Roseluck took a deep breath and steeled herself for the night ahead. She had taken a number of steps in the past weeks to overcome her social anxiety, and tonight was the night when she would make that grandest of all steps. She would attend the Summer Sun Celebration, and in spite of the massive crowds, in spite of finding herself just an insignificant speck in an ocean of other ponies, she would no longer allow herself to feel like a helpless victim. The night would be uneventful for everyone else, but it would be her greatest triumph.

Dapples smiled. "One more chapter in the bag." There was a faint glow from his horn as he pulled the paper from the typewriter and placed it on top of the growing pile of his manuscript. The project was going so much better than he had expected. When Twilight had proposed it, he had accepted eagerly, but given his spotty history with such grandiose projects, he had expected it to flounder in a matter of weeks. Instead, he had been impressed at every turn by not only his own capacity to stay committed to the chronicle of Nightmare Moon's return, but Twilight's almost encyclopedic knowledge of Equestrian folklore and mythology. If ever he needed a historical allusion, it took her mere moments to find a tome devoted to a topic he had only a glancing knowledge of. And her familiarity with the population of Ponyville had opened a lot of doors for Dapples to conduct some especially in-depth interviews with members of the population who had been witnesses to the events of that fateful night. The two of them made a fantastic team. Twilight was fantastic. He might even say that he -

He shook his tousled grey head. No. He didn't think of her like that. She was too valuable a partner, and during his tenure at the paper, he had seen too many projects fall apart because partners allowed their emotions to interfere with the progression of the work. Despite his affection for the purple unicorn, Dapples had kept their relationship completely professional. They still went out for meals and coffee during work hours, but when they hung it up for the night, he went back to his apartment. On good nights, he went to the club. On really good nights, he went home with somepony else. He had one rule about these relationships: never discuss the work. He firmly believed that it was inappropriate to talk to a potential fillyfriend about something he valued significantly more than her. This is also why he never talked about Twilight Sparkle.

Dapples looked over at her. She was lost in a series of essays on ancient architecture, gathering clues about how the structure of the Castle of the Two Pony Sisters predicted the recent event. She must have sensed his gaze, or perhaps she simply noticed the silence of his typewriter, and she looked up at him. "How is it going?"

He smiled at her question. "Amazing. I haven't been this productive in ages. I'm probably going to have to go through the whole manuscript when I'm done and edit it down, just so it doesn't weigh twenty pounds." He leaned over in her direction and glanced at the architectural journals. "Getting anything good out of these?"

"It's astounding!" she beamed. "The amount of communication between the sages and the architects must have been staggering. Basically the entire prediction is built into the castle's walls!" She placed her hoof on a particularly dense passage. "Read this!"

Dapples looked at the technical text and blanched. "Actually, Twilight, I need to make a quick run to the little colt's room first. Be right back," he called as he climbed up the stairs.

Almost immediately after the bathroom door shut behind Dapples, the library's main door burst open, revealing an extremely agitated unicorn, this one with a coat white as snow and an elegant purple mane. She was breathing faster than usual, and shifted from foreleg to foreleg nervously. She carried a tape measure around her neck.

"What's wrong, Rarity?", asked Twilight.

"I'm at my wit's end, darling!" she cried. "Hoity Toity came to see me again today, and he requested another series of outfits, and he wants to see them in three weeks!"

Twilight gave Rarity a sideways glance. "That doesn't sound like too tough a deadline for you. I've seen you produce beautiful work in less time than that. Are you having trouble coming up with ideas?"

"I have a wealth of ideas, Twilight. That's not the problem."

"Then what is -"

"He wants me to make them for stallions!" She practically hissed the last word. Twilight stared back blankly, not sure how to respond. The silence was broken by Rarity's exasperated sigh. "I've NEVER designed for stallions. I've designed for myself, Sweetie Belle, my mother, and my friends. But I have no experience designing for colts. All my dress forms? They're just that! DRESS forms! For dresses! I don't make jackets, and I don't make trousers! I make dresses!"

"Well, then why don't you tell Hoity that?"

"And throw away this opportunity? Absolutely not!" Rarity tossed her head with pride, but almost immediately her expression softened and she walked over to the window. She gazed out at the citizens of Ponyville, going about their lives, oblivious to her crisis. "This is an entirely new world to me, Twilight. And I have to jump in with all hooves, but I don't even know where to start."

"Why don't you just ask a male pony to model for you?"

Rarity sighed again. "Because I don't know any colts whom I can trust with a job like this. With your dresses, it was easy. Any of you would happily come in and help me at a moment's notice. But who do I know in this town?"

"Big Macintosh?" Twilight offered, expecting the subsequent reaction.

"Hoity wants outfits made for stallions. Not giants. Besides, if you can picture him agreeing to sit in my boutique for hours and get fitted for chest-hugging vests, you've got a wilder imagination than Pinkie Pie."

"What about Pinkie Pie? We're not having another party are we?" Rarity turned around at the unfamiliar voice, and caught Dapples coming down the stairs. They had heard about each other in passing from Twilight and met once or twice, but since Dapples maintained a very small social circle and Rarity wasn't exactly a frequenter of the library, they had only a vague acquaintance with each other. "Rarity, right? You might not remember me, I'm Dapples. I'm the one who has been working with Twilight lately." He extended his hoof for her.

She just stared back. Eventually, she lifted her hoof, but to her mouth, where she very softly nibbled at her hoof, deep in thought. The wheels were turning, and as the other two unicorns looked on, they clicked into place. A smirk appeared on Rarity's face. She removed the tape measure and held it out against the grey unicorn's splotchy side. She mumbled some numbers and measured him from his chest to the floor. More numbers. Dapples looked over at Twilight for explanation, but was interrupted by Rarity clearing her throat.

