For You, I'd Move Mountains
Doctor Heartfire sighed, pinching the bridge of her muzzle. The mare on the other side of her desk had no maladies, at least none that she could detect. Yet, she was a sadly common sight in the office, and had a sadly common request.
“Please, I just want to know what’s wrong with her.”
“Miss Dash, you know I can’t disclose anything to do with Rarity’s case. It’s all confi—” Heartfire started to reply, genuinely apologetic.
“Yeah yeah confidential I know it’s just... Like, I’m not blind,” Rainbow said, ”I know there’s something wrong with her. But I just don’t know how to fix it.”
Heartfire smiled sadly, they all wanted the same thing. It broke her heart.
“This isn’t something that can be fixed right away dear. It’s all in her head, but that doesn’t mean it’s not real, does that make sense? Just... support her. Maybe take her away somewhere, hmm?”
“Yeah… that might be a good idea. Thanks, Doctor,” the mare said, and Heartfire watched her leave with a heavy feeling in her chest.
She knew it wouldn’t help.
TECTONIC
It had taken Rainbow three weeks. Constant pestering, badgering, prodding and poking. If someone was offering to take her on holiday, she’d have jumped at the chance. But that was a small part of her that was thinking that. Little and spiteful. She knew Rarity wasn’t well. So, when Rainbow had finally gotten her to agree to take a trip, she’d been so happy. For all of two minutes.
Then Rarity had told her where she wanted to go.
“So!” Rainbow began, trying her hardest not to shiver, “Why here then?”
She hadn’t wanted to question Rarity’s choice, lest it provoke her to cancel the whole thing. So the whole time, Rainbow had bit her tongue and resolved to only ask once they were on the train, closer to their destination than to home. All the while, she’d been desperately wondering why Rarity wanted to go to the frozen lakes on the outskirts of the Crystal Empire of all places. Rainbow had suggested something more in line with the tropical islands that dotted the sapphire waters beneath the jet stream. Yet, here they were. Freezing.
And Rarity had barely talked.
“I just didn’t think a place like this would be your scene, you know?” Rainbow kept going, feeling guilty for the way she inadvertently chewed the inside of her mouth.
Rarity didn’t respond, she just kept looking out the window. But she was far from blank, the unicorn had started to look increasingly anxious with each mile they chugged along.
“Rares… maybe if you talk to me, it might help a little bit?”
Rarity’s chest fluttered for a moment, she looked delicate. Like an ice sculpture. It was so heavenly Rainbow could have cried. She wanted to cry so much these days.
“I just… It’s supposed to be beautiful.” Rarity finally breathed, and it was like waking up after a coma.
“Oh yeah?” Rainbow replied, a clear prompt to continue. Mercifully, Rarity took the bait.
“You’ve been terribly patient with me these last few months, Rainbow… but the truth is… nothing really seems beautiful anymore.”
Rainbow moved over to sit next to Rarity, and slowly snaked her hooves round her midriff. It wasn’t too long before Rarity started to sob soundlessly, the only clue being from the gentle throbbing pulse of her chest, unnatural and without the relaxed cadence of her breath.
“I… still think you’re beautiful though, Rainbow,” Rarity muttered into Dash’s coat, “I’m sorry if it’s not worth it anymore.”
“Rares, don’t be stupid. Of course it’s still worth it.” Rainbow reassured, and they both allowed the silence to resume.
Neither cared to find out whether the other was lying.
The cabin was stark, alone. Whatever beauty Rarity was seeking, it’d need to wait for the morning. The ice lake’s colour and depth was dependent on sunlight. At night, it became a vast expanse of wasteland, dark and infinite. It made Rainbow feel small. But not like the sky made her feel small, that was a sense of freedom. This felt more like the sea.
Rarity trudged into the cabin. The journey from the train station had been wet, cold and miserable. Any attempt at conversation had been dulled in snow flurries and freezing wind. So it made sense that she would want to get an early night.
Least, that was what Rainbow told herself.
When she finished unpacking and got into bed, Rarity was already laying there, motionless under the duvet. Rainbow breathed on her hooves a few times before wrapping them round Rarity, and she didn’t flinch. Though, she likely wouldn’t have if Rainbow hadn't bothered either. Sleep, or some approximation of it came easy to Rarity, but Rainbow stayed up a little while.
She’d read in the brochure that, on a clear night on the frozen lake, one couldn’t hear a single sound. That you were left alone in a full, comforting silence. A chance to really think things through. But the brochure was wrong.
It wasn’t comforting.
When Rainbow awoke, she wasn’t surprised to find herself alone. She was, however, surprised to find a small note from Rarity.
