Bejeweled

The afternoon air was crisp, if not outright chilly in these sidestreets, the ones the Sun hardly saw. Agate's home was just like any other, except that it was in such a smaller alley instead of a big street. It was fancy, it was pretty, it was beautiful. It's walls were white, just like any other houses' as well as the stripy, blue and yellow, pointy roof. From the wall, a bigger hatchment with a hammer and armor was hanging indicating that it is a shop. She was right, it was indeed hard to miss. Just made Rarity even more curious, was she suggesting that hotel because it was so close to her home, or did she just point at the first one she saw? No, she was just making this too complicated, Agate didn't seem like that kind of girl that could scheme something behind her back.

The ivory one was looking for a button or something, anything that could be a doorbell, but to no avail. Not having anything else in her mind, she raised her hoof to sound a couple of loud and clear knocks on that. For a good five seconds, not a faintest sign of answer was seen or heard. The door opened bit by bit until the one inside got a clear sight on who it was.

"Rarity!" Agate shouted, swinging the door open and almost slapping said pony's face off with it.

"Evening to you too." Rarity greeted her back, checking if her nose was still where it was supposed to be.

"Let me guess, it was too expensive in the end." the mustard colored one said with a smug grin on her face.

"No, it was most affordable." Rarity responded in an irritated voice "I just came to ask a couple questions first, mind if I come in?"

"What? Oh! Yeah, sure." Agate replied in shock, jumping out of the doorway and letting the guest have her way in at last.

Agate's home was anything like what one would have guessed from the outside. Vast majority of the usual Canterlotian glamour have been stripped, even the default marble tiles have been replaced by a wooden parquet. The layout was also very similar to that of Fluttershy's little cottage, with a plain and simple red rug in the middle of the room, and furniture all around it. Not the beautiful, painted, carved and adorned ones, but simple wooden shelves, drawers and a square table in front of the red, old sofa. One'd have compared it to more of a room in a Manehattean apartment, than something from Canterlot.

"My, what a cozy place you're living in." Rarity noted. She had nothing against the Manehattanite look, of course, it was just not what she really expected. All in all, the house had it's own little charm. Especially that black piano in the corner. It's well-worn wood was riddled with white spots, especially on the top, where a couple plants and papers, and whatnot were laying around. Quite clearly it was used as just another shelf.

"Come, come, that's my favorite place." she replied, opening the door of her workroom just next to said instrument. Still, Rarity could hardly take her eyes off it on the way there. A piano like that, in the property of someone like Agate? Not very fitting, but the possibility was there, this was Canterlot after all. Agate's workroom was just like a seamstress', except that the fabric sheets were replaced with cold steel sheets and instead of thread, nails, ribbons or scissors, a small circular saw, molds and pencils lied on the desks. Right of the desk stood a higher, drawing desk. Rarity also had one, that's the point when an artist gives a shape to her ideas on paper. Just like Rarity, Agate also left her designs on the desk, making Rarity take a closer look while Agate dug into a nearby wardrobe.

The design was pretty neat, it was an armor yet still, on the paper it looked so fabulous and unique. The armor was thick steel dyed in similar blue as the royal guards have, covering the whole chest, leaving the legs uncovered, but being attached to a white fabric on the back, to make the wearing more comfortable. From the left front leg, a huge sleeve was hanging, made of white fabric, with steel armor pieces bordering it, inside it, small steel plates linked together giving the protection. Going backwards, the white fabric took over the body as a dress, with blue streaks decorating it as flowers of the same color grew from them, with lighter linked steel plates covering her back, all the way to the tail. From that point, the white textile was the only protection.

In the lover left corner, the text "Guardian's bride" was seen on the paper.

"Wow, Agate, darling, this design is magnificent." she complimented, as her eyes just kept wondering all around the reference sheet.

"Which one? The Guardian's bride? Thank you, it was my most successful one. Oh, wait a moment." she said, quickly digging herself deeper inside a shelf, where she kept her magazines. A few moments later, she showed it to her friends.

It was a not-so-old "Diva Daily", with Fleur on the cover in the Guardian's Bride, posing as a beautiful bride. It looked wonderful on her, different, yet still wonderful.

"Beautiful!" said Rarity. It fit her so much, yet it was just so alien to her. What gives, in the end, Agate somehow actually managed to get a bit of a respect out of her.

