Mystery's Mark

After the whole mess at the bakery had been cleaned up, Twilight took Mystery to Rarity's house. Mystery was covered up in his robe again and mumbling about how hot it was and how it was so hard to breathe. Twilight simply ignored the pony's comments.

Once they entered Rarity's house, Rarity smiled at the two of them. "Hello, Twilight. Who is your friend there?" she couldn't tell who it was under the robes as she tried to take a peek underneath from a distance.
The pony wearing the robes reached back and dropped the head piece; the minute it came undone to reveal Mystery though, Rarity's mouth dropped and she jumped up so high that she was able to wrap her hooves around a horizontal support beam on her house roof. "What's HE doing here?!"

Mystery simply raised his head, his eyes giving off a dull expression as he looked at the frightened pony. "This one is going to teach me about clothing? She seems more appropriate to teach others about jumping." He said giving off no expression of happiness. Instead it was more of mockery.

Twilight gave a frustrated sigh. She knew that some of her friends would not take this as easy as Pinkie did. "Right…Rarity, come down and let's talk. One on one." She called up to the unicorn.

Rarity nodded, but it was Twilight's magic that had to bring the pony down off the rafters without hurting herself, floating her gently to the ground. Once there, Twilight and Rarity huddled over near a corner and began whispering to each other out of Mystery's hearing range. Sure, he could pick up a few things if he wiggled his ears the right way, but for the most part it was barely audible and coming out in hushes. At least until he heard Rarity scream. "You what?" before Twilight nodded and went back to their hushes.

Mystery half rolled his eyes. He glanced over at one of Rarity's desks that held a mirror on top of it with a variety of sewing and knitting supplies seemingly haphazardly arranged on it. He reached forward to touch the supplies; but Rarity raised her head higher than Twilight's own body and eyed Mystery.

"Don't touch that." Rarity called out loud enough to make the gray pony pull back his hooves.

Some more time passed and the two unicorns finally broke up their conversation and Rarity approached Mystery. "I've agreed to help you out with your little…problem." Rarity recalls how offended the pony gets at the mention of not having a mark on his flank. "Come upstairs with me and I'll get you started." Rarity turned around and walked up to the staircase, turning back to Mystery to see if he was following.

Mystery glanced at Twilight briefly, seeing a nod coming from her before he turned back and followed Rarity upstairs and to a separate room that held a variety of different sewing and knitting supplies. "Am I actually going to be allowed to touch these things?" Mystery asked sarcastically as he looked over at a pin cushion.

"Yes, but do use your horn." Rarity replied as her own horn turned a light blue. The pin cushion glowed lightly as a needle plucked out from it. The cushion was then gently set down as the pin went up in the air past the gray pony's blue colored eyes. The needle went through a thread and, before any pony knew it, she was in the process of crafting a blue scarf. She used the crochet hook, and fabric, along with a pattern seemingly effortlessly together. "Making outfits is a complicated process that takes time, and dedication, to get the gist of it down. You simply follow what I'm doing and go by a pattern." She set the scarf on top of a pony shaped mannequin as she worked the cloth.

"Connect the dots?" Mystery asked, watching the pony curiously. It didn't look too difficult- though getting the thread through the needle looked like a precise procedure. Still, he was one to pay attention to detail.

"A little more complex than that." Rarity faced away from him and rolled her eyes at such a comparison. "I'll let you try it though." She stepped back to reveal the blue scarf wrapped around the pony. "Perfect. You saw how I made this, didn't you?"

Mystery nodded with his eyes wide. Rarity made the process look so easy and quick; he was sure he could do it just as well as she could!

"Alright then, I'll just…step back and watch." Rarity stepped back for sure, all the way to the door in fact. She was nervously smiling at Mystery with just as nervous of a giggle. She didn't know what the gray unicorn would do.

Mystery took a breath. His horn turned a light gray as well as a pin from the pin cushion. He plucked the pin from the cushion and rose up an orange colored thread- putting it through the needle and beginning to work the fabric with it as well as the crochet hook. He was going by the same pattern that Rarity had used, although his results were…different to say the least. In fact, his own orange colored scarf had mismatched lengths on the ends, various holes, and the minute Mystery tried it on to 'show it off' to Rarity by putting it on him, it suddenly turned back into nothing more than string strangled around his own neck. "Aah!" he cried out.

"Eh eh…it…it takes time." Rarity was trying to find some way to comfort the pony. She was still nervous about him. Now though, she was nervous to find out how he could make things more hideous than that.

