Disclaimer: I do not own anything MLP related, that is property of Hasbro and co.
Derpy Hooves Job seeker
~A few years ago~
Down one of the less impressive side roads of Ponyville, away from the more colourfully decorated buildings stood a drab, mildly depressing building long painted a mud inspired shade of brown. Its crooked door, slightly out of line with the doorframe sat below a shiny looking sign- which was only the case because the old sign had split in half and had to be replaced. Inside the dullest building in all of Ponyville, in the drabbest and dampest smelling room sat a grey Pegasus pony with bubbles for a cutie mark, and a greying stallion.
"What's this?" asked Derpy, holding up the letter she had been sent, emblazoned across with red words as though an angry mare had gone postal with a stamp. She had found it slid under her door and had been slightly startled by the harsh language it contained- why would anypony want to send a letter like that?
"Derpy, I've told you this a thousand times before," said the Stallion burying his head in his hooves, narrowly avoiding a close encounter of the face and desk kind. "The money your parents gave you wasn't going to last forever. What have you been doing recently?"
"Yesterday I caught a cloud, and then I made it look like me!" said Derpy. She had ended up spending a lot of time standing around other ponies as the cloud lazily glided above, waiting to see if anypony would notice the resemblance. A couple of the young fillies had noticed and asked her about it- Derpy had found that fun and funny. One had even been a young Pegasus pony, curious about when she could start to fly.
"I see. But what about employment? The money your parents gave you when you came to Ponyville has run out, and that letter is not too charmingly telling you that you need to pay the rent soon."
"But I paid the rent last month mister," said Derpy. Not just paid, but paid completely, and sent in a nicely decorated envelope too.
"You have to pay it every month Derpy."
"Oh yeah- somepony told me that once!" Derpy could vaguely remember hearing that before. She must have got distracted, or just forgotten about it, but now the words seemed to ring clear in her head.
"I told you that," mumbled the Stallion as he pulled open one of the desk drawers and pulled out an uneven stack of paper. He placed them down on the desk, not bothering to arrange them- by the time Derpy was finished they'd be a mess again anyway.
"What's all that?" asked Derpy. "Are you writing a story?"
"No Derpy, these are a list of vacancies that I'm currently aware of- all the ponies come to me to advertise jobs," said the stallion with an air of imagined importance.
"So if I have the piece of paper I have bits?" asked Derpy. "I can't see any bits on the table."
"No Derpy, you take these, read them, go to the place advertising it and tell them you're looking for a job."
"Oh, I see," said Derpy. Go around and talk to everypony? That sounded fun. But she had never properly worked before. She had had those two weeks of work experience at a nearby café when she was still a school going pony, but that had ended after the building mysteriously caught fire. Derpy was always confused about that, the time of the fire almost seemed to coincide with the time she tried to get the grill to work to cook some unhealthy vegetables. Her teacher had used the words 'just a coincidence' a lot after she'd returned from the work experience.
"So is there any particular area you're looking to work in?" asked the stallion.
"Ponyville!" cried out Derpy. She had been living here for so long now, she didn't want to leave now- she even had her own place now where she paid rent…
"No I mean what type of j- never mind, how about I just give you these and you go through them?" The sooner he had her out of his mane, the sooner it might stop greying.
"Sure thing, I'll read them all!" said Derpy standing up and grabbing the pile of paper with her mouth. "I don't det wu doon," she mumbled.
"Don't worry about letting me down, just go and find yourself a job Derpy," replied the stallion as Derpy finally left. She pushed the door shut with a back leg a bit too hard, promptly causing the door to slam, and the stallion's self portrait to fall to the floor.
"Hrmnblerg," he grumbled.
Derpy sat down outside the depressing building and kept hold of one piece of paper. She tucked the other sheets under a front hoof and laid the last piece of paper on the floor, concentrating hard as she read it.
"Rarity's Carousel Boutique," she said to herself. Rarity…was the job really that rare? She guessed she hadn't heard of any other boutiques in Ponyville. And yet there was something eating away at her brain- there was a pony named Rarity in town wasn't there? Who worked at the boutique right?
"Whoopsie," said Derpy to herself. Rarity wasn't the name of the job or the place, it was a pony. Oh boy that would have been an embarrassing mistake to make! Knowing it was just around the corner (and because it was the first vacancy she had read) Derpy decided to try the boutique first. Grabbing the rest of the papers, she waved goodbye to the stallion that stood at the window watching her, and returned to the more colourful part of Ponyville.
The sky above was a beautiful bright blue, with some tantalizing fluffy clouds hanging above, but she knew she had something to do first. The clouds could wait- she guessed a job would only last an hour or two a day right? She passed by a tree and the fancy looking building now stood in front of her. She marched up to the purple decorated door and gave one tap.
No answer.
"Maybe nopony is in," said Derpy to herself. She guessed she could try one more time, and promptly spent the next minute knocking on the door. Finally swung open:
"What? What is it?" asked the white Unicorn greeting her. "I need to have some time to get to the d-,"
It was then that she fully noticed the Pegasus pony standing in front of her, mane askew from her flying trip to see the stallion, eyes looking in slightly different directions, with sheets of paper hanging from her mouth.
"Can…I help you?" asked Rarity.
Derpy shook her head and promptly dropped the papers.
