The Head

It was a harsh thing to even think about, and Rarity did her best to never say the words in public because somepony surely would have told her to seek counseling. But there were times when the talent suite granted by her mark felt -- incomplete.

She was a marked dressmaker and when it came to the associated gifts and skills, that meant more than most ponies suspected. Her eyes could distinguish between colors of the finest shades, and she always knew when a hue had been inappropriately shifted. The sense of touch had been heightened: how else was one supposed to recognize thread count on contact? Designing was the core of the set, of course: creativity, the ability to dream in light, gem, and fabric. But what just about nopony recognized was that she was capable of creating the fabric itself. Rarity lacked the earth pony magic which would have allowed her to prime and guide the developing seeds -- but give her a cotton plant to work with, and she would almost immediately comprehend every step required to bring it through the harvest, get past the combing, and ultimately wind up with something suitable for wrapping into a full bolt.

Her talent allowed her to understand the full process of dress creation. What it hadn't done was give her the slightest bit of information on how to run the actual dress shop.

(It hadn't done anything about teaching her how to be a Bearer either, but she did feel it was unreasonable to believe that her talent could have ever seen that coming.)

She'd had to teach herself accounting from scratch, and still found her head swimming as numbers failed to dance between columns. (Double-entry bookkeeping mostly seemed to mean increasing her chance for errors to roughly 200%.) Advertising, marketing... absolutely nothing associated with her icon had given her the faintest clue for how those were supposed to operate, and her success rate suggested that the education was still a work in progress.

Skills in arranging light and shade, moved slightly sideways, allowed her to put together what she felt were rather artistic displays of her work within the Boutique, because she understood that the presentation could be just as important as the product. And of course she'd wanted to have her very best creations to be visible through the windows. Illuminated, rather charmingly, by Sun's light. That radiance did a lot for the sparkle of gems and the white of cotton.

Rarity had thought she'd understood the fiber. And yet her mark had never bothered to inform her that when you left unwashed white cotton fabric under sunlight for too long, it would gradually turn yellow.

Absolutely nothing about her talent suite had taught her how to deal with customers. Those who only pretended to the title were worse.

And really, how was she supposed to know that wooden dressmaker display forms would eventually wear out?

...very well: so perhaps 'wear out' was the wrong term. A long day of dealing with customers (and non) could elevate her frustrations to the point where the false eyelash binding glue wasn't the only thing on the verge of snapping and... she had to take it out on something. Her options seemed to be 'kick the actual ponies, thus placing myself in court, eventually prison, and finally getting a chance to revise those hideous uniforms' -- or land a few solid hoof impacts on the wood models known as ponikins. Admittedly, the latter was slightly more intelligent than the average Boutique non-buyer, but also happened to be rather less likely to press charges.

Fall Formal season was hours away from being upon her: Ponyville's secondary schools would soon be hosting their annual student dances, and Rarity offered dress rentals in adolescent sizes for the occasion -- marking one of the very few times when she was in active competition with some of the town's other shops. This year had even seen her put together a new line exclusively for the first-time lovelorn, and she was especially proud of having rigged each dress to leave the wearer no way of subtly smuggling in age-inappropriate drinks. But it hadn't been an easy process, her stress had been elevated to the point where a private session with the ponikins seemed best, and...

As it turned out, even those who lacked earth pony strength would have been advised to limit their total number of kicks on any one ponikin. And perhaps should have spread out the impacts a little more. Along with inspecting the most frequent stress relief site until they spotted the slowly-spreading network of fine cracks.

Rarity knew a wood sculpture spell: something which had kept her roughly entertained at boarding school until she'd had the chance to make her escape. But it wasn't good for sculpting fragments back together. There was a mass limit for the final result, and that prevented her from just looking at a thick tree branch and conjuring up fresh pieces. And the Formal rentals were only days away. She didn't like the looks of the other frequent targets, had kicked them out before anything else could go wrong -- and that meant she needed a full set of display models.

