Beauty of the Beast

Chapter 2: Taste the Rainbow

Spike sat alone in the library, enjoying a rare moment of quiet before the slumber party guests arrived. It was still early in the day, so he remained unmoving in front of a window, basking in the warm sunlight as reptilians were wont to do. In the still of the serene day, he let his mind drift to a problem he had been mulling over until just a few weeks ago.

For the past year or so, the ponies of Ponyville had been treating him differently from when he was just a whelp. Mares would stop what they were doing just to stare at him as he passed by, and most stallions just ignored him completely. After much pondering, he had concluded that it was probably their innate fears towards his race and that their instincts were telling them to be wary around the dragon, but that didn’t stop their reactions from hurting him any less. It broke his heart knowing that the ponies he grew up around and considered a part of his expansive family saw him through such frightful eyes, so wanting to allay their fears, he went to the smartest pony he knew and asked for a bit of wisdom as to how he could win back the townsponies’ affections.

And he was very satisfied with the results of Twilight’s lessons. The curriculum delved into the minds of ponies and the best ways of interacting with them in order to gain their love, and he trusted Twilight’s methods one-hundred percent. With the amount of research she had put into the subject beforehoof and the fact that she was a pony herself, how could he not?

It didn’t matter that Twilight had taught him by way of drunken ramblings during a Pinkie Party; Spike always took the things she said to heart, and this time it had copiously paid off. Everypony in town loved him! Well, some ponies were already endearing towards the local dragon before, but now they gave him free stuff all the time to prove their affection.

And things were only getting better for Spike. Today was the much anticipated day that his and Twilight’s closest friends were coming over to celebrate the slumber party of the century! Twilight had finally deemed him to be old enough, and therefore, worthy of participating in one of their sleepovers. He couldn’t wait to do adult stuff with them, like drinking hard cider while telling ghost stories and such. As an inebriated Rainbow Dash once put it, this night was going to be dashin’ awesome, yo!

*Woosh, bam!*

Speak of the pony. Spike shook his head in amusement and opened the door leading into the library, revealing a stunned Rainbow Dash on the other side of the bark. Upon seeing the dragon in the doorway, she quickly righted herself and shook the dizziness off, finishing with a pose against the tree while examining her hooves in a nonchalant and totally chill manner.

Rainbow looked up from her hooves and feigned surprise when she saw the opened entrance and the smiling dragon in its doorway. “Oh, sup Spike,” she greeted as coolly as possible.

After a lighthearted chuckle, Spike gestured for his guest to come inside, but not before making sure that her hooves were clean. Rainbow rolled her eyes but conceded and lifted each of her hooves one-by-one for him to inspect. Once he was positive that they were spotless, the two walked into the tree-house and upstairs into the living quarters. Rainbow Dash plopped down on the sofa in the middle of the room while Spike tidied the place up to busy himself until the other guests arrived.

Sinking into the plush seat, Rainbow Dash relaxed and looked around the library, finally noticing its emptiness.

“So, where are the others?” she asked, wondering why at least Twilight wasn’t there with them.

“Hmm? Oh, you mean the rest of the girls,” Spike muttered from under a pile of research papers he was attempting to organize. “Twilight went to go help Applejack bring some stuff for the party. As for the others, I guess they’re on their way.”

“What kind of stuff?” Rainbow asked, hoping that by ‘stuff’, he meant cider.

“She wasn’t too specific, but my guess is that they’re bringing a whole bunch of cider, or something.” Spike rolled his eyes as the pegasus hoof-pumped. “Maybe even a few of those apple pies too.” He sipped back some saliva that had threatened to spill down his maw as he thought of the pastries. Hopefully either Applejack or Pinkie Pie would be catering this time—not that the other girls’ cooking skills were bad, with the exception of Twilight.

Green flames wafted from his nostrils as he breathed a content sigh at a job well done. Before him, the once disastrous sight of randomly tossed papers and broken quills had transformed into several separately organized piles of research, stamped with Celestia’s seal and ready for dragon-mailing. Done with all of his chores in advance, he decided to keep the conversation going for lack of anything better to do.

“So, how did the Wonderbolts tryouts go?” he asked as he took a seat on the other side of the sofa. “There must have been some stiff competition since it was invite only.”

“…It went well, I guess.”

