“Are you so sure that’s such a good idea, darling?”
Rainbow Dash groaned, but she didn’t look up. “Fuck off.”
“Rainbow, that’s quite uncouth.”
“I don’t have time for this. Leave me alone.”
“I thought you cared about meeeee...!” the voice crooned. Rainbow couldn’t resist herself any longer, and she looked up to see the alabaster mare. Her deep blue eyes contained eastern oceans, dropping the pegasus with wet-tip wings miles out from the shore. She fell directly into the waves and barely moved her wings as she sank.
“I do,” Rainbow grumbled. “Why do you think I’m doing this?”
“Whatever do you mean, darling?” The ocean tilted, waves sloshing to the side with an uneasy groan.
Rainbow, for her part, just facehoofed. It didn’t hurt, not this time. “I care... I care too much. I’m trying not to care. Hence...” She gestured lazily to the mostly empty plastic cup by her hoof, and the slender glass bottle not far from it.
“‘Hence’, hmm?”
“Oh, shut up,” Rainbow snarled. “I don’t need some lecture about the impact you’ve made on me. I don’t need to hear about how I’ll always carry you with me wherever I go. I already know.” With that, the pegasus reached over to pick up the cup, and finished off the last swallow. “That’s why I’m here.”
Rarity tapped her chin with a hoof, the way she always did in her inspiration room on late nights as she tried to think of a new way to take a design that wasn’t working out quite right. “I’m not sure if I follow.”
Rainbow Dash groaned, pulling down at her cheeks with her hooves. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? You used to follow.”
Though she had drifted out of sight, Rarity’s sigh was unmistakable—a small, sharp, ladylike exhale. “Rainbow, please...”
“Please yourself.” Rainbow reached over, twisting the cap back off the bottle. “I already told you to fuck off.” She took the bottle in one hoof and carefully poured the cup a little more than half full.
“I’m not just going to leave you alone, not right now,” Rarity protested, her voice taking on a characteristic pout even as the mare remained out of sight. “You need me now, more than ever.”
“I don’t need you,” Rainbow shot back icily. “I want you. There’s a difference.”
“If you want me, then why not have me?” Rarity spun back into view, dazzling as ever; her coat seemed to sparkle and shine even in the near-darkness. “Really, Dash, you’re hardly making any sense. Have you been hanging out with Pinkie Pie again?”
“Yeah, I saw Pinkie.” Rainbow took a good swig of liquid, and set the cup back down onto the ground. “I went over to Sugarcube Corner earlier today, she invited me. We made scones. She said it’d be good for me to get out of the house.”
“Was it?” Rarity asked.
“I dunno,” Rainbow said, exhaling. “It was good to see her.”
“How long had it been?”
Rainbow Dash glared daggers at the mare, who had come to sit a couple metres across the room, just barely visible in the shadows. “Long enough. I don’t know. Why do you even care?”
“You know why I care about you,” Rarity said carefully. “And I know why you care about me.”
“I know I want you to fuck off.” Rainbow took another sip. “I already said I care. What else do you want from me?”
“Why are you drinking?” Rarity asked pointedly, and that made Rainbow Dash frown.
“Ponies drink,” the pegasus said. “There doesn’t have to be a why.”
“But there is, isn’t there?”
“Jeez, Rares, you’re really gonna sit down and interrogate me? Is that what you’re trying to do?” Rainbow picked up the cup and made a show of swishing it around before taking a big gulp of the stuff. “I’m drinking because I want to stop caring about you. There, you got me. Happy?”
Rarity bit her lip. “Not... as such.”
“Well, you got what you asked for.” Rainbow shook her head. “You never used to be this dumb.”
“Things change.”
Rainbow laughed, but it was an ugly laugh; there was no joy in the raucous noise that filled the chamber. “That’s the best you can say to me? ‘Things change’? Give me a break, Rares.”
“Look at you, for one,” Rarity went on. “You never used to be this mean.”
That cut Rainbow’s laugh short, and the pegasus didn’t respond. She filled her cup again, letting the last drops slide forth from the bottle before she leaned over and set it aside. “This is so stupid,” she muttered. “I was so stupid.”
“Rainbow Dash, it’s alright—” Rarity started, but she never got to finish the thought.