So she'd placed an emergency order...

In soon-to-arrive retrospect, the deliverypony had been utterly nice about the whole thing and viewed from the same red-blurred temporal perspective, it didn't help.

On the day when it all started, Rarity was outside the Boutique, cleaning the windows with a corona-held damp cloth while awaiting her delivery and squeezing out the results into a bucket. The building required a certain amount of maintenance, and her mark hadn't bothered to tell her that either. And if left to her own devices, she could only really clean the lower levels. She could certainly project her corona to the upper without having it lose cohesion, but she couldn't see the finest bits of dirt while standing on the ground. Eventually, a pegasus was going to fly by, notice, and comment. If it was Rainbow, the comments would keep coming for a while, largely in the hopes of triggering Rarity's rupophobia and getting a laughworthy sort of freakout. The wooden ponikins spaced around the perimeter of the upper level didn't exactly help. Spring always came, and Fluttershy couldn't talk the entire avian world into not building nests between the ears.

The cleaning didn't really bother Rarity. It was something to do while she waited, and the scheduled early morning weather was pleasant enough, especially for the first week after Nightmare Night. Warm breezes arrived with a regularity which suggested Rainbow had allowed another member of the weather team to manage the Boutique's area for once.

She wiped, hummed to herself, watched light glint off clean glass, smiled at Opal as the cat watched from an upper window, wondered whether she needed to adjust her rates -- it was understood that students weren't going to have very much money, but these were merely rentals and she still had to cover her costs -- and waited.

It wasn't a long wait.

She heard the squeak of cart wheels first. Approaching hooves came after that: fairly heavy impacts which suggested the touch of extra body density found in an earth pony...

"Miss?" a rather polite stallion voice asked. "Are you the proprietor?"

She turned, looked into open, almost charming red features and favored the deliverypony with a smile. "I am! And if that tarpaulin-covered cart you're hauling along --" using very strong legs and shoulders: she was almost tempted to ask for the stallion's measurements "-- is carrying what I believe it is? Then you, good sir, are ahead of schedule." The smile brightened, increased the radiance of sincerity. "I wasn't expecting you for at least another hour!"

"I got an early start," the stallion admitted. "But, just to check -- seven new ponikin models, right?"

"Yes," Rarity assured him. "Just unload them here. I can save you a little time and carry them inside myself." When it came to levitation, her strength was strictly average -- but a single ponikin would need to be made of black ironwood in order to bring its mass over her limit. "In fact, if I may assist you in the unpacking?"

He smiled back, nodded. The cleaning cloth was placed on the bucket's edge, and careful application of soft blue energy helped to get the tarp off.

Rarity looked at the contents, then nodded her approval. The heads and bodies of each ponikin had been wrapped in canvas strips to give them some protection during the journey, but anything from the pasterns on down was exposed. It let her see the utterly inoffensive light beige which served as a neutral serving platter for the offering up of fabric-incarnated dreams.

"Four," she counted to herself. "Five, the sixth seems fine, and the last --"

She stopped. Eyes which registered colors perfectly decided to squint a little, just in case that somehow improved matters. It did not.

The seventh ponikin was the same size as the others. The overall rigging was proper: it could be placed independently on the sales floor, or carefully secured into a pole mount. But the oddly-distorted shape of the wrapped head didn't match any of the others, and the hue of the false limbs was -- yellow.

A now-churning stomach dearly wanted to define the exact color as 'yellow'. Her talent, which was rather more exacting about such matters, gave it a little more consideration and invoked a toilet trench. One where the continual flow of water had been blocked, allowing any additional -- liquids -- placed into the mix to... combine. Add all of those little shades together, distorted by whatever the contributors had been consuming on that day, then stir well and apply as a stain. From a great distance.

That seemed to account for the color. Any degree of residual phantom stench was purely the product of her imagination.

Rarity had a very good imagination.

