Rainbow Dash versus Marewich
Shaking the water from her coat and mane as she entered her little castle in the clouds, Ponyville's premier weathermare snagged a hanging towel from the back of the door. What a day! The Mayor had everypony working double shifts to make up for climatic shortfalls, and that meant mandatory overtime for Equestria's airborne federal employees. Racing to cover for an unseasonably dry southern warming trend was a pain in the flanks; clouds had to be brought in from a hundred miles away or more and all the actual work was seriously cutting into her much needed naptime.
Figuring half-dry was still mostly-dry, Dash tossed the towel into a pile of its fallen sisters. The bundle of laundry was large enough to plant a flag on, but there was still enough room in the hallway that doing the laundry could be put off for a while more. The only Laundromat was in Ponyville, after all, and that place had to be about twenty percent muddier by now, what with the engineered downpour and all.
Dash snickered to herself, imagining a certain fussy unicorn fleeing the muddy hell the streets of the town had become. Her snickers became undisguised chuckles as she imagined that, out of all her friends, Applejack would be the one to keep trudging through the muck without a second thought. Hopefully the two of them had gotten home before the thunder and lightning cycles started up. That, or maybe they could find a bench to huddle under!
So, what to do?
First things first: food!
Cloudbuilding was hungry work. Treated cloudstuff met her hooves as she passed by her radio, built into a wall. Flicking it on with the tip of a wing, Dash bobbed her head to the blaring sounds of Electro-trance. Despite looking like an old fashioned Cloudsdale castle on the outside, the inside of her one-pony apartment was a modern condo for the working pegasus. The kitchen and the sitting room were right next to one another, sharing a single open space divided by a counter.
It was quite convenient, since Rainbow Dash wasn't just Equestria's fastest flyer. She was also the fastest cook. Top Five definitely. Her culinary skills were a bit of a secret. There was no need to show off, after all. Years of living by herself had just honed her skills to keen edge, that was all.
"Let's see... ramen... ramen... ramen..." Rearing up, she checked the shelves next to her fridge. "Where's the ramen? Ah! There you are!"
Flying a bit to gain height, she retrieved the instant ramen package--
Only to spit it out in disappointment. "Empty?"
Glaring at the offensively spent pack of would-be ramen, she used a hoof to bat it into a corner near her trash bag. No ramen then? No problem! Rainbow Dash can make more than just instant ramen! Lots more!
"Cereal it is!" Reaching up to the top of her fridge, her rosy eyes widened at the bounty before her. She landed on her hindhooves holding a box with a smiling pony wearing a tricorner hat and a sword in his mouth. "Captain Munch! Oh, Captain, my Captain! You may cut up the roof of my mouth, but I still love you!"
But - the box felt so light!
Looking inside with one eye squinted, Rainbow Dash frowned. "There's hardly anything in here! What the hay?"
Tossing the mostly empty box aside, she turned to what was left.
"Either Luna's Lucky Charms, or..." she shuddered, sticking out a pink tongue. "Applesmacks."
Not particularly in the mood for either, checking her fridge - and smelling the slightly curdled milk - convinced her that cereal was a no-go, too. Still! That wasn't a problem. Rainbow Dash could cook more than instant ramen and lukewarm cereal!
Time to reheat some leftovers!
That was a kind of cooking, after all. Her fridge bore the signs of weeks of take out meals. There were old cupcakes with various cutie marks on them in frosting, some Neighponese food from... Tuesday? Had it been this Tuesday or last Tuesday? Gross. There was also bread, mostly the original color, too! Weighing her options, Dash gave an affected 'blegh!'
Even the leftovers were conspiring against her, and with Ponyville currently under a Class-D downpour, even fresh takeout wasn't on the menu! Lame.
"No big. I'll just dip into my emergency supplies!" Dash tossed open one last cupboard. Within were her dreaded shock of emergency dry stores and canned goods. These were the tough nuts to crack. Even a master chef like herself sometimes had some very limited trouble with them on rare occasions maybe.
One of the items caught her eye.
"A Marewich!" she declared, rolling out the tin can to hold it in a hoof. "Now that's a meal! Bread? Check! Marewich... sauces and stuff...? Check! Let's see here!"
Rotating the can, she leaned into read the 'how to cook' label. On the top the text read, in cheerful script, 'Make yourself a Marewich Tonight!' It then showed a few cartoony pictures of the finished Marewiches, nestled within large fluffy bread buns. They literally dribbled and dripped with vine-ripened tomato juice, fresh country onions and bell peppers, and Celestia-knew how many spices and seasonings. And Xanthan Gum! Delicious, delicious xanthan gum!
Who could resist?!
"Step one," the colorful pegasus read. "Cook one pound of lean country oats, or three-fourths pounds of millet, in a large skillet until browned."
Easy!
"Where's that skillet?" Dash poked around on the opposite side of her kitchen, looking for some useable cookware. Catching the first skillet to meet the needed description, she put the sauce pan on the gas stove. Easy!
Next came the oats and/or millet!
