Chapter 3.3 (Rarity's New Design)
Awaking from a good sleep, Espie was ready for a day with Rarity.
"Good morning Espie. What's the rush?" Discord asked, seeing her rush out of her bedroom. "Today, I'm going to be with Rarity, and she does have a tight schedule, so I'm going to try to catch the time slot," Espie replied quickly before bursting out of the door.
She ran to Rarity's home and knocked on the door.
"Spike, wait a moment." Espie heard Rarity's voice before the door opened.
"Oh, hey Espie. I'm in the middle of the first stage of my newest design. I a bit busy currently but we should set off after I finish this part." Rarity closed the door after Espie entered and quickly before resuming her work on where she left off.
"Pincushion!" She ordered work on her dress.
Espie turned and looked at Spike, obliging to her command rushing with needles on his back, perturbing her. "Doesn't that hurt, Spike? Those needles in your back?" "Nah! I have thick scales. I felt like this conversation happened before, but with Twilight. I guess it's Déjà vu. It's fine when I work for Rarity…"
Spike answered, blushing a little, having some lovey-dovey thoughts about Rarity. She could sense some embarrassment in Spike using her intuition, sensing that he has a crush on Rarity.
"Espie! Pass me that blue fabric over there!" Rarity requested. Attending to her request, she commanded repetitively, making Spike and Espie frantically moving to and fro just to manage each and every request until the afternoon.
"Well, that's done. All that this design needs is gems. Espie and Spike, let's find these specific gems" Rarity took out a book on the different types of jewels and flipped it to one of the pages, using her magic to make the book float in front of Espie
"Hmm… Okay! I got it. Let's go and find us some gems!" Espie shouted enthusiastically after knowing what kind of gem Rarity needed.
Rarity strapped on two large gem pouches to her back while Spike and Espie walked alongside her.
"Espie, here is where we would find the rare gems." She took out a map and used magic to make it float in front of Espie, allowing her to know about place they were going to before rolling it and placing it back into her pouch.
"Outskirts of Ponyville, here we come!"
Upon reaching the gem site, Rarity ordered Spike to start digging out the gems using his sense of smell and passed the harvested gems to Rarity for safekeeping. Espie helped to move the piles of dirt away using magic and made it more efficient for Spike to continue digging.
After unearthing two full pouches of gems, Espie and Spike were lethargic but they felt a great sense of accomplishment, accumulating the required amount of gems.
"I guess we are done here. Let's return back to Ponyville." Rarity announced seeing that she had the amount of gems she needed and proceeded to move back. Spike and Espie trudged slowly behind her, feeling drained of energy.
Once they reached Rarity's home, it was already nightfall.
She requested Spike and Espie to wait outside her home for a while for a moment of discussing matters, putting down the two pouches laden with gems before emerging with a small pouch.
"Spike, you deserve these for helping me." She passed the pouch to him, clinking while it was given to him.
"Mmm… Gems…" he took a red coloured and licked his lips.
"Spike, you eat gems?" Espie stared at he placed the gem in his mouth, crunching it as if it was normal food.
"Yeah. It's one part of a dragon's diet. I'd better get going, it's kinda late... See you Rarity and Espie!"
Both of them observed as he rushed off towards the Twilight's castle, holding the bag with two of his claws, ensuring that it was safe.
Rarity turned to Espie and asked her what reward she wanted for helping her.
"I'd be fine without a reward. It's my pleasure to assist people." She answered, rejecting the offer, feeling that the sense of accomplishment was enough as a reward.
"Before you go, would you like to join the Mane Six and I for the Grand Galloping Gala in Canterlot? There, I will be wearing my sparkling dress that I was working on with the gems. Will you be going? It's a moon away, in your case, that's around a month."
"Sure, I would love to. Goodnight Rarity."
"Goodnight Espie."
She strolled on the path back to Fluttershy's cottage, agog about what the Grand Galloping Gala would be like.
Lying wide awake on her bed, Espie dwelled on what she could expect for the next day. 'It should be quite similar to the Light Ceremony, hopefully, it is exciting. I should go and consult Pinkie about it tomorrow.' she thought constantly before unknowingly falling asleep.