She swallowed. Then she swallowed back.

"I... don't believe that one is mine," she carefully told the deliverypony. "I ordered a matched set."

He looked. Winced.

"I'm sorry," he immediately said. "I didn't load this. I took custody after the cart was already packed. And there were a lot of customized orders going out today. There must have been a mixup somewhere." Which was followed by an utterly sincere, "Miss, I'll do whatever I can to fix this. I promise."

To know Applejack was to learn what true honesty sounded like, and so she forgave him immediately.

"It's quite all right," she made herself say. (It wasn't, and it would only get worse.) "I understand that it wasn't your fault, and I'm not going to blame you for an error you had no part in." With a little sigh, "But I did need a full set. With the Fall Formal coming -- oh, you wouldn't be interested. I suppose you'll have to take them all back in order to sort this out --"

Rather quickly, "-- no." And he managed a smile of his own. "Let's make this easy. You need ponikins. Just take custody of this group for now. We'll fill out the receipt form together: I know how to write it in a way which means you're temporarily accepting the shipment. And then I'll go back to the factory, find out where your real seventh went, and somepony will come by with it to make the exchange." Apologetically, "It may take a few days to track it down..."

Such a gentlepony. Rarity wondered if he would accept some fresh juice before departing.

She looked at the -- yellow... again. It would be hard to work with that, and 'hard' seemed to be setting the hurdle bar too low. But it wasn't his fault, and he was trying to make things right.

"That," she warmly told him, "is more than acceptable. Are you thirsty?"

She carried the seventh ponikin in, and did so while subconsciously trying to create some extra distance between her corona's borders and the contents of the bubble. The results tended to rattle.

Carefully, she allowed her energies to unwrap the six standard models, and did so while chiding herself for not having done it outside. Ideally, before they'd mutually finished the modified receipt form. Deliveries had to be inspected prior to being signed for, but -- she trusted the stallion. In the worst case, she'd be sending back more than one piece.

But the six from her purchased set were perfectly fine. Motionless, featureless, and possessing a color which could only offend if you were desperate to see anything else.

The seventh...

She unwrapped the body first. The 'yellow' sadly held its hue throughout, but -- at least the proportions were right.

Then she reached the head.

Soft blue carefully gripped the trailing end for the wrap of protective cloth. Unwound --

-- the trouble, Rarity reflected as she carefully picked her recoiled body off the Boutique's sales floor, wasn't in describing the ponikin's head.

Imagine a spell which can hear and remember words -- but can't think about anything it's taking in. It records without comprehension, no more understanding what it's being told than an accounting ledger is capable of recognizing a number upon its pages. And make the spell blind. Words, yes: images, never. It can't see who's speaking to it, or even recognize the base concept of 'speaker'. All it does for now is absorb vocabulary and wait.

Now: tell that spell what a pony's head should look like. Use general terms. Leave everything approaching specific proportions and ratios out. Pretend that the casting has the intelligence of a pony and can figure out where you're going with this, because the truth is that it can't match the mental capacity of a fly. A fly, upon seeing certain reactions of movement from a pony, can at least recognize that it's a really good time to get out of the way.

Give the spell a block of wood. Tell it to render the material into the shape of a pony's head.
Examine the results.
Then scream.

The false ears didn't seem to emerge from the top of the skull so much as they served as a direct extension of the neck. They were permanently cupped forward, as if trying to pick up on audience reactions. Criticism. The wooden hollows looked as if they could bounce around the echoes of retching for at least an hour.

Nothing was right about the snout. The overall length suggested that at some point, the pony who'd tried to teach the spell had accidentally switched into describing Saddle Arabians, and even that had gone wrong. It was stretched too far forward. There was an odd narrowing just past the cheekbones, leading into the kind of dark hollows you got when you either lost too much weight in a hurry or had recently had somepony trying to ram two poles together. Through your face.

