//------------------------------//
// The Boutique 
// Story: Precious Heart 
// by Thunder Bolt 
//------------------------------//


Chapter 3


As the final vacant space on the shelves of Twilight’s library was filled, a small cloud of dust was blown out, directly towards Spike’s nose. Fortunate enough, the dragon promptly covered his nose, deterring any dust from entering it, lest the incident from before were to be recreated. Satisfied with his work, the library once more clean and orderly, Spike had decided to head downstairs to see what Twilight was up to. While he was doing so, Twilight was busy with herself, writing at the small desk in the entrance room of her house. She was working intently on whatever it might have been, until she heard the thumping of Spike heading down the stairs, making his way steadily. She looked up from the desk and over to Spike, smiling warmly at him and giving him the chance to reach the bottom before speaking.
“I take it you’re finished then?” Twilight asked.
“Yea, I’m done. Looks like I never touched it. Well, it actually looks cleaner than before to me.” Spike replied, his tone having turned somewhat distant near the end as he looked toward the window nearby, noting that the sun had been shifted to full daylight since he had begun cleaning the library that day.
“I’m sure it is. Good job Spike.” Twilight responded with a short, light chuckle. She then proceeded to resume whatever it was she had been working on previously, speaking back to Spike. “So what will you be doing today Spike? I don’t have anything else for you to do, so you might as well go out.”
“Oh, well, don’t you have anything to do in town today Twilight?” Spike asked, to which Twilight paused for a second to think.
“No, not particularly. I have a long report I need to finish for Princess Celestia, anyways. So you go ahead and do whatever it is you want.” Spike stood there quietly for a second as he thought, knowing that he had wanted to do something today. After a moment it hit him, his face brightening up a bit as he remembered that he was planning to go to Rarity’s boutique that day. He started briskly toward the door and looked back at Twilight.
“Well alright! I’ll be down helping Rarity out at the boutique if you need me.” He said back to her rather quickly, reaching the door just as he had finished his statement. Twilight was about to give him a quick goodbye, but Spike had already gone out the door before she could speak, his exit followed promptly by the slam of the door. She sat for a moment staring at where he had been standing just a second ago, then simply smiled to herself and returned to her writing.

What a sunny day it was, Spike had thought to himself as he walked through town. Two days in a row had the sky been perfectly clear, not a cloud to be seen. It was certainly nice, and all the inhabitants of Ponyville hoped it would stay that way for some time. Spike wouldn’t have minded a bit rain, though, as he enjoyed the cool feeling on his scales, but regardless, he was just happy to be heading to see Rarity. As he walked though town Spike hummed to himself, just some random tune that happened to pop into his mind, a product of his elated mood.
Spike was just rounding the corner of Ponyville’s clock tower and head out towards one of the main streets, a clear view of the river and the top of Rarity’s boutique now within his sight. His face growing into a larger grin, Spike moved faster now, almost running across the street, excitement to see his love filling his thoughts, oh the wonderful time he would have being beside her. Then all the thought ceased. Spike’s eager steps were interrupted with a crash as he too late realized that he had ran into somepony.
“Wooah there sugarcube, what’s the rush?” Spike stood up, as the abrupt stop had caused him to fall flat on his tail.
“Wha?- Oh, hey there Applejack. Sorry, I didn’t see you there. Uh- I’m heading over to Rarity’s, she asked me to help her.”
“Ah, I catch ya there. Well alrighty then, y’all have fun now.” Applejack replied with a joking wink and began to set off on her way again. As she started to walk by Spike, he realized that she was harnessed up to an abnormally large cart full of bright red apples.
“Hey, Applejack.” Spike called to her quickly, getting her to look back at him, “Are you setting up your apple stand? I’ve never seen you bring this many into town before.”
“Oh, yea, well we need to get these apples sold right quickly. Since the inaug’ration Sweet Apple Acre’s trees have been producing faster than a herd o’ jack rabbits. We can hardly keep up with our own supply.”
“Oh.. Well I hope sales go well for you. I’ll, be on my way again.” Spike said, then set back on his way towards the boutique.
“See y‘round lover-boy!” Applejack called as Spike walked away, slightly embarrassing him.