She guessed? That… couldn’t be right. It was unusual for the brash pegasus to show any signs of uncertainty. Something must have shaken her up. Spike shifted in his seat so that he was facing Rainbow, who found a sudden interest in the newest issue of the Foal Free Press that rested on the table before them.

“Did something happen?” he asked, trying to sound as casual as possible, and failing when his worry made him speak in one octave too high. “You got into the second tryouts, didn’t you?”

“Don’t worry about it. I just bucked up a trick and got marked down a bit because of it. I still made it into the second tryouts, so no biggie.” But despite her saying that, Spike couldn’t help but wonder why she looked so sad over such a small fluke.

“But there’s more to it, isn’t there?” He hoped that his incessant questioning wasn’t annoying her, but if Rainbow was feeling down, then it was his obligation as a friend to cheer her up. Plus, it wouldn’t do to have one of Ponyville’s party animals moping about during the slumber party.

“Well, you don’t have to tell me, but then I don’t have to cook you dinner,” he said playfully, even though both of them knew that their other friends were bringing the food.

“Jeez, Spike. You’re not going to let this go, are you?” Rainbow gave a long, unsteady sigh, but cracked a smile as she turned to make eye-contact with the curious dragon. “Alright, I’ll tell you, since you want to know so bad.” Spike shifted in his seat again, this time trying for comfort as he prepared himself for a long story.

“It was Spitfire who marked me down.”

“…Huh?” was all Spike could say in reply to the brief story. “Well, how bad did you goof? It must’ve been pretty rough for Spitfire to not throw you any slack.”

“That’s just it; it was a small mistake! I was doing a trick where you have to spin this way during a dive,” she gesticulated clockwise, “but I spun the wrong way, and she marked off enough points for me to just barely make it! Then she lectured me about wing angles and junk, probably to look good in front of the other contestants. I counted on her to support me, but now I… I feel like such a tool.”

Rainbow’s body slumped as she said those words. Just the idea that she, the most radical pegasus in Equestria, was used as some sort of cheap publicity stunt made her eyes sting and her body tremble.

“Oh, Rainbow Dash.” Spike stood over the defeated pegasus, twiddling his thumbs awkwardly as he tried to come up with a way to console her.

Seeing such a strong mare acting depressed made Spike feel uneasy. Perhaps it would have been better if he never brought up the tryouts, but then nothing would be resolved. Rainbow would still be hiding her hurt, and she would probably continue to do so until it became a painful memory that gnawed at her from the back of her mind. Well Spike was not going to let that happen. Reviewing all of Twilight’s lessons in his head within just a few seconds, he decided to utilize them in order to pull Rainbow out of her funk, and the first step was eye-contact.

“Hey, what the—” Rainbow tried to protest as she was pulled upright against her will. She tried shaking Spike’s claws off her shoulders, but he had a firm grasp on her and would not stop until they were face-to-face on the sofa. She fell silent and still in Spike’s hold when she saw the seriousness in his eyes. Feeling nervous under the intense stare, she gulped and tried to look away, but her gaze kept coming back to those big emeralds as they bore right through her.

Spike kept his eyes locked on Rainbow’s big, surprised, magenta ones, letting her know that he meant every word he was about to say. The next step was compassion, something he was good at from being raised by a mare in a town with a populace of female majority.

“Rainbow Dash.” Spike said her name with the gentlest voice he could muster. “No matter how much you mess up, I’ll still be there to root for you. Even though Spitfire wasn’t loyal to you, I always will be. You can count on that.”

“Spike, I…” Judging from Rainbow Dash’s lack of words and her trembling smile, Spike surmised that he had succeeded with the second step. But he decided to butter her biscuits a bit more, just in case.

"Don't worry, Rainbow Dash. I know you're going to be a Wonderbolt. It's not a matter of faith or how lucky you are. It's just a matter of time." Her smile was more natural and Pinkie-esque now, showing her pearly whites as the corners of her lips divided her face in two. There was the unrestrained and contagious joy that Spike was used to seeing. Now that she was out of her slump, it was time to let her know that she had friends to pull her out if she went back.

The final lesson he got from the drunken Twilight before she passed out was physical contact. She had explained profusely, because he couldn't understand her slurs half the time, that actions spoke more than words. He remembered with a shudder how Twilight forced him to hug her in front of everypony until he learned the perfect form of cuddling. And thanks to her awkward tutelage, he had mastered and perfected it, his touch being good enough to cause even his own sister to swoon and faint in his arms, and he was going to use the same technique on Rainbow Dash. If this wouldn’t make her feel warm and fuzzy, well then… shoot.