In one of the surest signs of pony aggression, the wooden lips were pulled back from the teeth. The teeth themselves had been rendered with something close to loving detail. You could teach a class of dental students with those teeth, as long as the subject was extraction. Of the student, from the school, because nopony exposed to the head for multiple classroom hours would ever want to deal with teeth again.

The upper lip mostly served as extra support for the deep hollows of the nostrils. You could store things in those nostrils. Rarity was presuming that a lot of hopes and dreams would fit within the space, especially after they'd been crushed.

And then you had the eyes. They were perhaps a sixth the size they should have been: twin flat, circular disks of highly-polished madness. The yellow was just a little brighter there, and remained so right up until you reached the black voids of the pupils. Those were where the actual crushing took place. To listen closely while regarding the false eyes was to hear light being crumpled.

It was very easy to describe the ponikin's head. The hard part was in making herself stop.

Slowly, she straightened up, then turned and trotted away from the thing. It only took three glances back before she began to believe it wasn't following her.

Rarity fetched the Fall Formal display sample dresses. The seven new ponikins were carefully arranged in the designated order and placement, and then her corona began to dress them. She'd made the samples in proportions designed for the wooden models and for that, there were no issues. The... unexpected addition was at least the same size as the others.

After a while, she shuffled the dresses. The base beige models worked with anything she put on them. The 'yellow' -- well, having that with the blue gown found the migraine beginning to fade after a mere ten minutes, so it was technically the best.

She stood back and surveyed the results. Then she stepped further back, just in case she wound up needing some space. It could take a few seconds for a fleeing pony to reach full gallop --

-- I'm being ridiculous.
They've all told me to try and be more aware of when my standards are... not quite meshing with the local reality. This is very likely one of those times. Other ponies won't react in the same way.
This can be managed.

She looked again. Left to right, from red to violet. She had to wrench her gaze off the fifth position.

Maybe if I just -- take that one out...

This was tried. The other six were placed somewhat closer together.

...no. The mind instinctively recognizes the gap. Perhaps not on the conscious level for all observers, but -- something within would know there was supposed to be blue there. And I intended to debut them as a group of seven. A full prismatic collection. Without that... the original intent...

Along with the original idea -- although she wasn't about to admit that in public. One did not tell Rainbow that the pegasus had been an inspiration if one wished to ever stop hearing about it. Or, just about as likely, to be told that Rarity had done it wrong: the resulting number of murder fantasies would then increase the unicorn's personal total by roughly twenty percent.

But even if the reaction to the yellow and the -- head -- was solely her own... there was a reason ponikins were designed to be featureless: that made it all the easier for a customer to picture themselves in the display model's place. The missent piece had nothing but features --

-- wait...!

She laughed. An open, dancing bell of a laugh. How could she have forgotten? The solution was right there! She was the solution, her very own self...

"I know the wood sculpture spell!" Rarity giggled. "This is going to be simple!"

The first step, of course, was to get her camera. This was going to be a temporary sculpt: one which would need to be reverted when the model was returned to its true owner. (She had questions for that pony, and the first was going to be 'Why?') And while she was certain that the head had burned its distinctiveness into her memory -- one quick nap would probably find her verifying every horrid detail in her dreams -- it would help to have a photo guide for reference during restoration. Spike, as the amateur photographer in their group, would be happy to develop the picture for her, and she would of course pay for the chemicals.

Rarity went up to the residence level. Opal spotted her while she was hunting for the camera, followed Rarity down the ramp, took one look at the yellow ponikin, and hurtled back up the ramp again. Rarity considered that to be a sign of how well she'd trained her cat, and was sincerely impressed. She didn't even know she'd been teaching Opal how to have taste.

She took the picture. (The film didn't emit any smoke, but the lens kept trying to unfocus itself.) The camera was placed on her desk, and then soft blue was projected forward. Surrounded the wooden form, collapsed inwards --

-- her corona shattered.

