewell party, by the end of which I had to console Derpy who began sobbing the moment my hoof crossed the threshold of the office for the last time. It appeared to be harder than I thought. But in the end, we hugged each other, Derpy wished me good luck and gave me a full basket of hot fresh muffins.

A whole week went by, and I’d been doing nothing but meticulously cramming down every bit of nonsense Miss Rarity had prepared for me and posing before the mirror in Sweetie’s dresses. Eventually, my efforts produced tangible results and it was the first time I received Miss Rarity’s attention that was worth more than an occasional skeptical look in my direction. She also didn’t point out any of the mistakes I’d been prone to while trying to act like a lady.

One night Miss Rarity escorted me to the front door with a pouch in her hoof. Usually, there were no more than a few bits, barely enough to buy food and other necessary needs. However, it felt much heavier when she hoofed it over to me this day. I peeked in and could count at least one thousand bits in big gold coin. More than I’d ever held in my entire life.

“It must be a mistake,” I mumbled under my breath, “I don’t deserve this kind of money.”

“Poor child,” Rarity murmured softly, sporting the signature gentle smile of hers. “What made you think that you deserved even a slice of what I’ve been giving you all that time? You get it all because I decided that. Did you really think that I would do it for you because of your wide eyes?”

Miss Rarity paused, making the last sentence a real question. She held a gaze on me, waiting for my answer.

“I just thought that because I and Sweetie are friends, you might...”

“Well, you were wrong,” Rarity interrupted me. “I merely make an investment. Quite a risky one, I should say. You have yet to earn back everything I’ve spent on you. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Miss Rarity,” I muttered.

“Go buy yourself some shampoo. I’m badly tired of your greasy mane. And for Celestia’s sake, if I ever see you stashing away food from my table into your saddlebags, I will kick you out of this place right away.”

I felt a shade of red crawl across my face as I tried to quench my embarrassment. Next thing I did when I got out of Carousel Boutique was buy a whole crate of shampoo and a several bags of various vegetables and fruits.

On the next day, Sweetie was explaining to me what kind of dresses a pony should wear given a particular situation. I was trying to keep myself from dozing off when the entrance bell rang. A pair of ponies entered the boutique, making Sweetie jump off her seat and walk hastily toward them. A stallion, dressed in a rich costume, beamed with joy as Sweetie approached him. His marefriend put on a boring demeanor at that, though it faded quickly as she gave his side a playful push. I was standing out of earshot but based on a jumble of words I could catch and how they acted with Sweetie I guessed that they knew each other very well.

Soon, Miss Rarity showed up and, after a short talk, led her guests to the upper room to take all necessary measurements for a new dress. Sweetie followed them as well, hopping in excitement.

Perhaps it was just my imagination but I could’ve sworn I saw the guest mare give Sweetie a harsh spank on her flank. Not on her Cutie Mark spot – the place you would expect to get whipped on when you’re caught in wrong-doing. The mare spanked Sweetie right under her tail all the while casually talking to Miss Rarity.

The four of them then disappeared out of my sight, leaving me alone among the mannequins I got used to being with yet still feared to look at. I lay down on the nearby sofa and began staring at the adorned ceiling to pass the time. I was thinking about Miss Rarity’s plans for me. When will she allow me to help Sweetie? When can I get started to prepare for my first performance? A shiver went down my spine as I imagined that. I didn’t know why but something in Sweetie’s behavior creeped me out. The way she trembled while waiting for a new client, the way she blushed red when I tried asking questions, the way she looked at those ponies with those bright eyes of her. If I didn’t know better I’d say she was addicted to their attention.

I sighed. I was just making up silly stories.

Of course it was not strange that Sweetie would copy her sister’s habits. And everypony in Ponyville knew how Miss Rarity adored fashion. Well, she never showed the signs of following it with blind obedience, but neither did Sweetie. If I hadn’t been at Carousel Boutique all day, I would’ve never guessed that my friend was obsessed with the desire to satisfy the needs of the fashion ponies so badly.

An hour passed before Sweetie returned to the drawing room, her coat moist and fresh back from the bath. She combed her mane and sat down on the sofa beside me.

“So, how was the dress?” I asked, yawning. My eyelids drooped down, so I had to make an effort to keep them open after an interrupted nap I’d taken while waiting for Sweetie.

“Nothing special. Just another dress,” Sweetie said, no emotion in her voice.

“Well, I wouldn’t say that, considering how eager you were,” I said playfully.