Several short minutes later, Spike had crossed over the river just outside the edge  of Ponyville and arrived at the doorstep of Rarity’s boutique. Getting close to the front door, Spike could hear some sort of racket coming from inside. He pressed the side of his head firmly against the purple-finished door, attempting to hear what was going on inside. Just as he had done so,  the door swung open, smacking him in the side of his head and sending him staggering back a few feet as somepony went bolting down the road at impressive speed. Right after, Rarity stepped out of the front door and waved a hoof at whomever had just ran down the dirt road. Rarity would have just walked back inside right away at that moment, had it not been for the young dragon on the ground by her front door, rubbing the side of his snout.
“Oh Spikey! Are you alright darling?” She asked, lending a hoof to help him up, “We hadn’t had the faintest idea you were standing there, I do so apologize.”
“It’s...alright. I’m fine” Spike replied, his response split by the small grunt of pain he produced, as a result of trying to rub the area where he had been hit.
“Well, if you say so dear. Oh, but do come inside, I have ever so much work to be done.” Rarity turned quickly and trotted inside, Spike following close behind.
“So, who was that? The one that just ran out, I mean.” Rarity looked over her shoulder at him blankly, then smiled and let out a short chuckle.
“That was Sweetie Belle, dear. She was in quite the rush today, running about to gather her things around. She’s heading out to Canterlot with her friends.”
“By themselves?” Spike asked in a concerned tone, knowing how big Canterlot was, it wouldn't be hard for a young pony to get lost if they had not lived there to begin with.
“Well of course not. Rainbow Dash offered to chaperone them.”
“Rainbow Dash? She’d offer to do that?”
“Hmm, perhaps offer isn’t the right word. I suppose one could say she was...coerced?” Rarity smirked. She then walked over to her design pedestal and, promptly, her horn began to glow and several sheets of fabric and threads began to lift into the air as Rarity began working on whatever it was her next project was.
“Well, what were they heading out there for?” Spike asked, attempting to continue the small talk for a bit longer.
“Ah, well they were heading out there for Sweetie Belle actually. She recently got her cutie mark and has been quite eager to to find ponies willing to hire her for performances. Her friends have been a real help in the endeavor as well, they are really quite supportive of her.” Spike grunted his acknowledgment, not quite sure what to respond with, and began to look around the boutique, finding that it was actually quite a mess inside, all sorts of fabrics, threads, needles, and even a few tasty gems lying around the entire room.
Spike stood quietly for a moment as he waited to see if Rarity would say anything to him. She seemed very intensely focused on whatever it was she was doing at the time, though, so Spike spoke up first.
“Uhm, Rarity?  Would you like me to help clean this place up?” Spike asked in a somewhat awkward way.
“Oh no darling, it’s quite alright. I tend to keep my work space a tad disorderly when I work, it helps me think.” Rarity paused for a moment here to eye the design she was working with. “Actually, what I was hoping you would help me with is..well, you see I recently had a large shipment of materials come in and it’s a frightfully large amount, so much that I ran out of space for all my old materials. So, if you would be so kind as to take a step upstairs.” Rarity pointed over to her left at the staircase leading to the next floor. “I have a few boxes filled with my old things, and would be ever so grateful if you would haul them up to my attic for storage.” Spike looked over at the stairs and started towards them without thinking twice, more than willing to help out Rarity.
“Sure thing Rarity, consider it done!”
“Thank you so much Spikey, I’m just so busy with this design.” She thanked him, never looking away from her work as she spoke. Set and determined on a job, Spike was done speaking for the time being and hurried his way upstairs, with hope that he would finish the job quickly so he would be able to speak with Rarity more, or perhaps help her with another task. When he reached the top of the stairs, Spike hurried out into the room but was thrown back a bit once he had notice the massive pile of boxes in front of him. Almost reaching the top of the room, is was a wonder how she even had that many things. Regardless, Spike said he would do it for Rarity, so he began working without thought of it. At least she had opened the stairs to the attic for him, so he knew immediately where to go.