"She really is." Agate said, as she became moved in all of a sudden, her eyes becoming rather dreamy "She's the only one who understands me."

"Is that so?" Rarity replied in an attempt to carry on the topic. With this luck, she might not even need to do anything, just let the mystery unfold all by itself.

"I just... You know, I hate Canterlot. I hate these picky, snobby pricks living here, getting everything on a silver plate and complaining because of the smallest stupid things. But Fleur... she's different. I mean she's as much of a poser as the others, heck, she's the biggest poser I've ever seen, yet still... her heart is bigger than her head."

That explained a lot, yet Rarity felt she does need to know more "I see. Let me get this straight, Fleur visited you to have an order for an armor for her."

Agate nodded.

"You made it, and it was so wonderful Fleur got onto the cover with it."

Agate nodded.

"And ever since you became good friends."

Agate nodded and added the following "Her success was so great suddenly everypony wanted armors, my business skyrocketed. I couldn't thank her enough."

"But..." asked Rarity with a raised eyebrow, as she felt the armorsmith is not done yet.

"But later, ponies were sending back them, and kept complaining that it's too heavy and stuff. They all asked for a refund, I gave them nothing." she said with a mad huff, turning her head away with a swift move as a sign of frustration.

This explained her good relationship with Fleur. Still there was more to uncover here. Rarity remained mostly silent, just a small 'mm-hm' was all that left her throat, signing the smith to go on. She wanted to get out as much of the mare as she possibly could.

"One day though, Fleur also came back. I though she's also going to throw her armor at me, but instead, she came to say sorry. She blamed herself for causing all this mess, regardless of Fancy blaming me for even coming up with the idea. Words spread quickly from that point on."

"This explains the hostile reaction towards you." said Rarity, as she put the pieces together "However, if you have such a bad reputation, how could you enter this contest?"

"Fleur... I have no idea how she did it, but she convinced the judges, so I can get the last space." Agate answered, then ran up to Rarity and grabbed her right leg with both her hooves.

"You've got to help me, Rarity." she said, almost shouted even "This competition may be my one and only chance to get out of this hell." the armorsmith begged.

"What?" Rarity yelled back from the sheer shock.

"You're from Ponyville, right? We could work there on the dress together, in peace."

"Where would you be even staying?!" Rarity responded, trying to back off from the hold of the other unicorn.

"We could stay at your place. I would help out with the chores as well, I'm good lots of, uh, stuff." Agate begged on "Please..."

Her eyes were empty of any lies, and was filled with hope and misery instead, something the Element of Generosity could not ignore. Agate's story touched the seamstress' soul as cold ice the back, despite partially being her own fault. Winning all those bits and making some more reputation were beneficial for her as well, so it was obvious to help, even though she knew it's going to be a lot more difficult than expected.

"I'll take it into consideration, okay?" she answered. She was not going to make any thoughtless decisions, and she needed lots of thinking with this one. True, her heart wanted to help the poor thing, but her mind warned her about not falling into the pit Agate dug for herself.

"Thank you, Rarity." the smith said, finally letting go of the tailor's hoof.

"We'll figure out something tomorrow if you will, I think we both have certain places to attend to." she replied, looking at the clock on the shelf just next to her.

"Oh yeah!" Agate laughed "I totally forgot. Thanks again."

"You're welcome." Rarity replied, leading the way out while Agate saw her off.

"Tomorrow, then."

"Have a good time, darling."

Agate swiftly locked the door behind her as the two parted ways in polar opposite directions. Rarity had mixed feelings about the encounter. On one hoof, she was satisfied she got all these figured out so fast. On the other, she was afraid what chaos Agate might do should she bring her to her home. She was not the kind of mare Rarity had in mind for a teammate one bit, and not only because she was working with steel. She was a mare of no pretention, her mane an utter mess, her teeth could have used some whitening, and on top of that she appeared forgetful, disorganized, if not outright clumsy. Yet while it felt very much like she was more trouble than her worth, Rarity did not have the heart to leave her alone like this.

Exiting the sidestreet, the orange paint of the settling sun enveloped her. A painful sigh left her throat as she watched the gorgeous gradient on the sky. She already made up her mind, but every square inch of it was asking about the consequences of it. This contest is going to be a lot harder than she imagined. She looked back at the sidestreet she just left from, squinting her eyes to protect it from the gigantic red orb descending next to it.

How ironic, a drink or two could have actually came in handy.