“I wasn’t eager! I just love my sister and I want to help her! You’d have done the same if you’d had one!”

“Are you ok?” I asked, taken aback. “I was just kidding.”

“There’s nothing funny about it. Rarity’s success depends on how I do here.”

“I understand.” Somehow my words came out quieter than a whisper. Perhaps that was due to the fact that I actually didn’t understand a thing, but it was important for Sweetie, apparently. “Sorry if I hurt you,” I said.

“Just let’s not talk about it, ok?” Sweetie said softly. “I don’t want you getting mixed up in this.”

Sweetie’s words baffled me, so for a moment I found myself stroking my forehead with a hoof in confusion. “But how can I help you, then?” I asked finally.

“You’re not here to help me,” Sweetie said. “You’re here on your own to help my sister with her dresses.”

My eyes went even wider at that. “I don’t understand,” I said. “Isn’t this what you’re doing here?”

“Well, yes... and no.” Sweetie rolled her eyes, groaning in frustration. “It’s complicated.”

With that, our little conversation ceased, I and Sweetie getting back to our routines at Carousel Boutique. During the rest of the day I tried to get out anything else about Sweetie’s responsibilities, however in vain. Eventually, I gave up and decided that I’d already caused Sweetie enough trouble. I had my own goals, the most important of which was to gain Miss Rarity’s respect.

By the end of the second week, I began to feel uncomfortable when facing Miss Rarity. Not that it was a pleasant experience in the first place, but now things got only worse. Time passed, my salary grew and yet my responsibilities stayed the same. In other words, I didn’t get any closer to getting a job a pony doesn’t have to be ashamed of getting paid for. I needed to be something more than a pet that knows how to behave in public and nothing more. I wanted to help Sweetie with real issues, either to make a new dress or to have the consultation with a new customer.

So one day, when I heard a chime of the entrance bell, I took it as my chance to prove Miss Rarity that I was worth something. Fortunately for me, Sweetie had just run away to the ladies’ room while Rarity toiled over her dresses at her office, as usual.

Not wasting a second, I rushed off to the door to greet the guest. A handsome stallion in a short costume appeared before me as I slowed down, suddenly recalling the manners I’d been absorbing all that time. The stallion raised up his darkened-lens glasses, then gave me a quizzical look that inquired as to how a filly like myself got here.

“Welcome to Carousel Boutique, sir. The place where your wishes are getting fulfilled by our hooves.” I’d coined the last phrase myself during one of a few breaks when I’d been left alone here. I was especially proud of it.

I then bowed low before the stallion, stepping aside to make way for him in the boutique, every word gentle like honey, every movement precise like clockwork. I’d been preparing for this exact moment almost for a month now. That is why my shock was even more intense when the only reaction that came from the stallion was a laughter, loud and almost hysterical. He even had to take off his glasses to wipe his eyes. By that time, Miss Rarity moved toward the entrance almost in a gallop, as if a wildfire nipped at her fetlock.

“Hoiti Toiti!” Rarity shouted as she got closer. “I offer my deepest apologies for this confusion. She shouldn’t be here. If there’s something I can—”

“No need to worry, Rarity,” the stallion interrupted. “What is her name again?”

“Scootaloo, my name is... Scootaloo,” I exclaimed but quickly trailed off, almost whispering the last words as I caught a glimpse of anger on Miss Rarity’s face.

I thought I’d known what anger looked like. Well, I was wrong. One would expect anger to boil inside of a pony until it bursts away on the surface, scalding her features. You would see a wrinkled forehead, bared teeth, narrowed eyes. Except Rarity’s face was still and smooth. There was nothing that distorted her usual look of sweet serenity. She wore a perfect mask of cold anger. Her eyes, resembling two crystals of ice, observed me deliberately, sending a chill running up my spine.

“Scootaloo? I like her,” the stallion said enthusiastically. His words, however, didn’t melt the ice in Miss Rarity’s eyes, but at least she turned her gaze away from me.

“So, Hoity Toity,” Rarity said, “to what do I owe the pleasure? Are you here for the dresses or should I prepare the fitting room as well?”

“Only dresses today, but I’m looking forward to seeing this little angel next time.”

As they talked, two pegasi I hadn’t even noticed earlier walked into the boutique and after a few minutes walked out with a bunch of dresses in their hooves. They carefully put the dresses in a carriage that stood nearby and then harnessed themselves to it, ready to fly away.