Time flew by as Spike worked, carrying box after box up those stairs. Despite some of the larger boxes it was a relatively simple task, just pick one up and move it. Spike slowly made progress through the pile, bringing it down in size bit by bit, he wasn’t even sure if all of them would fit in the attic but he just kept working. Though, as Spike worked, he stopped to think for a moment at one point, curious as to why it was so quiet in Rarity’s boutique today, because there was typically something going on, whether it was from a friend stopping by or a customer. There didn’t seem to be anything going on that day, save for the occasionally moments when Spike could just make out the sound of Rarity humming to herself downstairs, which put his thoughts back at ease and allowed him to resume working.
It was after some time, seeing as the sun was slowly being brought down at that point, when Spike had finally finished moving the boxes to Rarity’s attic. Spike let out a long breath of exhaustion and made his way back downstairs, glad that he could go back to being next to Rarity.
“Hey, I finished moving those boxes like you-”
“Spike! Come here, quick.” Rarity interrupted him, looking rather excited about something.
“What is it!” Spike ran over as fast as he could and halted next to Rarity, not sure what she wanted, yet immediately his eyes were drawn to what the subject of interest was at the time. It was the dress that Rarity had just finished. The base color was a deep purple, laid out in a frilled, layered pattern, somewhat resembling scales, and it had a vivid green trim that ran down the back, hanging down in a short train.
“What do you think of this design?” Rarity asked, staring intently at the dress she had just created. “I’d say I took quite the risk with this one but the idea just seemed too original to pass up.” Spike just stared at the dress for a moment, not really sure what to say as he wasn’t really one to critique dresses. He did eventually respond, but in the most trivial way he could think of, simply just to make Rarity happy.
“It looks. Great!” Spike finally answered, his reply followed by a thought that came to mind. “Uhm, what is the ‘original’ idea you meant Rarity?”
“Well isn’t it obvious dear?”  To this response, Spike stared at the dress and thought, trying to think of what the idea might have been, but he shortly gave up and shook his head. “Oh silly, very well then. The idea came to me yesterday, shortly after my arrival at Pinkie Pie’s celebration. It was what I saw there that gave me the idea, which, actually was you in fact. There was just something about the way the light was reflecting off of those scales of yours. That deep violet shines very well, and the green of those spikes make a perfect accent. Now, I had to make slight shade alterations to fit a dress format mind you, but I feel I’ve captured that same image I got from you almost perfectly!” For a short while longer Rarity continued to ramble on about her creation, and how proud of it she was. Spike had lost her some way through it, though, because once she revealed where her inspiration came from, Spike ended up losing himself in the moment. He face grew at least two shades darker out of blush, and his thoughts went a bit fuzzy which led to his loss of attentiveness. 
From that point on, things seemed to move a bit faster than usual, Spike came too a bit, after Rarity called out his name to see that he was alright. He snapped back and looked up from the floor to her face, his gaze catching her eyes directly. Then something strange happened. Spike began to fall into the similar pattern of behavior that he had experienced the day prior. His body temperature lifted, his heart rate sped up, and he began to feel a faint loss of balance. Spike’s young mind raced, thought after thought coursing to the forefront of his brain, compelling him to share them. They were all very precious thoughts, ones he did not wish to share, but one question leaked out, and without thinking about it, Spike asked Rarity something unexpected.
“Rarity, do you like me?” Spike’s clawed hands flew over his mouth then, not fully realizing the question he had just asked. Rarity seemed slightly shocked at first, as she was not expecting such a question either. She was quick to smile and respond, though.
“Well of course I like you Spikey, how could one not like a kind little dragon such as yourself?” She placed her hoof softly on Spikes head and let out a soft chuckle with her response. This reply seemed to calm Spike’s nerves somehow, yet he felt a strange drop in his chest.
“I, uh..That’s, not really what I meant Rarity.” Spike said, hoping he would clear up the misunderstanding. Rarity’s smile faded a bit, and exhaled, almost sounding as if she was sighing.
“Spike, darling, I understand what you meant...It’s just, your still so young. It just wouldn’t seem fit for me to condone such a rash choice like that. You still have a lot of time to meet others, Spike.” Rarity stared squarely at Spike as she said this, every word hammering at his heart, the pain made greater by the serious and concerned look etched on her face. Spike stood there quietly for several awkward moments, not really sure what to say. It was so quiet in those moments, so intensely so that it didn’t seem as if time was moving at all for Spike. It finally grew unbearable until Spike was forced to break the silence.
“I...understand.” Spike replied in a monotone voice. The young dragon slumped deeply and turned away, towards the front door of the boutique. He walked away and in short time left, not another word being said, Rarity only standing there, her eyes aimed towards the ground as well. Her eyes seemed full of sorrow, possibly feeling bad towards herself, that she hadn’t seen this coming, or that she had needed to turn Spike down at all. Whatever it was, she did not speak, and she allowed for Spike to leave in silence.
As Spike made his venture back home, he looked up into the sky, watching as the sun was just setting over the horizon, and Luna’s moon was beginning to lift into the sky. After the event he had just been through, Spike had a lot to think about, about himself, Rarity, and what he was to do now. Many thoughts came and passed as he walked, many ideas, evens plans for an action of some kind, but he could not feel complacent with any of them. Spike stopped walking, his body feeling heavy for some reason, so he say down to rest for a bit. He stared at the ground in depression, lifting a claw to his face and wiping away the moisture that had begun to accumulate beneath his eye. Spike had never had anticipated such a serious rejection form Rarity in the past, so he was not prepared, not to react to it nor cope with it. He could only release sorrow, and hope that some light might shine on him.
Spike cried on the road for some time before the chill of the night air finally reached him, urging Spike to stand again and make his way back home. He did not hurt any less, but he was a sight calmer than he was a while ago, letting his mind clear a bit, allowing space for a thought to occupy. He remembered something, an idea that had occurred to him the other day, while he was cleaning the library, which had evaded him until now. He stopped moving once more, allowing this thought a moment to breath in his mind, until it became clear.
“‘Still so young’ huh?” Spike said to himself, a smiling slipping onto his face. He resumed his walk at a heightened pace, now more eager to return home quickly.


End Chapter