A Meeting Like This is a... (Rarity)

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"Get your act together. How can you not understand something as simple as this? Don't you know you could be running this whole place in as short as four years?!" He scolded the young man with round glasses.

"Y-yes, of course, brother," Eclipse stammered to reply.

"And don't call me brother," He didn't even bother to add 'at work'.

"Call me, Mr. Sundowner," he continued. He emphasized 'Mr.' to make sure that Eclipse and anyone who could hear his loud speaking voice was aware that he had authority here. 

"Of course," he said to his eldest brother.

"Of course-?" His arms were crossed, and his finger tapped on his arm.

"Of course, Mr. Sundowner," the young man relented. He knew he had to pick his battles. There was nothing to gain from this fight. No way to win. It was better to just accept things, and not invest any of his precious pride into something so trivial.

So his brother was proud to be the manger of this tiny little clothing store. It didn't matter. Proving you were a diligent worker, establishing a foot hold in one of father's businesses, climbing the corporate ladder, impressing father for the inheritance, and all of that. It didn't matter. Eclipse had his eye on another prize. Magic. Whatever it was, he knew it could help him rise above all of this meaningless garbage.

He stood there and let his brother ramble on and on about how important this was. When he was finished chewing him out, Eclipse raised up the paper work he had just filled out. He corrected the one mistake his brother had pointed out. He grit his teeth. It was a minor clerical error. One that would have probably gone over looked, or otherwise corrected the moment someone else came across it. Despite this, it hurt his pride that he had made such a careless error. Worse still, his brother of all people caught the mistake. He hated being forced to come here and see what his brother was doing, but he couldn't disobey father. He just hoped he wouldn't have to make this a regular thing. He stepped out of the back room, into the front of the shop. There several employees and a few customers quickly turned away from him.

Great, they had heard his brother's whole rant. If anything, that kind of thing would hurt sales. Oh, how good it'd be to have this shop close down and have Sundowner take the rap for it. He let the thought put a wicked smile on his face, and then used that to make a business smile. With that, he carried on into the store to see how the customers were doing.

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Rarity was indeed inside the shop looking through a few new designs. Some of the employees knew who she was, a local Southern Belle darling of Fashion, known to others as Rarity. There were maybe two better customers to this store, mostly because they were older than her and thus had more funds. Wearing a purple sundress, white stretch pants and white wedge heels, complete with a purple suede sunhat, she had this summer look in Fall look complete. This was her first real shopping trip since the whole Fall Festival debacle and she had really came out since she had her self esteem back.

The fashionista glided through the aisles, looking at the designers and casually looking and motioning around them. Some of the savvier customers watched her hands carefully. When the palm went up the look was going to be a hot style this next season. If the palm went down, it might as well have been made with Ebola and raw sewage. As she finally found a dress she liked, a red sleek off the shoulder sequin number with a bit of white fleece at the bottom hem. She heard the ranting coming from the employee area just a bit away from her. While her palm went down, it did so slowly as she soon placed it on her hip.

Soon Eclipse came walking out from the back and it seemed he had to force a smile on his face. He kind of looked like someone she saw at her school. Couldn't quite place the name at the moment though. Walking up to him she lightly tapped his shoulder. "Excuse me. Could I get a word with your manager back there. I need to ask him about something."

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Eclipse turned to one of the customers to see Rarity of all people.

"Why of course you can, Miss Belle," He answered her without missing a beat.

The dance was a major event. He didn't dare rush into the fray, but from a safe distance he saw the six girls who stood up to Sunset Shimmer and her two friends. It didn't help things that he couldn't remember a huge chuck of what had happened, in the middle, but he did remember one of them being this girl.

She was that naive newcomer who tried to challenge Shimmer at the Spring Fling. She was one of the people he was trying to keep tabs on. To think she came to shop at this store. This was a great opportunity for Eclipse, but he didn't let his poker face betray his excitement.

"However, before I call him, is there any possible way that I could assist you instead?" he honestly didn't care if his brother was busy or if he'd disturb him for her, but this was company policy, and he'd hate to get chewed out again.

If he could help her, then he'd do his best to do it. He needed to somehow get her to give him everything she knew about magic. Whatever that was. Earning her favor was paramount for accomplishing that.

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"Yes. You could assist me by allowing me to talk to him about the environment he produced for the customers in his shoppe, Darlin'" Her face had a fierce look on it as if, if she wasn't a classy lady as she was, she was about to lay the smack down on somebody. As she adjusted her arms, she lets the few bags she was carrying move to the ground before crossing her arms in front.