“See you soon, dear,” Hoity Toity said, winking at me and ruffling my mane with a hoof. He stepped into his carriage and a moment later was carried up to the sky and over the horizon.

“What were you thinking?” Rarity shouted at me the first second we got into the boutique.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered, fighting back tears. “I thought I was prepared. I just wanted to be useful.”

“Useful? Do you have any idea what you got me into?” Now, when nopony was looking, Rarity let her anger a bit of freedom. It made things less tense. It’s always better when you can see the true nature of somepony’s behavior.

“He didn’t look angry,” I protested. “In fact, he said he liked me.”

Rarity let out a puff of air, rolling her eyes. “That’s the exact problem,” she said. “If there’s something Hoity has laid eyes on, there’s no way to deny him that. Besides, I don’t know how to react. You aren’t even a colt, to have drawn his attention so much.”

Rarity breathed out another sigh, contemplating something. “Well,” she finally said, “you wanted to be useful? I guess your wish will come true pretty soon. Now, back to your studies. I’ll personally examine everything you’ve learned so far.”

That day I was walking home with my head drooped. Miss Rarity had trusted me, and I’d let her down by acting like an idiot. How could I look into Sweetie’s eyes after that? All I could hope now was that I was the one to blame for my behavior and that it wouldn’t cause much trouble for Sweetie.

Eventually, I got to the door of my home and threw myself in. Immersed in my thoughts, I didn’t notice a pair of hooves on my way to my room. I bumped into them before realizing that my mother was standing before me. It took me by surprise. It’d been almost a month since we’d last crossed paths, the day when we’d yelled at each other.

“Scootaloo, we need to talk,” she said. Her voice was clear, and I couldn’t catch any hint of booze emanating from her mouth. How long had she been sober? A few days? A week?

“What do you want?” I snapped, “There’s no booze in my room.”

“Scootaloo, please. I’m not here to fight.” Mother’s words were quiet, almost whispers and yet there was resolve in her features.

“Sure, if you say so. Now let me in. I’m tired.”

Walking into my room sluggishly, I hardly had any energy left for listening to the preaching by a pony who struggled to make ends meet. Though the word ‘struggle’ is a bit of exaggeration, I think. After she lost her regular job, she wasn’t eager to try to find a new one. At least not until she realized that she needed money to be able to wash away her problems with alcohol. I guess things had gotten even worse since then that she eventually resorted to gambling.

For a while, there was almost a complete silence, only the wooden floorboards creaking as I dragged my hooves across the empty space of my room. Then I heard a muffled weeping. I stopped.

“I know I gave you a thousand reasons to hate me,” my mother said. She tried to get herself together, but it didn’t work. Tears began to fill her eyes. “I’ve never been the best mother... Perhaps I’m one of the worst. But I love you, Scoots. You’re all I have left to live for.”

I stood motionless, my eyes staring at the wooden boards. I wanted to respond. Wanted to say to her that it was all artificial, and all she cared about was self-flagellation and indulging in her own pity. But I couldn’t find anything in my head, at that moment it was as empty as my bare room.

“It’s okay,” were the only words I could manage.

My mother stepped closer to me, her fur brushing against mine. I felt her wing touch my back.

“You know, Scoots.” Mother’s voice cracked as if it was painful for her to talk. “When your father left us, I thought I didn’t have the strength to raise you. But I was wrong. Look at you. You’re the best daughter a mother could have.”

She smiled then. It was just a pale smile, almost imperceptible. Nopony would’ve even noticed it. But for me, it was like seeing the shining sun after living years in the dark.

Stretching a hoof out, my mother pulled me close to her and wrapped her wing around me. A warm sensation engulfed my body, so familiar and yet almost forgotten. I felt my mother’s fur tickle my face as I returned her hug.

“I love you too, mom,” I whispered.

“I’m sorry for what you’ve been going through because of me. I can’t change the past but I promise I’ll make it up to you one day. You deserve better than this.”

I loved my mother very much, but years living with her had taught me that naivety is a bad quality for a pony. I’d undergone too much of Mother’s attempts at remorse that hadn’t resulted in anything. Despite this, I hadn’t any time to think through it. Right now I was reliving one of the best moments of my life.

We sat down on my bed then and just talked. My mother told me the story how she’d met my father. I listened carefully, and when it was my turn, began to brag about how I and my friends got our Cutie Marks by helping Diamond Tiara. We talked about mundane things too. It was late when my mother kissed my forehead and turned off the light. I wasn’t dreaming about a perfect family that night. I had it for real.