Being taller than the mare, Spike was easily able to put his long arms around her and bring her close. He pulled her into a light hug, his head resting on hers, and eventually, he got a response. Rainbow lifted her hooves hesitantly and circled the dragon’s torso at a snail’s pace, but she soon caved and returned the embrace in full. Her mouth worked, but no noise came out save for a few squeaks of bafflement, then wordlessly, she buried her face in his chest and tightened her hold on him until they shared a whopping friendship hug.

…And she wouldn’t let go.

After about a minute of silent hugging had passed, Spike began to shift uncomfortably in his friend’s iron grip. He tried wiggling a little to see if Rainbow would get the hint and loosen up a bit, but she only squeezed harder until it got to the point where he had trouble breathing. Spike felt sentiments and a spiritual kinship towards any crustaceans in the clasps of a crab cracker.

“Heh, alright, Dash, you can let go now.” Spike’s laugh was uneasy as he eyed the unmoving figure before him. He felt the pegasus mumble something but couldn’t tell what she said, on the count of all the chest in her face. He tried to break the hug by moving his elbows up, but Rainbow Dash just leaned into them and moved her snout in between his torso and arm. Then suddenly, she took a large whiff of his pits.

Did she just… smell me? Spike asked himself. Am I smelly? Do I offend? He tried to lift his arms to check but was stopped by the lockdown of his chum.

The pegasus looked up with lidded eyes and rested her chin on his chest, her wild, multi-colored mane spilling down her face and revealing her forehead. Her breath lightly caressed his face as she stared up at him intently.

“You smell nice, Spike,” she said, her normally raspy voice replaced by a husky whisper.

“Thanks.” Seeing that his friend wasn’t letting go, Spike gave up his struggles and just let Rainbow hug him as a form of therapy. At least she seemed to be feeling better and was talking without any depression tainting her voice.

“I’ve been using this new tea-tree extract thing that Twilight ordered. It’s supposed to make my scales shinier and make me smell minty, or something. Is it working?”

“Your scales look cool and I do notice the mint-thing going on, but I think I like your natural smell better,” she said, nuzzling his chest.

“Oh, I see.” Spike hoped that his friend hadn’t caught the disappointment in his voice. After using the new soap that Twilight had gotten him, he had grown fond of the way it brought a healthy luster to his scales, though the smell was a little obtrusive, he guessed. But wasn’t the smokiness of his natural musk even worse? Shrugging, he thought ‘to each his, or her, own’, and shook all self-conscious thoughts of his odor away and redirected his attention back to the mare in his arms.

“You feeling better, Dash?”

“Yeah, much better. Thanks, Spike.” With a satisfied sigh, Rainbow Dash’s arms loosened up, only to reposition themselves around his upper back. “In fact, let me show you just how thankful I am.”

“Um, okay?”

So rainbow wanted to show her appreciation to him. Spike thought about this uneasily. He didn’t want any gifts from her. There didn’t need to be any pay-back for the hug; it was a purely unadulterated act without any ulterior motives that was just meant to make her feel nice. But… if she really wanted to repay him, he wasn’t going to protest. Who knows, maybe she would surprise him with a gem of some sort.

But the gift he received was a lot more intimate than anything he could have imagined. Rainbow Dash began to massage him, and he immediately lost all of the tension that had built up during his time assisting Twilight and helping out at Sweet Apple Acres. The way she rubbed and prodded him was amateur, sure, but he shuddered at her touch nonetheless. She felt him up with inexperienced hooves, exploring his defined muscles with child-like wonder as if she had never touched another pony like this before. But even with her lack of knowledge on proper massaging techniques and dragon anatomy, Spike purred his approval.

“Wow, Spike, you been working out?” she asked as she stroked his trapezius and slid her hooves down. “I don’t remember you having these before.”

“Well, I—” Before he got to explain that it was probably a result of his part-time job at the farm, his mind went blank at the pair of hooves caressing his buttocks. And then Rainbow Dash put both her hooves on one bun and pinched it. Hard.