“I really should have gotten something harder,” Rainbow interjected. “Been a while since I’ve had a gin and tonic.”
Rarity’s muzzle curled up. “Really, dear, that brutish concoction is... for lack of a better word, nasty. You could do much better.”
Rainbow nodded “Much better than this froo-froo wine junk, I agree.”
“Why did you buy wine, anyway? Rarity leaned forward, eyeing the empty bottle. “A pink moscato, is that not? I never took that to be your style.”
“It’s not,” Rainbow said, snarling again. “It’s yours.”
“Fair enough.” Rarity gave an approving nod to top it off, her mane bouncing along with her head. “You know what I always say, you’ll always carry me—”
“Shut up!” Rainbow’s nostrils flared. “I know I’ll always carry you with me! And I have enough of you with me already, so please, Rarity, just leave me alone.” There was a hint of softness, of worry, of hurt within those eyes.
“I don’t want to leave you, Rainbow Dash,” Rarity murmured. “I’d miss you terribly, you know.”
Rainbow was nearly hyperventilating. “Rarity, I—I already friggin’ miss you to bits! It’s been, like, what, a week? Two weeks? I can barely go an hour without thinking of you, about how you’re gone and not coming back, and about how you left me all alone here all by myself. And now you have to friggin’ come here and taunt me about it?! How am I supposed to get over you if you keep poking at me, keep reminding me, keep me hanging on what’s gone?”
“I told you, you’re not going to get over me,” Rarity said, indignant, once Rainbow was done. “I’m not just going to go away.”
“Hmph,” Rainbow hmph’d. “That’s pretty clear.”
“No, what I mean is—” Rarity took a deep breath, and Rainbow could see lines of worry across the mare’s face. “You’re holding onto me. You have to let me go, not just”—she gestured to the bottle—“drown me out.”
Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “But I thought you said you’d always be with me.”
“I will,” Rarity said, nodding. “But you have to let me go, too.”
Before she could say anything more, in that moment something clicked within Rainbow. She could see the facsimile, the approximation, the smudged edges of the memory. The ocean wasn’t an ocean; it was a lake, a kiddie pool, a puddle. Those expectant eyes—or, at least, what Rainbow could remember of them—twinkled back at her, knowingly.
“...Hey, Rares?” Rainbow said, shaking herself from the moment.
“Yes, darling?”
“Would you like a drink?” Rainbow gestured to a bottle to her other side, unopened.
Rarity laughed. “I suppose I could go for one last drink, with my Rainbow Dash.”
“And I could go for one last one, too,” Rainbow agreed. “C’mere.” She patted the ground with a hoof, and Rarity floated across the room until she was beside the pegasus. One of Rainbow’s wings fluffed outward to wrap around the unicorn, pulling her closer until the pair were right alongside each other; at the same time, Rainbow’s hooves were at work. She had procured another plastic cup and was filling them both carefully, just about halfway.
“That should be enough,” Rarity said. “Wouldn’t want to overdo it, would we?”
“I guess not,” Rainbow said, and she stopped. Once she’d screwed the lid back on the bottle, she slid the other cup over to Rarity before taking her own.
Rarity stared down at her cup and then looked to the mare beside her. Rainbow was already downing sips, but out of the corner of her eye could see Rarity’s lips curve.
“Where are we, anyway?” Rarity asked.
At that, Rainbow blinked. “Umm... your basement. Carousel Boutique.”
Rarity looked around, possibly feigning interest but Rainbow Dash couldn’t tell. “I suppose you’re right.”
Rainbow glanced over, tilting her head. “You mean you don’t recognise it?”
Rarity simply shrugged. “This is your party, darling. I’ve simply been along for the ride.”
Rainbow didn’t know what to say to that, so she said nothing. Instead, she finished off her cup. She was about to reach to refill it when she glanced over and saw Rarity’s cup sitting there on the ground, untouched.
Sighing, Rainbow folded her wing back up. She stood, and took a few steps across the concrete; when she reached the wooden stairs leading up, she paused and looked back.
Where she had sat a few moments before was two cups—one empty, and one half full. Beside them, two wine bottles lingered the same way. Shaking her head, Rainbow Dash turned back and trotted up the stairs. She would never return to the basement beneath Carousel Boutique.