It wasn't painful: simply disorienting. There was a sudden surge of dizziness, all four knees bent, and then shards of light and sparkles were dissipating on her sales floor.

Rarity forced herself fully upright again.

It's already been sculpted.
And somepony put a lot of effort into making sure it would hold the current form.

Twilight would likely be able to overwhelm such defenses, but -- the new casting would need to be applied as the old one was breaking, and the librarian didn't know the wood sculpture spell. Some castings were tied to temperament, and those who lacked the proper perspective could find them extremely difficult to learn. In her own way, Twilight was an artist -- but she sculpted with magic itself. Shapings, sound reproduction, illusions -- not strictly outside of her range, but she wasn't good with any of it. And when it came to reworking wood, Rarity suspected Twilight didn't want to learn the casting. Leaving Rarity with a piece of magic she could truly claim as her own.

Several dyes were tested on small sections of the model's hooves. The defenses also held up nicely against all attempts to change the yellow.

Rarity went into her workshop. Sewing devices briefly buzzed, and then she returned with a rather crude sort of hat. Milliner work had never been her strength -- but in this case, the hat was mostly there to test the effectiveness of the brim-mounted dark veil.

She placed it upon The Head. Part of her mind noted the recent acquisition of capitals.

...no. The yellow is too bright. A proper veil must have something of gauze about it, or the pony wearing it can't see out. Anypony trotting by can spot that something is wrong. Thicker fabric simply invites the question of what I'm trying to conceal.

Additionally, the ears are starting to come through the crown.

She'd ordered adolescent-sized ponikins. She had plenty in the standard adult proportions. So perhaps if she used the wood sculpture spell on one of those and just tried to -- sculpt it into taking up less space...

Eventually, she decided to be grateful that when the entire piece had finally fragmented, all of the splinters wound up collapsing inward. Then she finished cleaning up, looked at the clock, judged how much time she had before the Boutique needed to open, sighed to herself, and gathered the camera before heading for the front door.

Generosity needed to ask the local merchants for a favor.

It was twenty minutes past the time when the secondary schools closed, and that meant it was also the hour when Spike had custody of the library.

"And none of them would lend you a ponikin?" Twilight's open disbelief inquired. "You usually get along so well with everypony in the tradesponies group!"

Rarity sighed, adjusted her position behind the sales desk, and dearly wished Twilight was taller. The little mare's height was fully insufficient for blocking the majority of views, and The Head...

"Twilight?"

A little awkwardly, "...yes?"

"You keep glancing backwards. Trying to peer over your own tail."

"...I keep thinking it's coming up behind me," the librarian confessed. "Seriously, Rarity. No help from anypony?"

"One of the reasons we all get along so well," Rarity reluctantly admitted, "is because I'm usually not competition for anypony else. But I'm hardly the only mare renting out Fall Formal dresses, Twilight. So I was told, over and over, that all of their properly-sized models were already in use. And would remain so for the whole of the rental season. And because it's the rental season, I can't take a day and go into Canterlot to find another." With a sigh, "I'm currently stuck waiting on that kind stallion to conclude his investigations."

"Is it kicking your sales?" Twilight quickly asked. "You're the one who's always telling me how fickle customers can be, Rarity. And --" The narrow rib cage shifted across the length of a slow, uncertain breath. "-- I don't know how long I'd want to be in a room with that... Head."

"The feeling is mutual," said the unicorn who'd already risked a few recovery sessions in the bathroom. "But thus far, it's been a rather slow sales day. There were two pickups of previous orders, one of which was for a regular, and -- I spotted both mares approaching through the windows, then brought their dresses outside. I can't tell you how any customers have reacted to The Head because I haven't had anypony reach the Boutique's interior." Thoughtfully, "Of course, there is that one window angle which allows it to be seen. But a pony has to be moving around the Boutique in order to catch a glimpse." It was the first time she'd ever been grateful that the building's structure made extra display zones almost impossible to add.

