Dust & Rainbows

“Wake up, Rainbabe.”

“No.”

A quiet chuckle answers my flat reply as I curl up under the itchy sheets of the crappy motel bed we're sharing. It's hot, too hot, but then again we are on the Mother Road and, although it's not quite summer, it's close enough, and that means it's too damn hot.

Lips press to my bare shoulder, and I shiver as they rise toward the base of my neck.

A familiar hand brushes some of my sleep-tangled hair away so she can continue kissing and, finally, I sigh and roll over to catch her lips on mine.

“Mmm, morning breath,” I grin, and Lightning Dust rolls her eyes.

“Gross,” she gives me a light shove as she sits up.

Or tries to, anyway.

She gets about halfway up before I tackle her back down to bed, and she lets out a flailing noise of alarm as I pin her down, sling my legs over her, and straddle her waist.

We both slept naked because frankly you have to in the heat of the Mojave desert, even just the part that Route 66 skirts, if you want to get any sleep. The heat sinks into the air and the dirt and the asphalt, it sinks into your skin and you sweat until you're soaked through and miserable.

Well, except for us.

I’m never miserable so long as I’m with her.

“Really?” Lightning smirks up at me and I mirror the expression back as she reaches up and winds her fingers through my hair.

I’d cut it short a few months after we’d returned.

Returned.

Capital ‘R’.

My hair is a short, ragged, pixie bob now, which was a cut that I’d always wanted and always avoided in the past for a kind of stupid of reason.

When I was a lot younger, maybe seven or eight, I’d asked my mom if I could get my hair cut short like that because it’d been the way that Gilda had worn her hair, and I was still going through that stage of wanting to be just like her, and my mom had shut me down hard with a flat ‘no’.

Because it would make me look gay.

Because that was completely unacceptable.

What a bitch.

“Really,” I lean down and kiss her neck, and she laughs as she pushes me playfully.

“Come on, Rainbabe,” she laughs, and damn I love her laugh, “we’re way too sweaty for this.”

“Thought ya liked it when I was sweaty,” I let a lecherous grin spread across my lips. “I mean, you sure spent enough time looking at me during our games, and I sweat like a workhorse.”

A blush colors her cheeks as I bury my face against her neck and continue kissing.

“Besides,” I continue quietly, “I like the way you smell.”

“Ble~h,” Lightning groans, but she doesn’t pull away. “My head must still be fucked up because I don’t know if that’s super disgusting or insanely sexy.”

“How about sexy?”

Lightning raises an eyebrow. “How do you figure?”

“Because I wanna have sex with you?”

“Pervert,” but she still takes a hard grip on my hair and drags me down to kiss her again and again.

“Love you, Dusty,” I whisper softly in the spaces between our lips, and I let my hands trail along her gorgeous, athletic body.

Lightning Dust was more than my girlfriend, and had been since we’d come back. Her almost turquoise complexion is unblemished, despite the wounds we’d earned during the Battle of Canterlot two years ago. Her amber hair is almost the same, a little longer I think, but still soft and perpetually wind blown.

And her eyes, those brilliant, topaz gems that are always smiling when she’s looking at me, no matter how many mistakes I make.

“Always, Rainbabe,” she breathes back as she drags me closer to nip at my neck. “But, y’know, it might not be the best time f’this.”

“Pfft, there’s never a bad time for this,” I reply as I return her little love bite, giving her a matching one on her shoulder. “Besides, it’s still dark out.”

I nod towards the window where not even a peep of sunlight was creeping in through the slightly cracked drapes.

“That’s sorta the problem.”

“Why?” I look over, then narrow my eyes, then look at the clock and cuss.

“Yeah,” Lightning laughs softly, “it’s past nine in the morning, hon.”

“Stupid magic,” I sit up and glare at the wall for a while as I consider our options. “How many ya think?”

Lightning chews on her lip for a few moments as she glances at the window, then at the door where the tetragrammatic ward she’d carved into it last night was still intact and unscorched as it would have been if something strong enough had tried to force entrance. I could see the calculations happening in her head, she was always the more analytical between the two of us, and definitely understood the nuts and bolts of magic better than I probably ever would.

“Couple dozen?”

“Tch, dammit,” I look down my sweaty, naked body and let out a plaintive whine that earns a magnificent roll of Lightning’s eyes. “But I’m all… ready!”

“Yeah, babe, I can tell,” Lightning laughs, “but there’s like, a score and change of hellshades blackening about a kilometer of the fucking Mojave out there.”

The name ‘Hellshades’ sounds bad, but really they were just supernatural ash and embers with a bad attitude. They’re nasty, sure enough, but only at night, and other than that they’re only really good as messengers and acting as the eyes and ears for whoever conjured them.

“And?”

“Oh my God, we are not going to have sex while surrounded by demons,” Lightning swatted my boob and I let out a squawk of pain as I rolled off of her. “Get your friggin’ pants on, Rainbabe, we’ve got work to do.”

“Killjoy,” I mutter as I get up and fish around for my clothes, then look back up at her with more serious concern. “You sure you got enough juice in ya for this? After Las Pegasus, I mean?”

“It’s been better than a week,” Lightning says as she sits up and pulls on her pants and trousers, which are baggy, military surplus fatigues. “I’m back to full, or close enough… you?”

“I got a bigger wellspring than you, remember?” I smirk as I pull my shirt on and tug it down straight. “I’ve got juice and then some.”