This caused a few customers to move to the other side of the store. The quiet atmosphere of this boutique in the Crystal District was one of the reasons she came here. And for the manager of all people to disrupt that with such loud forceful language was a complete insult to her and destroyed the calm she had while looking through the designs.

Though as she waited she held up and hand. "Though when he comes out here, perhaps you can stay and listen as well. You do seem to be upper management here." She gave him a sincere smile.

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'Ah. A busy body,' He thought to himself as he smiled to her. So she wanted complain about the complaining his brother did. He feared it was something like that. After all, just a few moments ago he was hoping that his brother's loud mouth would hinder sales. Though, honestly he didn't want to bother with all that.

"I see. Please forgive my brother," Eclipse choose his words carefully. He let her know this was a personal matter, between family.

"He's under a lot of stress right now. Besides, it was my mistake that he had to scold me for, so really I'm the one to blame," Then he tried to appeal to her sympathy, and tried to shift the blame to himself.

"Please, allow me to make it up to you. I'd hate to know I ruined the shopping experience of one of my fellow Wondercolts," Without giving her a chance to protest further, he'd take responsibility for that blame. As an added bonus, he casually dropped the fact that they went to school together. That might help translate into further discussion, but that was for later.

For now he stepped a bit closer to the cashier.

"Peachy Sweet, please make sure that my good friend, Rarity Belle has a 15% discount on all of her future purchases," he declared as he adjusted his tie.

"Yes sir, Mr. Eclipse," the young girl behind the cash register with curly peach colored hair answered. With that he hoped he'd pacify Rarity's rage. Furthermore, it wouldn't hurt if she became a little more interested in him now that he'd done such a thing.

"If you really still want to speak to my brother, then I'll go call him now," He offered as he turned back to Rarity. This way, if she were still adamant about speaking to him, he wouldn't seem as if he was completely disregarding her.

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Rarity just listened as he went through what was obviously corporate speak. She just stood there, smile slowly fading. The fact that it was family scolding like that in business did very little to shift her feelings at the moment. Though dropping the Wondercolt name did prove her earlier suspicions about him being a fellow student. He walked up to the cashier and she picked up her bags to follow, seemingly placated for the moment. Until he told the young girl to give her a discount. She placed the bag with the nine outfits she was interested in on the counter and just smiled to Peachy. "If you would be a dear and put these outfits back on the rack. I shan't be purchasing them today." She then opened her pocket book and removed her charge card from the company that owned the store. "Though I might need one of those pamphlets on this baby. So i can know how to cancel." Leaning forward on the sales counter she canted her head to the side to look at Eclipse.

Her eyes was as fierce as any predator at the moment. An internal rage about to explode, but her exterior was as calm as if she was a casual shopper. Her left foot tilted up a bit going to a toe as it looked like she had time to wait. "Oh yes Darlin' if you would be a Dear and let him know I would like to speak with him." As soon as she finished her request for the second time, the clerk handed her the pamphlete and she just grinned to her, opening it up and starting to read.

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It was rare for Eclipse to meet someone as prideful as him. He honestly didn't expect the generous offer to be rejected.

"Right away, Miss," he relented with a smile. It was the second time today. His ego could hardly stand it. It was not a good day for Eclipse. It wasn't over yet. Now he'd have to go report his failure to his brother.

With just that, he excused himself. As soon as he disappeared into the back room, his smile disappeared too. He tried to think about what he did wrong, but he just couldn't find the answer. All he did was try to be as polite and professional as possible. Offering a gift to make up for all the unpleasantness? Was that his mistake? Perhaps he had insulted her pride, or some particular fashion etiquette. Maybe she wanted to pay what she felt the dresses were worth. She could have explained herself, if any of that were the case. He really didn't like working at this store. He hoped it wouldn't become a regular thing.

At least he had succeeded in hurting business for the day. At this point, he'd take any victory where he could find it.

He made sure to put on his business smile again before knocking on his brother's door.

"You again. What now?" Sundowner looked up from his desk.

"A customer, would like to speak with you," Eclipse reported.

"Are you kidding me? Couldn't you handle it?" He was just as angry as before, but he wasn't shouting, so it'd be pretty difficult to hear what he was saying exactly. Just the general tone of his ire.

"I tried-" Eclipse began to say, but he was cut off.