"I'm sorry," the little mare sighed. "I wish it was better for you. I know how hard slow days can be."

And I know how far you had to come in order to say that. "Don't worry too much, Twilight," she reassured her friend -- then added a smile. "In fact, given the hour, you may be just in time to witness the beginning of the surge."

"A surge?" With open confusion, "Why would there be a --"

Best to assume that the Gifted School didn't have dances. And if they did, then... Which was when Rarity put the thought away, because there was too much misery dripping from the ellipsis. "Schools have let out for the day," she simply explained. "And this is the launch for Fall Formal season: that's why I was so hoping to have everything ready this afternoon. I may not earn anywhere near as much income on rentals as purchases, Twilight -- but it all helps. Given travel time between the nearest secondary school and the Boutique, I would reasonably be expecting my first young clients in a few minutes."

Perhaps the strength of youth provided extra resistance to The Head. And they probably wouldn't have to worry about the side effect of being in its presence.

Rarity had spent much of the day on the sales floor. Where she could see it, and the tiny flat eyes could absolutely not see her. Because they weren't alive. And therefore could not perceive the shop, the owner, or anything else. There certainly wasn't any brain in the wooden skull, which clearly meant having it plotting against her was right out.

It couldn't sense anything, much less think. But something about being near it for hours made her feel as if The Head was slowing down time.

"I'll just stay a little longer, then," Twilight decided. (This was followed by an involuntary backwards glance. Again.) "Until the first ones come in. To give you company. And then I'll get out of your way. You..." It was a weak smile, but a true one. "...don't want me trying to sell again."

That much was true. The most Rarity could do in asking Twilight to watch over the Boutique while the designer made a gallop for something was exactly that: to watch over the Boutique. Attempts to place customers within what the librarian would somehow decide was a good look quickly turned -- mathematical. Vectors got involved, especially when Twilight decided to see how much strain different kinds of movement would put on the fabric. Ultimately, a pinkish corona would ignite. Matters tended to go downhill from there.

One of Rarity's minor regrets regarding her circle of friends was that none of them were suitable substitutes. She couldn't ask a single one of them to try selling -- with the exception of Fluttershy. Only Rarity would have to ask her up to four times. Which would be followed by exactly that many firings, and that ultimately led to the unicorn awake in her bed at all hours under Moon, trying to figure out how the pegasus had swapped clothing and manestyles at that level of speed. Especially given the sheer amount of mane.

They waited. They talked. Twilight occasionally twitched in the general direction of the exit, and generally managed to stop herself before she vibrated more than two hoofwidths towards escape. But after a slowed-down time, the door opened, and two adolescent mares merrily trotted in.

Both ignored the adults, because they were at the age where they knew everything and anypony older was just going to try and correct a few 'facts', purely from jealousy. Instead, they began to browse the interior, laughingly sniffing their way past anything which was clearly designated for slow-decaying virtual fossils and as that category included Rarity's own age, she chose to give them some space until they reached the rental section.

Let them breathe. They'll see the new line soon enough. That earth pony looks like she would benefit most from the verdant assembly. Of course, it then becomes a matter of convincing her that I would actually know best. Patience...

The adolescents reached the new display. They began to browse. The body language of dismissal slowly began to fade. Slow nods of consideration began to make themselves visible, and the pair moved along the color curve --

-- both students froze.

Something had just caught their attention. And it wasn't the dress.

They stared at The Head and it, being incapable of blinking, silently announced its intention to stare right back until the Boutique aged into dust. Something which, given the virtual slowing of time in The Head's vicinity, was going to take about twenty thousand years or until Rainbow's ego was fully under control: whichever came first. Rarity's mind silently opened the intangible wager books, then crossed out all potential wagers on Rainbow.

The fillies kept looking at The Head. Rarity, who'd never checked it for additional magic, was starting to wonder if there was any visible difference between being enscorcelled and simply being horrified --

-- their heads turned. They glanced at each other.