“Remember what the master said about pushing too close to your limit, though,” Lightning’s voice is stern as she laces up her boots. “You always do that thing where you go too hard, Rainbabe, you got lucky in Las Pegasus ‘cause we had backup, but out here-”

“They’re shades, Dusty,” I wave my hand dismissively. “If I hit my limit and go dark side against some conjured mooks you might as well kick me outta the Hellions altogether.”

“I still can’t believe that name stuck.”

I cackle as I stretch my arms and legs, limbering up the way I used to before a soccer game back when the biggest problem I had to worry about was whether or not the other team’s back line had any oomph to them, and if the goalie knew his left foot from his right. Now I had bigger issues, like backalley sorcerers calling up living shadows to kill Lightning and I for bogarting the magical amulet he was trying to snatch up and corrupt.

“Don’t knock it,” I stick out my tongue as I crack my neck. “We needed a name.”

“Sunny and Zee didn’t have to agree to that one, though,” Lightning grumbles while she picks up the long length of thick, powerful chain links and starts wrapping them around my arms. “You sure you’re good for this, babe?”

“I’m fine, Dusty,” I give her a level look as I pick up the other end of the chain and wrap it around my torso, securing it at the padlock that rests over my heart. “We got this… we always do.”

Lightning wears a faint smile as she shakes her head, then wraps her arms around me and draws me close.

I slip my hands around the back of her head and pull her in for a kiss. Not fast and passionate like I usually do, but slow and comfortable, our tongues twining together in a familiar dance as I taste her breath and relish the touch of her fingers as they play along my neck.

“I love you, Rainbow Dash,” Lightning says softly. She only really says my name when she’s worried about me. “Let’s just be careful this time around. No redlining… please?”

I roll my eyes, but nod.

“Fine, I’ll keep it under the line.”

“Thanks,” she leans her forehead against mine, and for a few moments we just stand there silently.

A silence which is broken by a lonesome howl that someone more grounded in reality might mistake for the wind blowing across the desert. I grimace as I run my fingers along the carved runes on the chains, focusing my mind on the symbols.

“Time to run again,” I mutter softly, and energy crackles along the chains and down my limbs. “To the edge and back… always back… always…”

I grimace, nearly biting my tongue as the painful surges of electrical impulse bite into my limbs and muscles. Lines of pure light begin tracing themselves along my arms and legs, drawing designs like the branches of a great tree starting at my extremities and bleeding inward like living tattoos crawling along until they creep up my neck and cover my face in a mask of lambent energy.

The Seal of Harmony, that’s what Zee called it anyway.

All of us Hellions have one courtesy of one Sunset Shimmer, and it’s both the cost and the reminder that we bought our magic through darkness rather than light.

Our time spent in Equestria had taught Lightning and I how to use the Seals despite us being asleep the whole time, which is one of the perks of having a master who works almost entirely through dreams. It had taken a while for us to remember everything we’d learned on the other side after coming back to our world, ironically it wasn’t unlike trying to recall the details of a dream, but we got it.

As the Seal engages fully, I’m briefly hit with a feeling like someone stretching a thin film of plastic over my skin, and for a moment I can’t breathe. The first time it happened I had a panic attack, but after a year or so of practice I’d mostly gotten used to the sensation.

“Ready?”

I turn to Lightning whose body is glowing with its own set of vibrant yellow branch-and-leaf tattoos, and nod.

“Why d’ya think they haven’t attacked yet?” I ask, and Lightning shrugs.

“My guess?” She replies. “They’re waiting for a heavy hitter, and then come nightfall they’ll be on us.”

“Why summon hellshades in broad daylight, then?” I gesture at the clock. “They’re only good as spies like this, nightime’s when they’re actually dangerous.”

“Which is why they’re waiting, and they’re still dangerous,” Lightning said slowly, giving me a level look. “There’s enough of them to black out the skies, sure, but that’s no substitute for real night.”

“I dunno, Dusty,” I rub the back of my neck as an itch runs down it. “This feels like a setup.”

“Probably is,” she agrees with a dry chuckle. “But either we call their bluff, fight it out now, and maybe set off a trap, or we wait til night and get swarmed by an army of hellshades going at full chat, plus whatever bruiser they bring in.”

“If we wait we might get a shot at the conjurer,” I point out, but Lightning shakes her head.

“Not what we’re here for, Rainbabe,” she tucks her hand into her vest and draws out a small, hand-stitched leather bag. “Remember?”

I sigh, but nod.

“Yeah,” I say quietly. “I remember.”

The Amulet of Inanna-Ishtar, that’s what Zee called it anyway, and if she’s right then it’s a piece of a goddess’s regalia that she wore when she descended into the underworld and then returned.

Lightning presses the bag back into her vest and secures it.

“We’re getting her back this time, Dash,” Lightning says with fire in her eyes. “We’re bringing back our friend.”

I lean in and press my lips to hers again, slipping my hand down to her waist and pulling Lightning into my arms. She melts against me, kissing with enough desperation that you’d think we were going into our last battle.

Who knows, maybe we are. Maybe this conjurer’s got some big bad juju waiting for us the moment we step out of our jerry-rigged ward and into the open.

That’s why I’m kissing her though.

If I go down in a fight I want kissing the girl I love to be the last thing I did.

“Alright,” I say as we part, and I nuzzle her nose with mine. “Let’s go shoot magic missiles at the darkness.”

“I hate you.”

“Love you too, Dusty.”