"Why didn't you just buy her off with a discount?!" Sun talked down to him as if he were a complete fool.

"-to offer her a discount," he finished what he was about to say before. His poker face couldn't handle this, and he gave up on it. There was no reason to even bother, at this point. He raised up his hand to adjust his glasses and closed his eyes. Here it came. Reason was pointless at this point either. His brother didn't care that he had done everything he could possibly do. He failed to get results. He opened his eyes to look the man in the eyes and hear it all.

"You're useless, you know that? I don't even know why father bothered to pick you out of that trash heap of an orp-" He tuned it out. He had to. He could barely stand it. He could transform right now and crush him in an instant. He had that kind of power.

When he was done, he stood up. Eclipse had nothing he could say, and Sundowner didn't want to hear it anyway. Sundowner moved to the front room. He also put on a business smile, just like any other working stiff. He wasn't perceptive enough to notice the other people as they looked away from him as soon as he entered the room, or what that meant. He looked over to the cashier who then looked to Rarity. That was his signal to move over to her. Eclipse didn't follow him and stayed alone in the tiny office. He shook with rage, and doubled over in pain. It was as if someone had twisted a blade in his side. Worse. He would have preferred a rusty dagger than to have his pride trampled on so easily. If having his pride injured didn't disrupt his magical power, he probably would have summoned up some kind of monster already. However, at the moment he simply felt drained and defeated.

"Something, I can help you with ma'am?" Sundowner spoke with a polite tone of voice. It was hard to believe he was the same man back there, but back there he didn't know people could hear him.

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Rarity stood up straight and set her charge card on the counter as she turned her attention to Sundowner. Her eyes went straight to his and she just smiled to him. "Ah you must be the manager. Definitely you do seem strong and in charge. Especially with the way your presence seems to command attention around here." As she stepped closer she looked from the corner of her eye at a few of the customers slowly walking from the store. "And I must say, you have quite the elegant way of providing a superb staff to help silly little customers like me who have just no idea what is hot or not in the fashion world."

Her smile stayed ever present as she looked to him. She then suddenly shifted to turn to her side a bit, enough to still be facing him but she seemed like she was about to turn away as well."There is just this one teensy-weensy problem I've had today. This awful noise I heard emanating from the back area. It completely destroyed the atmosphere of this establishment and made the silk feel like sandpaper to my touch." She then completed the sideways turn to the counter now showing her side as she lifted the pamphlet and card.

"Your Darlin' little brother, who I can see why he looks up to you soooo much, is a classmate of mine and I would hate for this little tiff to upset our studies. You understand right? He was quite the gentleman. Offered me a 15% discount and tried to shift everything onto himself. I can understand what it's like to be a more mature sibling. i have a little sister at home. Drives me batty everyday." She was just continuing on, not letting Sundowner get a word in edge wise. Part of her charm one would suppose. But she often got her way like this. "As one more mature sibling to another I do feel it only right to let you know that I'm not making my usual purchase today. It's nothing wrong with the materials, or what any of your staff did. And it is definitely not your fault. Just the atmosphere is part of why I shop here."

To close her little bit, she turned back to him and placed a hand on his forearm lightly and fluttered her eyes up to him. "Please, I know people make mistakes, but please be a little quieter and nicer to help him learn so it doesn't happen again. The result are much more fabulous Darlin'." She then took a step back and waited for his response. The entire time, her voice remained soft, sweet and in her normal Southern Accent. As if she herself was raised on a plantation of some sort.

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Sundowner's smile quickly faded as he listened to Rarity. He wasn't a people person. Part of why he was in the back. He stepped away at her touch.

"Listen, little girl," he started when he finally could get a word in edgewise.

"A manager is a very busy person," he started, talking down to her.

"If all it was, was a noise complaint, anyone of these employees could have taken care of that," Again, he was not perceptive enough to pick up on what she was really complaining about. She had already said it wasn't his fault, so Sundowner wasn't about to go and take credit for whatever her problem was.

"Even my screw up of a little brother could have dealt with that," when he heard her say that Eclipse tried to take the blame, what he heard was that he was to blame.

"Well, if you're not going to buy anything, then you might as well leave. It's not a library," He could understand what she was talking about when she said she wasn't going to buy anything today. He was already beginning to walk away. He had clearly dismissed her as an annoying high school girl trying to act to big for her britches.

