The ghost of Princess Hollow

3 – The boutique

“Uhh, rarity?” A small shy unicorn shivered as she called out into the empty hall. “I’m here…”

“In here darling!” Rarity called, levitating the last curtain fabric off of its rod. Fluttershy very quickly appeared next to her, obviously having heard her voice and run as soon as she could. Rarity chuckled. “Now fluttershy, there is absolutely nothing to be afraid of!”

“I think I’ll disagree – if that’s okay with you, that is.” Fluttershy replied, crouching down to the wooden floor beneath her as she scanned the room for signs of danger. Rarity smiled. The place could be seen as scary, she supposed, with its tall ceilings and dark presence. But she saw it more as an enchanting place, full of interesting architecture and a lot of dust. Rarity looked around the small room she had began her work on and sighed. As beautiful as the place was, it would take a while before she could start work here.

The room was a deep blue colour and the tops of the walls were covered in a sculpted pattern that resembled swirls and stars. The main attraction, however, was the small crystal chandelier that hung in the centre of the room. In fact, most rooms had a similar design. It was one of the main things that attracted rarity to this place in particular – the oddness of it. All the other buildings in Ponyville were very similar with their white walls and hay roofs. The only unique places she could identify were the town hall, the café and fluttershy’s house – though rarity had to admit she hadn’t been too far into the town. Also, thinking about it…

“Fluttershy, do you live in Ponyville?” Rarity asked curiously as she shook out as much dust from the curtains as possible. It seemed like they hadn’t been touched in years.

“Not technically.” Fluttershy replied from across the room. Rarity looked over to see the other mare had calmed down and began to explore a little now she knew she was close to rarity once again. “I’m just outside the boarder. It’s a little easier to say I live here though.”

Rarity hummed in reply as she folded the dark blue fabric up. She began looking around the rest of the room to decide what needed to be done next. Having the work ponies come in was helpful to show her what needed to be done, but there was no way she could afford to pay them all to do away with the boutique’s problems. At least it explained the suspiciously cheap price of the place. She knew she should have double checked.

She looked around at the oddly shaped room in wonder. The arched door she came in from was a large dark wood that only worked to dim the room even further. “At least it looks nice.” She thought to herself, finishing her folding and placing the curtains on the table next to a window. It was, once again, a dark wood. She supposed it must have been used by an avid writer at some point as it was covered in dried out ink and a built in line of shelves with a few worn out books that decorated the area behind it. She was briefly tempted to step forward and see what the books were but decided against it.

The desk spanned the length of the wall up to the single large window and turned a corner to also hit the door on its right. To the left of the door, there stood a large ornate wardrobe with handles in the shape of crescent moons. “That’ll be a pain to clean.”

To the left of the cupboard there was once again a wall with built in shelves up to the ceiling. A ladder leaned against these shelves though, meaning rarity would have easy access. She could picture it so clearly – fabric in all different colours and textures would fill the shelves from bottom to top just waiting to be taken down and used by her. She’d keep her mannequins on the unoccupied space to the right of the single window and spend her time sewing in-front of the other two windows. Rarity stepped forward to where fluttershy was – opposite the cupboard – to take a peek out the window on the other side of the room.

And what a view it was. The boutique was situated close enough to the train station that it was viewable to passengers but far enough away that she was a little secluded from the rest of town. She could imagine that the other ponies had built away from the old building a long time ago and hadn’t branched out since. The right side and back of the building were almost hidden away by a large forest, only being distinguished from it by a few spaced out rocks. Rarity would only be able to see Ponyville from the left side of the boutique and only the corner room was in the right position to give a view of the town and the station. Even the one below was a little too low down to see the station.

“Well, there’s a lot to be done but I think this could work. We should probably hold off on painting…” rarity began, turning to fluttershy and leading the other mare out the room. “Cleaning first, then repairs and then decorating.”
With a nod, fluttershy levitated a dustpan and brush out of the saddlebag she had left by the door and set to work on the floors. Rarity sighed, deciding to take another look around so she could compile a list of things that needed to be done. It would be a long day for the both of them.