With a yelp, Spike jerked forward at the unexpected stinging sensation on his rump, but he immediately regretted it when a low moan came from under him. Oh no, it sounded like his thrust had hurt her. But his fears were put to rest when Rainbow Dash looked up with a big, goofy grin.

“Oh, going a little fast, are we?” With a forceful shove and a body slam, Spike was pressed hard between the mare and the sofa. “Well let’s see if you can keep up with the fastest mare in Equestria.”

Keep up? But they weren’t even racing. And even if they were, Rainbow had an unfair advantage with her wings. First a thank-you massage, and now a race. Rainbow was not making much sense at all... But wait, the way she was pinning him down on the sofa—why, she must have been challenging him to a wrestling match! Now wrestling, Spike was good at. He had once wrestled and easily pinned both Snips and Snails at the same time, and with his draconic strength and his slender physique, he was confident that he would be able to keep up with Rainbow, if not best her.

The pegasus squealed in delight as she was roughly spun around by Spike’s long arms. Once her back was resting on his chest, the dragon quickly reached over and grabbed both of her legs, pulling them over her head in a Matchbook Submission Hold.

Rainbow bit her lip to suppress a whine of pleasure. She had never expected a gentleman like Spike to be so rough, but she liked it. The burning sensation in her splayed legs made her grunt, and not to be bested, she beat her wings so that they would lightly brush against Spike’s stomach.

“H-hey, no tickling! That’s cheati—” He nearly bit his tongue as Rainbow Dash squirmed out of his hold and slid under his back. She used her hind legs and bucked him forward so that he landed face first into the sofa with his hindquarters sticking up in the air. Then with a sadistic smile, she pounced on him and wrapped her forelegs around his neck in a Camel Clutch as her hips thrust forward against the rounded spines on his back and tail. If Spike were any less naïve, he would realize that he was being dry-humped.

Then the fun ended when the sounds of a door opening and several hooves walking into the library echoed their way upstairs.

“Spike? Are you home? The girls could use a little help with their loads.”

Twilight and the others were home. Spike sprang up from the sofa and shimmied the dangling pony off of him with minimal effort. Once free, he pounced off his seat and ran like hay for the stairway, practically clawing at the floor in his excitement to see if Applejack had brought any pie. Sorry, Dash, he thought as he caught a glimpse of his disappointed friend on the way down. We’ll just have to have a rematch some other time.

As soon as he made his way downstairs, he heartily greeted his guests. “Hey there, gir—hurmph!” Spike grunted as Twilight heaved a bunch of bags into his arms.

“Phew. Hello, Spike.” The lavender unicorn wiped the sweat off her brow and looked around. “Is Rainbow Dash here yet?”

“Yeah, she is.” Spike tossed the bags over his shoulders and started taking more off of the other’s hooves.

“I see. What have you two been up to while Applejack and I went to pick up the other girls?”

It was hard for Spike to shrug when he had so much weight on his shoulders. “Eh, not much. We hugged, then she gave me a massage and we started wrestling—”

“What.” Twilight gave him a stern look, the same one she used whenever he ate too much ice cream or was caught sneaking gems before dinner.

“We were just hanging out!” came a panicked voice from the second story. A flushed Rainbow Dash hovered down the steps and landed next to Spike, whom she elbowed when he tried to speak further. “Haven’t had a good chat with my pal, Spike, in a while, so we were just catching up. Don’t listen to the mumbo jumbo he just said. He’s just messing with you, right, Spike?”

“Yeah, sure,” he agreed half-heartily, guessing that she was probably hiding the truth out of embarrassment.

After a brief look at the two, Twilight shook her head and made for the stairs. “Well, okay then. Come on, girls. Let’s go unload.”

With a collective cheer, the four late-arrivals began trotting up the steps with Spike and Rainbow Dash in tow. But before heading up, the pair turned their heads simultaneously and shared a knowing glance, Spike offering a friendly smile and Rainbow Dash winking at him secretly. The pegasus then giggled and flew up to join in the merrymaking.

Seeing Rainbow act like a giddy schoolfilly was a positive thing, right? It was good to see her happy again, even if she was acting strange. Though her gaiety was a little unnerving…

“Hey, Spike, I brought some of that apple pie you love so much,” beckoned a thickly country-accented voice. “Come on up and I’ll give you a slice.”

Spike decided not to brood over his friend’s odd behavior. The issue could wait, for there was partying to be done and pie to be had.