A few minutes of investigation quickly revealed a curious conundrum. Her millet bag was completely empty (one of these days, she really needed to start throwing these things out), and she had maybe half a pound of oats left. On the other hoof, she had plenty of corn and rice. She shrugged. One grain was basically the same as any other in the long run.
Mixing up a pound of oats, dry corn and rice, Dash 'hmm'ed and added another half pound. Just to be sure. She was pretty hungry, after all, and a pound didn't seem like that much. In fact, roughly measuring it out, the little pile of grains didn't seem nearly enough to satisfy the hunger of a real pegasus mare!
Piling it all into the sauce pan, Rainbow Dash cranked up the heat to very-high. More heat meant things cooked faster, after all! A little croton oil and some olive oil sounded good, too! And cowpeas! For protein and strong wing muscles!
Perfect.
Whistling to the electro beats still filling her home, Dash let the mix cook or "brown" or whatever. She leaned down to read the label on the Marewich can.
"Step Two... stir in one can Marewich. Heat through. This is so easy."
Standing back up, head high, she watched the skillet and its contents.
Tapping one hoof, it wasn't long before the impatient pegasus groaned, growing bored. Nothing was browning! And waiting for it was so-oooo boring. Rolling her eyes, she trotted over to the sitting room and turned on the TV. Slouching down on a cloud-couch, Lyra style, Dash quickly tucked her hind legs in. How did Lyra sit down like that?
Switching through the channels, nothing was on, as usual. News. My Little Human. Boring stuff.
"Ah hah! Equestrian Mare is on!" Putting the controller down, Dash sighed as she relaxed into the fluffy couch. On the screen, an effeminate gray alien was dressed up like Luna with an obviously fake horn and wings. A slightly chubby, overly aggressive mare from the Equestrian Intelligence Agency was chasing him with a gun.
A few minutes later, the American Mare's slutty filly brought her stoner coltfriend home, much to the zany Hijinks of all involved.
"Hahahaha!" Dash laughed, slapping the arm of the couch. "I don't get ponies who say this show sucks. This stuff is hil-arious!"
Then she picked up a distinct, acidic smell. Like burning wood. Yes. Burning wood.
"AAAAAH!" Jumping off the couch and flying over to the kitchen in a rainbow colored blur, Dash quickly grabbed a mouth insulator and knocked the burning skillet and its contents off the raging heat of the stove. Smoke was already pooling from the charred bottom and through the half-cooked top. Bits of oil hissed and jumped.
Slowly, Dash peeked over the edge of the stove.
"Not the cleanest work, but I'd say it's pretty browned!" she concluded with a happy laugh. Poking it with a wooden spoon, she went back to the Marewich can, opened it, and poured the whole thing right in top of the semi-burned semi-cooked mass of oats and corn and charred dry rice.
Putting it back on the heat, Dash was also struck by a way to fix the overcooked parts on the bottom! Just add water!
A cup or two later, and everything was right as rain.
Satisfied that the problem was solved, and that she just needed to wait for it to "heat through" Dash turned around to catch more of American Mare. This time the crazy gray alien was wearing a wig and leading the slutty daughter, Hayley, to what looked like a fillyfooler's bar. Eyes watering, Dash laughed, forgetting all about her food. How did Colt MacFarlane come up with this stuff?!
sssssssss!
Spinning around, Dash yelped at the sight of her Marewich overflowing from the sides of the too-small saucepan she had used as a skillet. Gloopy ropes of the stuff were spilling right into the gas fire beneath, burning and turning into a messy crust. Quickly removing it from the heat again, the pegasus cursed as the handle of the saucepan was nearly hot enough to burn, even through an insulating mouth-glove.
Eventually just taking the whole thing off, Dash shrugged. It looked basically "heated through."
Pouring the whole half-cooked mess into a plate, she took out a couple slices of bread. Now came the delicate process of sandwiching the delicious Marewich center between perfect fluffy loaves of bread. Well. The bread was cold from being in the fridge. And hard. But those were just nitpicky little differences!
"Step three!" she announced, proudly. "Serve on Oatburger buns!"
Before her were three perfect Marewiches. So what if the bread was cold and hard and too thin, with the bottom loaf getting soaked and coming apart when anypony tried to pick it up? And, yes, in retrospect, maybe she had cooked way more than she could eat. Leftovers! She'd definitely eat them tomorrow or something. And yes, some of the oats and corn and rice and etcetera mix did look burned, but the parts that weren't burned evened it all out! Balance, in other words, like yin and yang.
Perfect!
"Rainbow Dash," she said to herself with a happy, wide grin. "You've done it again!"
On the TV, a character of Celestia appeared on a platform at a party.
"Mission Accomplished!" she declared.
Author's Note
So, like I said, this was an older bit of MLP writing. Guess I never figured it was substantial enough to upload to anything but Devart. The other night sort of brought up the question "Chryssalid, have you ever written just something short?" Sure I have! I just don't usually put that goofy stuff online.
I figured I would this time, though. Who knows? Maybe some folks will find it a funny little read, and a huge change of pace from my usual.