By then, Eclipse had calmed down considerably. He convinced himself that it wasn't a defeat, because it wasn't over yet. He could still fight back. He could still take control. He stood up tall and straight and exited his brother's tiny little office. He began carefully plotting his next move.

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Rarity just stood there with a shocked face at how abrasive the man was to a customer. Did he have rocks in his head or what. Before he could walk to far away, rarity just crossed her arms and turned to Peachy Sweet and slapped her card down, not to scare the poor girl but instead to catch the managers attention. "I guess I will have to go ahead and have the card canceled today. And if this little girl has read the terms and conditions correctly," to which she opened the pamphlet to the section of the terms and conditions and started to quote. "At such time that the card is canceled by the customer, the accrued rewards shall be paid in full." She set the pamphlet down and looked over at the computer. "My father Magnum was so looking forward to that trip to all those games on those miles, but I suppose with that lump sum I can just buy him those fifteen plane tickets, first class. " Smiling to the cashier, she watched as she went through the process of canceling her credit card, in Sundowner's store, at the register.

As she went down the list of question for Rarity, Peachy would soon come on the most important question on thee things. Why did you decide to cancel your account today."Well please take this verbatim. Mr. Sundowner's attitude is quite appalling, his professionalism is non-existent, and he apparently has no sense of awareness to seeing what his actions do to this establishment. Signed, Rarity Belle." With a few keystrokes, the form was done and sent in to the home office. She picked up her purse and the pamphlet, giving Peachy a friendly wave before walking towards the exit.

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Rarity failed to catch Sundowner's attention. Even if his head weren't filled with rocks, it might have been as dense as one.

He was focused on his work load and getting back to it. He just continued on into the back room. He missed the slap and Rarity's rant. He'd sure be in for a surprise if his father got wind of this. Peachy did her best to keep up. Her business smile was nervous at best. She was really sad to see Rarity go. She really liked her. One more reason she hated her new boss.

"What you're still here? I think you've spent enough time under foot. Now you know what its like in the work place," He had enough hot air in him left to talk down to Eclipse some more.

"Go on, get out of here. Don't bother coming back tomorrow," he finally set him free, pulling the name tag from his shirt.

Eclipse looked Sundowner straight in the eyes.

"Thank you, for teaching me so much," he said with a smile.

"Yeah, yeah, go on, git," Sundowner had already dismissed him as well. All Sundonwer cared about was himself and what he had to do. He didn't care for his or her circumstances. Only his own. He went back into his tiny little office, and sat back down at his desk. Eclipse watched him do this as he closed the door to his office. The smile on his face wasn't forced, but it was about business.

Around the same time Rarity finished filling out her form and began to leave, Eclipse also came out from the backroom and began to confidently stride out of the store as well. He'd try to hold the door open for her, and would follow her out the door.

"Oh. You're looking quite accomplished. Did something happen with my brother?" He thought it wouldn't be too forward to address Rarity.

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Rarity smiled and stepped out as Eclipsed opened the door. "He talked down to me, so i canceled me store card and left very informative reasons about why I chose to leave. That and the rewards I earned shopping with that card should be posted soon. That is unless headquarters calls me back with an apology and some offer like the normally do." As she stopped outside the door, she turned an looked to Eclipse. He seemed to have a smile on him as well. "So I take it he didn't apologize to you?"

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That was interesting information to know. He might be able to use that.

"My eldest brother is a prideful man," He answered Rarity as he stepped out after her. He let the door close behind him after a casual wave to Peachy.

"He doesn't understand that it takes a bigger person would admit their faults," he went on a bit.

"I know it doesn't mean much from me, but I really am sorry that your day was disrupted by all this unpleasantness," He apologized once again for his brother as he began to take a few steps away from Rarity. Though, he kept looking to her eyes to see if she had anything more she wanted to talk about.

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Rarity lifted her phone up and saw the time. Two more hours until that college game is over with. With a sigh, she adjusted her purse and smiled to Eclipse as he talked a little about his brother. "It's alright Darlin'. You seem to be off work now, how about joining me at this Charmin' cafe down the street?"

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"That sounds lovely, but I'm afraid I have other obligations at the moment," he did consider it. He was a young man after all, and invitations from beautiful classmates aren't exactly a common commodity.

However, nothing was as important to Eclipse as his pride was, and leaving things as they were would mean accepting defeat.

He stopped and turned fully to Rarity.

"Good bye," was all he said, before again turning and continuing to walk away.