"Sorry, but I have to make a few more measurements. The next few might feel a little strange, so bear with me." She flung one end of the tape measure over his side, and met it with her end beneath his belly. She mumbled a number, gave a little grunt and then softly patted his stomach. "Little bit of a haybelly, hm?"

"Hey!" cried Dapples, indignant. He was about to tell her where she could go when a movement down below caused him to jump a little. Rarity was measuring his inseam.

"No disrespect! Such things happen!" She came back around Dapples and faced him, the tape measure once again secure around her nape. She looked at him, her eyes narrowed. Dapples wanted to shrink back, but he was fairly sure the look would follow him wherever he went. Then, she turned to the purple unicorn. "Would you be a dear and allow me to talk to your friend for a moment in private?" Twilight looked at Dapples, to make sure he felt comfortable being alone with the potentially deranged designer. He shrugged. Twilight nodded and went back to her books.

"So, Dapples -" He turned back to Rarity upon hearing his name. "How are you?"

"Ummm... fine?"

"Good, good. Are you liking Ponyville?"

"Y-yes. It's very nice. I like it a lot."

"What is it that you... do?"

"I'm a writer."

The smile on Rarity's face grew mischevious. "Getting along well with Twilight?"

His eyes widened. What was going on? "Yeah. We get along okay."

She cocked her head to the side. "What do you think of her?" she said quietly, a slight lilt in her voice.

He glanced over in Twilight's direction, to be sure she wasn't listening. She was gathering together some of the books she was done with for the day and stacking them into a neat pile using her magic. She wasn't paying either of them any attention. "She's very nice." He punctuated this with a quick nod of his head. He smiled, satisfied that he had given the correct answer.

Rarity frowned, then reached out and put a hoof by the side of his head. "No. Look at her." She pushed his muzzle so that he was looking directly at Twilight, whom was now shelving some of the higher-placed books. She was standing on her hind legs, with her forelegs on one of the lower shelves. "Isn't she just the picture of feminine grace? Of poise? Of intelligence and elegance wrapped up into one beautiful package?" A particularly old book fell off the top shelf and landed next to Twilight, sending up a cloud of dust that caused her to go into a momentary fit of sneezes.

Dapples gulped. "I..." He tried to prevent it, but the more he thought about the harder it was to keep from blushing. The redder he got, the bigger Rarity's smile became. She clapped her hooves together with satisfaction.

"Marvelous!" Twilight turned too late to see the pink of Dapples' cheeks, but she was immediately cornered by Rarity, who waved her hoof at him. "Thank you, darling! Now we're going to have a little girl talk, so if you could make yourself scarce for a moment, that would be lovely!"

Dapples grabbed his manuscript and went up the stairs to store it away. His head was racing. What was all that about? At first, he had thought that maybe Rarity had been flirting with him, but she had been genuinely excited to see him fumble all over himself for Twilight. She had always said that Rarity's best trait was her generosity. Surely she wasn't going to tell Twilight how he felt? How DID he feel? He said a silent prayer to Celestia, begging for Rarity to keep her elegant mouth shut. As he slipped the manuscript into the box in the writing room, he heard the main door close. "Dapples?" Twilight was calling him.

He came down and looked around the library. It was just him and Twilight, who looked a little nervous herself now. "Everything alright?" he asked.

She nodded. "I just need to ask you something."

Here we go. "What?"

"Rarity was wondering if you'd be willing to model for her." He let out a sigh, a little bit louder than he had intended. "Whoa," she said, startled. "What did you think I was going to ask you?"

Dapples quickly gathered his senses. "I had no idea! The whole thing was just so weird!"

"Yeah, that it was. Anyway, she needs a model for the next three weeks to design a new fashion line for stallions. Most of the other male ponies she knows are in love with her, and she doesn't want somepony who is only going to take the job to get close to her. She wants somepony she can trust, and I told her I would ask you." She rolled her eyes. "She thinks that if she asked, you'd have said no, but since we've been working together, I'm supposed to be better at convincing."

He smirked, knowing the full scope of Rarity's thinking. She was pretty devious. "That's a little silly of her."

She shrugged. "Yeah, it is. But I really would love it if you could do this for her. She's always been fantastic to my friends and I, and she made our dresses for the Gala, and I would love to be able to help her out when she really needs it." Her eyes aren't exactly pleading, but there is definitely a hint of expectation in them. Dapples felt butterflies in his stomach.

"Not a problem. I'll do it."

Twilight squealed with delight and hugged him, then quickly broke the embrace and looked at him seriously. "Wait."

"What?"

"Before you agree to this, you have to understand how seriously she takes this."

"It's okay, Twilight," he scoffed. "I'll do the modeling for a few hours every day, then I'll come back here and we'll keep on with the book. It'll slow it down a bit, but I'm in no rush."

Twilight shook her head. "The book isn't slowing down. The book is on hold."

"Excuse me?"

"You don't know Rarity. If you're a part of this project, you're going to have to commit 100%. You'll be with her all day until she finishes this. If you try to do the book too, you're going to burn yourself out completely."

Dapples thought seriously about the two projects for a moment and let out another exasperated sigh. "Like I said, Twilight, the book has nothing but time. I can surely spare three weeks to help you out." She squeezed him even tighter this time.

"I owe you one!" she said, and Dapples filed the thought under 'the greatest things I've ever heard'. Then he thought back to Rarity's words when he was being measured.

"Do I really have a haybelly?" Twilight laughed and walked back to her books. He called after her. "That's not a NO!" Next Chapter: Chapter 2 Estimated time remaining: 25 Minutes