"With…what?" asked Rarity cautiously. "I'm afraid I'm too busy to do a mane styling."
"I'm here for bits!" said Derpy.
"Excuse me?"
"I was told I needed bits, so I needed a job, so they told me to come here because you have jobs and bits for me."
"Oh- so you're here about the job vacancy?" asked Rarity.
Derpy nodded her head again- hadn't she already explained all of that seconds earlier?
"So tell me darling, do you have much experience with the art of making dresses?" asked Rarity.
"No, but one of my toys had a dress when I was a filly…I ripped it," said Derpy. What did a carousel boutique do anyway?
"I see…do you have an eye for fabulosity? Do you have an eye for design, a talent to go beyond the humdrum?"
"I have two eyes."
"Do you have any experience with this type of job at all?"
Derpy shook her head: "But I don't mind learning."
Rarity was still for a moment, umming and erring to herself. While this grey pony before her might not have any major experience, sometimes the roughest diamond could be transformed into something to please Celestia herself. Perhaps fate had caused them to cross paths, a destiny to see them work together to produce stunning works of-
"Come in miss…"
"Derpy! Derpy Hooves."
"Come in miss Hooves," said Rarity.
"Call me Derpy!" she replied smiling. Nopony ever called her Hooves, that was the boring part of her name- in her opinion at least.
"Very well then, come in Miss Derpy, I will show you how to partake in the skill of creating masterpieces."
"I thought you made dresses here?"
"Ha, yes how amusing," replied Rarity who thought it was a joke as she led the newcomer inside.
"Wow," said Derpy seeing the interior of the boutique for the first time. She had never seen so many colours, so much fabric, so many shelves! Or a cat like that before, as a white cat lazily stepped by her to get to some water.
"Please darling, you can put that paper down now, you're here to learn," said Rarity. "Might I enquire as to what they are about?"
"Oh they're other job vacancies in case I don't like it here!" said Derpy without any sense of shame. She always liked to tell the truth and she was certain that Rarity, having made a vacancy too, would know what she was talking about.
"Oh. I see."
"What's the matter, you sound grumpy," said Derpy as she placed the piece of paper on the nearest table, narrowly avoiding stepping on the cat watching her with eyes of ill-intention.
"Oh it isn't anything Miss Derpy, shall we begin?"
"I'm ready when you are!"
"First we should start with the layout of the store," said Rarity as she led Derpy around the ground floor. "Over here is where the supplies are kept, here are the models and there is the sewing machine, and over here you will find more supplies. There is of course more, but you can learn that in time."
"Sure thing boss," said Derpy with a mild salute.
"Now could you be a dear and grab some of the pink and red fabric for me, I have a dress I should really be starting," said Rarity, turning her back to Derpy and stepping over to her drawing board.
"Sure thing," replied Derpy as Rarity started to draw out rough sketches of ideas.
She turned to face the area Rarity had designated the supplies area and trotted over with a beaming smile. Her first day of work, the first time she helped out her new boss! Her eyes raced over the different shades and colours of fabric in front of her, quickly spotting the collection of red shades.
"Will this do?" she asked after pulling one roll of fabric from the shelf.
"Of course darling, and the two shades of pink above them."
Derpy looked up- the pink fabric sat on the second from top shelf. She spun around, looking for some steps but found nothing. So she took to flying, the gust of wind accidentally dislodging some fancy looking lace. She hovered in front of the pink fabric and moved forward, before suddenly accidentally whacking the shelf with her wings.
"Uh-oh," she said as she heard a distinct cracking noise. She tried to hold it up, but fell with the fabric as the shelf collapsed. She landed on the floor with a whack, all the items of cloth landing on top of her.
"What, what is this?" asked Rarity as Derpy poked her head out.
"I just don't know what went wrong, I was going to grab it, and then everything fell," was Derpy's reply.
"Hmmm," said Rarity, eye twitching ever so slightly. "I'll take care of this mess. Tell me do you have any experience with sewing?"
Derpy had seen her mother use a sewing machine before- ten years ago: "Sure I do!"
"Well, as I'm running behind schedule, while I clear up this mess, why don't you sew together the fabric on top of the machine? Nothing fancy, I just need it to be sewn together."
"You've got it," said Derpy as she rushed over to the sewing machine.
Rarity lifted the shelf with her magic and groaned as she saw the split running through the middle of the wood. It was going to take a little more effort to fix that. Grumbling she lifted up the fabric and folded it all neatly, placing it in tidy piles.
"Miss Rarity I need help!"
She spun around to find Derpy sat at the sewing machine. Some of the material had been sewn together- but Derpy's mane had also got caught up in the machine, and she found her head currently being pulled more and more towards the needle.
"How did this happen?" asked Rarity removing Derpy's still moving hoof from the pedal.
"I'm not sure, I was just sitting here, and then I saw the rope had turned like my mane colour and then I realized it was my mane."
"Yarn dear, not rope."
"Am I going to be stuck here forever?"
"No of course not," said Rarity quickly freeing the worried pony.
"Did I do it wrong again?" asked Derpy.
"Well…yes I guess you could say that," said Rarity. "But I assume anypony could make a mistake on their first day, lets see what else I could find for you to do."
"You won't regret it!" exclaimed Derpy excitedly.