‘Went out onto the lake’
Rainbow let herself fall out of bed before getting her scarf and boots on. Normally she wouldn’t be seen dead in them, but sometimes needs must. When she was ready, she went out and was immediately floored.
The sunlight didn’t take away from the lake’s infinite nature, it amplified it. In all directions was a totally flat plateau, only stopping at the wall of the cloudless sky. They were a mirror, suspended above an ocean of blue. While the effect was striking, it made Rainbow feel disoriented, and that was no small feat.
“Just how far did we walk last night?” Rainbow muttered, finding no sight of the train station.
This at least made it easier to find Rarity. She simply swiveled in place until she saw a far off white speck. Then she kicked off and started to glide. However, as soon as she was up there, the disorientation felt so much worse. It was like suddenly being inside an optical illusion, where up and down didn’t make sense. Rainbow dropped back down onto the ice and started to walk sullenly. She didn’t like being in places where she couldn’t fly.
When she caught up to Rarity, she found the unicorn was crying again. But this time, she was smiling. Celestia, how long had it been since Rainbow had seen that smile?. She wanted to cry herself, and would’ve had she not thought it might spoil the moment.
“Rainbow, come look,” the unicorn breathed. When Rainbow obliged, she saw that Rarity had cleared and polished part of the ice to a sheer, flat surface. Without the bumpiness and snow dusting, Rainbow finally saw the beauty of this place. The waters beneath danced with unnatural colours, bright and neon and swirling forever. A pantheon of coalescing fractals, forever becoming new things.
Rainbow held her tight, and Rarity did the same. It felt good, god did it feel good to be held again. Held properly, with some zeal and gratefulness, for beauty and life.
They stayed there the whole day. And while Rarity did talk, more than she had in weeks, she kept her eyes on that spot. And it always returned to the same topic.
“It’s beautiful.”
But the sun wasn’t meant to stay out forever. When it started to dip, the colours disappeared. Rarity’s good mood didn’t go completely, but it ebbed with every mote of light stolen from them.
“Come on Rarity, we can come out again tomorrow.” Rainbow urged, gently helping her to her hooves and starting them back on the journey to the cabin. It was done in silence, and while Rainbow wanted to pretend it was a comfortable one, she could feel the strain.
“You know, I heard a story once,” Rarity piped up as they neared the cabin, “About a pony who had only drank water and eaten stale bread his whole life. And it was fine for him, for a little while. But soon, he got sick of it.”
“...Okay?” Rainbow replied, confused but not wanting to stifle Rarity when she was so relatively verbose. They walked up the steps and Rarity took another look out onto the lake.
“And when he finally tried something sweeter, do you know what he did?”
“I’ve not heard this one Rares, can’t say I do.” Rainbow said.
Rarity looked at her for a moment after they finished wiping their boots on the mat. Her gaze was level, flat. As stretching and featureless as the great frozen lakes.
“He ate and drank until he choked.”
Rainbow blanched for a second, before barking out with a forced laugh. Too late did she realise it wasn’t some attempt at morbid humour because Rarity just kept staring at her with that look, devoid of all the life Rainbow needed to see. Devoid of everything she’d gained from the colours under the lake.
Rarity didn’t say anything for the rest of the night, she simply grunted small responses to every question Rainbow tried to ask. She cried a couple of times too, but Rainbow didn’t count those. Though it excavated her, to see her partner, such a short time ago someone brimming with a lust for life begin to shakingly cry through their half-hearted game of Scrabble. Rainbow just held Rarity tightly until she’d calmed down, even when she wanted to cry herself.
When they finally went to bed, it felt like a small mercy. Rainbow was at least able to hold Rarity again, and in the silence of the lake there was some room to pretend everything was normal. But before she went to sleep, Rarity piped up one final time, in a voice slick with tears.
“I think I found the missing part of me in the lake.”
The next day was exactly the same. Rainbow relished in it while they were out there. If only because she knew what would happen later. The counting down of the sun’s descent gave her a tummy ache. It was like knowing exactly when you’d die.
“Rainbow,” Rarity spoke up as she continued to clean more and more of the ice, broadening her window, “Remember before this happened?”
Now there was a catch-22, Rainbow had no idea what to say. Their peace here was fragile, and acknowledging the fires outside might break it. But Rainbow eventually decided that patronising Rarity wasn’t worth the risk.
“Yeah,” she replied simply.
“Why have you stayed?”
“What do you mean? I love you, Rarity.”
Rarity smiled, but didn’t look up from her work.
“You’re the generous one. You’ve got all the good bits of me with you. Tucked away in your heart,” she said, and her voice was bittersweet. “And that’s a good thing, you keep them safe, okay? I think I’ll be ready to take them back soon, because there’s just one you don’t have. But I’ve found it now.”