"Time, shmime." Mystery huffed. "I'm going to make a good looking outfit yet!" he dropped the fabric around his neck, after untangling it, and walked over to a mannequin that had a pattern of a dress around it. "Get me a book, some fabric, and thirty minutes."

Rarity didn't know how to respond at first. "You really want to jump into it, don't you?" she gave a small nod and her horn shined again. A book suddenly came into the room, along with various pieces of fabric that he would require, as well as the materials. She figured what harm could it do to give him the materials to try out? She could always replace the fabric. "Do take your time."

It was more than thirty minutes later when Mystery had finally finished his outfit. By now, Rarity had left him to do craft other things. "I still think Twilight has gone insane to help this pony," she said to herself as her horn shined and fabric flew in the air with the same color as her horn. "At least it sounds like he's trying. Still, he's so...so-"

Before Rarity could finish her sentence, there was a cough at the door in the room she was in. The gray pony stood by it with his emotionless expression. "I'm done," He said with a small nod.

"Oh? Let's see how you did then." Twilight set a pink colored dress she had in the making down before following Mystery back to the first room she had left him in. "Don't be ashamed if you didn't do it quite right though, as I've said, it takes a lot of time to master the art."

Mystery sighed with another nod and opened the door. He had placed what he had tried to craft, a tuxedo placed on a mannequin pony in the room. "What do you think? Be honest." He had to get an honest opinion if he were to ever improve after all- even if it was absolutely terrible.

Rarity glanced into the room to see the tuxedo that was dead center in the room. She stared at it for a minute as her eyes grew large, her pupils shrunk, and her jaw dropped. Then, she raised a hoof to her head and fell to the ground in an overly dramatic faint.

"I knew you'd like it!" Mystery said happily. She could have only been so excited with his result that she fainted with joy!

Rarity awoke a short time later with Twilight overlooking her, the door to Mystery's tuxedo shut and Mystery himself no longer visible to her. "Are you alright?" Twilight asked, shaking Rarity gently.

"Oh Twilight," Rarity cried out suddenly and hugged her front legs with her eyes shut and tears streaming down her face. "It was horrible! It was just so horrible!"

"What?" Twilight looked down at Rarity with a surprised look on her face. She tried to pull her hooves back, but it was no use. Rarity was proving to be very strong. "What's horrible? What did he do to you?"

"That tuxedo!" Rarity cried out again. "It's the most…most…monstrous thing I've ever seen! There is NOTHING more hideous than that abomination in that very room!"

Twilight frowned. Her ears dropped and her eyes leered. "Really, that's it?" she muttered. How bad could it have been? She opened the door to the room to see the tuxedo to get a look at the monster. Similar to Rarity's reaction, for nearly a minute Twilight just stared. Her eyes growing and her pupils shrinking with her jaw agape. After that good minute, she slammed the door using her magic horn. "How did…"

"I know!" Rarity cried out, as if knowing what the purple unicorn was going to tell her.

"Does he really think ponies have THAT many heads? And hooves?" Twilight had to ask. She knew Rarity wouldn't know the answer to it though. She was right about how the tuxedo looked at least. For once, she couldn't blame Rarity's overreacting.

"Twilight." Rarity finally released her hooves and stood up, wiping her tears. "I have to move. I can't live anywhere near that horrid beast. It's absolutely insane to think anyone could stand within five miles of that thing."

"I don't think Mystery is THAT bad." Twilight paused- did she just stand up for a pony that nearly destroyed Canterlot? Maybe she was the insane one.

Rarity shook her head. "I mean the tuxedo! As for that pony that made it, I'm going to need him to come back hundreds of times a day to teach him how to properly make an outfit! No…thousands of times a day!"

Twilight gave a frustrated sigh and another angry look away from Rarity. "I'll tell him to get rid of the tuxedo so you can stay in Ponyville, alright?"

Rarity nodded as tears continued forming in her eyes. "Oh please do. You have no idea…I can't even think of that thing again without fainting!"

Twilight went downstairs to where Mystery waited patiently, looking over at the exit. Mystery turned around to Twilight with a small smile on his face. "So, am I going to be a tailor?" Mystery had to ask.

Twilight merely shook her head. "You're going to get up there and get rid of that tuxedo. Then, you're going to come with me to see if you can take care of some farm work with a certain orange pony. First though, you are going to tell me how you think a pony has three heads?"

"Um…aerodynamics?" Mystery squeaked nervously. Seeing Twilight shake her head though, he sighed deeply. Tailoring was a complete disaster. Hopefully her next idea would work out.