And then two young forms were bolting from the shop.

The door swung shut behind the pegasus, and did so with an echo of finality.

Rarity winced. The left upper tier of false eyelashes tried to slip.

"Oh, dear," she sighed. "Oh, dear me..."

Twilight's emotional development was currently being demonstrated in an expression replete with echoed pain. "Oh, no..." the librarian groaned. "There's -- no way that's a good thing, is there?"

"Rather not," Rarity reluctantly said as she forced herself to come out from behind the desk. "I truly wanted to keep the full set together, Twilight. Taking any single piece out of the display would hurt sales. But it would seem The Head is creating a similar effect." Was she actually having to force herself into approaching it? "I suppose I can simply place it in the basement and leave a note in its place. Saying that the blue is available, and to please inquire for further details." Thoughtfully, "Actually... I could simply take a picture of the dress and place that in view, could I not? I may need to ask Spike for some help after all --"

-- the Boutique's front door opened.

Two adolescent mares just about galloped in. The same two who had just galloped out.

They were followed by two more.

The quartet knew exactly where they were going. Four youths went directly towards the blue dress, with the unicorn's awkwardly-loaded saddlebags jostling unevenly against her sides.

I could have that rebalanced for her in about four minutes, Rarity dazedly considered. Account for the growth spurt. Oh dear me, did the first two actually fetch their friends? More ponies to appreciate the design? Is this going to be more than one rental --

Twilight, who wasn't sure what she could do without breaking the moment, was just about frozen in place. Rarity's normal desire to let new customers browse at their own pace (and she'd had to learn about that too) found itself at war with her need to officially get the rental season under way via the first booking, and the conflict pushed her legs into motion. Carefully, almost casually closing in.

This can be salvaged.

No. Better.

This can be normal --

-- four youths stopped in front of the blue dress. Directly within the sightless view of The Head.

Two of the young mares giggled. The unicorn student's horn instantly ignited, and a zaffre corona went directly for the right saddlebag lid. It was a sight which left Rarity momentarily paralyzed because as colors went, you just didn't see zaffre in the wild. She wanted to make a design which would coordinate with it. The opportunity to work with one of the rarest shades of blue...

...the saddlebag opened.
A camera came out.
The young unicorn got it into position. Aimed the lens directly at the head, fiddled with the zoom a few times until it stopped trying to retreat, and took three shots.

The girls looked at each other. At The Head. Went back to mutual regard, laughed as one, and then sixteen hooves galloped their way out of the Boutique. Leaving Rarity and Twilight staring after them, as the door swung shut again with a sound very much like doom.

It bounced around the sales floor for a while. Several dreams were knocked into The Head's unseeing eyes and instantly died.

"...Rarity?" Twilight finally risked. "I -- only really deal with ponies as customers when the library has remaindered sales, and I know those are different. So I don't understand how a lot of this works. I know I don't. So I try to stay out of the way when you're selling, because I know I'm not good at it. And I don't want to make things worse for you." With a fast-rising blush beginning to underlight the fur, "Not after the whole vector fiasco."

The designer found the strength for a small nod.

"But..." the little mare reluctantly pushed on, "...that -- wasn't normal, was it?"

"No," Rarity said, and wondered why her voice felt so hollow. "It was not."

The friends simply looked at each other for a minute, or an hour: being near The Head made the exact quantity hard to determine.

The Boutique's front door opened.
Six secondary school students came in.
The four just-barely-still-colts were being led by the original two fillies.

Rarity didn't generally get males in the shop: especially young ones, who tended to feel that simply being in the place somehow diminished them. But she supposed the priority had been to find anypony else who had a camera.

Flashbulbs went off.

The Head drank in the light, possibly as the first stage towards destroying most of it. Reflected back highlights of improperly-cleaned restrooms. And when the next group of students happily trotted in to get their own look, Rarity began waiting for the thing to strike a pose.