The pit in Rainbow’s stomach deepened as Rarity’s window got broader, larger. And when the sun finally started to dip again, Rarity got more frantic instead of depressed. Her strokes were less controlled, her breathing laboured. This was someone fighting for their life.
When Rainbow could no longer feel her hooves, she firstly tried to gently pull Rarity back to the cabin, and then she had to steer her firmly away. And Rarity didn’t fight her, not for long, anyway. Her shoulders slumped in a tired resignation, like everything was so inevitable.
“Nothing’s beautiful anymore, I just want that part of me back,” she muttered.
And then the struggle began, when Rarity shoved Rainbow and desperately galloped back and tried to gaze into the window she’d made. But the sun was down, and Rainbow heard her scream in frustration when all she saw was black. She started to beat the ice with her hooves until Rainbow restrained her.
“It can’t die in the dark!” Rarity screamed, “That can’t be all there is! That can’t be all I am!”
She kicked and cried on the way back to the cabin, and she begged to return to just try again. To look in and see the bits of her that were missing because she’d found them and finally she’d seen something beautiful and they had to still be in there. And the whole time, as Rainbow plotted their route back to the train station to distract herself from the unicorn kicking and wailing, she knew this had been a mistake.
They should have stayed in Ponyville, with the doctor and their friends. But it was awful, because Rainbow just wanted to give her a holiday, and it wasn’t Rarity’s fault. It was no one’s fault. Rarity wasn’t well. That’s why she wanted to look so badly through some ice in a lake, that’s why she’d given up saying Rainbow was still beautiful to her.
When Rainbow woke up, she wasn’t surprised that she was alone in bed. Rather she was surprised that it wasn’t morning.
The door was open, the breeze blew freely in and chilled the whole room. The blankets were frozen, they provided no relief. Rainbow looked out as she caught her bearings and she realised that Rarity was out there, and then she was up and galloping into the night with no boots or scarf.
But it was okay, she knew where Rarity was, even if she hadn’t seen that white speck, she knew exactly where she’d be. And when enough of the infinite landscape had been traversed, and she finally reached the window in the ice, Rainbow was horrified.
Rarity was looking at her, and said her name in greeting. But it came out as a gnarled, trembling gasp, fittingly like the crack of ice. The hole Rarity had made was just enough for her to dangle halfway into the freezing waters below. And the whole time, she smiled.
Even when Rainbow wrapped her hooves around her, like she’d done in bed, and dragged her out of the hole. Even when she pulled Rarity back to the cabin, wheezing with strain and panic and fear for the way Rarity’s legs didn’t seem to work properly.. Even when Rainbow tearfully lit a fire, hooves shaking and lip trembling. Even when she desperately rubbed Rarity’s frozen hindlegs to try to return some life into them.
But Rarity didn’t seem to care for the fire, or for Rainbow’s fear. She stood, full of health and vigour and life and leant into Rainbow, not caring for the way Dash jumped at the contact with her ice cold skin.
“I found it…” she whispered, and nipped the bottom of Rainbow’s ear. Her voice sounded as happy as it did terrified. And then her freezing lips were gently peppering Rainbow’s neck with kisses.
Was it shameful? For Rainbow to enjoy it like this. For her to momentarily forget about stoking that fire and enjoy feeling like Rarity really found her beautiful again? To desire and be desired and to press her body against flesh that burned with a furious cold?
And when Rarity moved to Dash’s lips and they kissed for the first time in months, Rarity cried and Rainbow cried. They wept for and with each other, then their tears brimmed round their met lips and turned to ice as the fire died. When Rainbow pulled away, her skin ripped and tore. But she didn’t mind.
“You know I’ve always loved you, right?” Rarity said with a sad smile, tears dropping and freezing. Outside the winds picked up until their screech was deafening.
“No matter any of this, no matter what I might have lost, I’ve always loved you.” Rarity urged, and it somehow cut clear through the apocalyptic racket.
Rainbow choked up, the cabin walls gave way and they were in the ice field again.
“Rarity… I.”
Rainbow jolted awake from the dream, and found the cabin door was open to the wind. The wet of tears and sweat froze her coat. She fell from the bed in a panicked heap and bolted for the door, visions of Rarity dipped in that freezing water flashing through her mind.
But when Rainbow got out of the cabin and into the ice fields again, she couldn’t see that speck of white anywhere. She spun desperately in place, and when she called out Rarity’s name the echo screamed at her from all directions, mocking her. No soft, kind voice returned her name, and Rainbow panicked as she tried to collect her thoughts and find Rarity.
But it was so dark now.
She couldn’t tell where the ice began or the sky ended anymore.
