Two Martyrs Fall for Each Other

The first problem with visiting Equestria was there was already a Rainbow Dash here, a married one, so the younger Dash couldn’t just be seen with Rarity without it causing problems. Checking her hair in the Carousel Boutique window, she had to check that her disguise was good and that she looked good in her disguise.

Not a great start, she already knew Rarity could be embarrassed being seen with her and the date hadn’t even started yet.

Still, she had to admit she liked the look. She still had trouble gauging what made a pony look cool or not, she still wasn’t used to that whole deal yet, but the one looking back at her in the store window didn’t look half bad. Tousled flaming red mane and tail, both with streaking white accents that popped - it still felt like her style. It just would have felt better if she was trying something new, and not trying to work out if it hid her well enough.

She flinched when Rarity opened the door to the boutique and stared, and Dash pretended she was doing literally anything else but check herself out. “Hey!”

“What caught your eye?” Rarity came up beside her, and of course Dash had picked an empty spot of window. Rarity snorted. “Ah, just you. Yes, that one caught my eye as well.” She gave Dash a knowing look out of the corner of her eye. “They’re mirrored like this for a reason. It helps to see yourself in the dress, that way. Which we ought to get you in soon.”

“I don’t mind, nobody else is wearing anything, right?” Dash started, and Rarity coughed into a hoof while looking at Dash’s cutie mark. She deflated. “Right. That.”

“I didn’t need an excuse to dress you up,” Rarity turned and flicked Dash’s nose with her tail. “I won’t complain about having one. Come in, I’m with a client right now but—

“Sure, I can take a walk around the block first, it’s cool.”

“I meant,” Rarity held the door open wider. “You’re more than welcome to wait inside, I’ll just be with you in a minute.”

“Awesome.” Dash covered her cutie mark with her wing as she moved past. The store was massive, filled with intricate dresses for strange anatomies. Not just stuff for ponies, either, but dragons and changelings and other stuff she didn’t recognize. Yaks? Did yaks even wear dresses?

She milled about, fidgeting. She wasn’t bored, just, she didn’t know what she was supposed to be doing. Everything she ended up trying felt like it could be wrong, and she needed to keep moving from thing to thing until she found which thing sucked the least. Mostly that meant moving through the dresses, studying them carefully, and pointedly ignoring the pony in the other room that Rarity was holding measuring tape to and showing design sketches.

“Your assistant’s just the cutest thing, isn’t she?” the client crooned, and Rarity’s hair bristled on the back of her neck as she kept looking at the displays, pretending not to hear. “Where’d you find her?”

“She’s not my assistant, no,” Rarity corrected professionally. “I’m entertaining, tonight.”

“I do beg your pardon,” the client said. “I just thought, well. I thought you liked your fruit a little riper before you bit into it.”

“Never you pay any mind to who I bite into. She’s actually quite the accomplished musician herself, Ms Sapphire.” Rarity said it playfully, but Dash caught a sincere bit of venom in the way Rarity emphasized the ‘Ms’. “Shocking though it may be given how handsome she is, she’s more than just looks.”

“Don’t think I didn’t hear you Ms me. Girl, you are far too young to be having that kind of a mid-life crisis.” Sapphire Shores laughed. “I can just tell if you had clothespins in your magic right now I’d be getting stuck all over. Did I hit a nerve, Ms Rarity?” she pronounced it Rare-rah-tee, Dash noticed.

“Only that you think I’m old enough to have any kind of mid-life crisis at all.” Rarity clicked her tongue. “Yes, that should do it. It’ll be ready for you by Friday evening. Dear? I put your outfit for the evening in the first changing room, do help yourself.”

Dash bit her tongue and found the changing room, and found a thick, black leather jacket with an old schoolgirl skirt waiting for her. The jacket on its own was almost threatening, the skirt on its own too formal and girly for her taste - but paired together? It was classic rock, AC/DC and Aerosmith, and it covered her cutie mark. She kept eavesdropping on the conversation Rarity was having while she got changed.

“I’m looking forward to it as always. You know I still keep that first dress you made for me? Hasn’t fit me in yea-ahs.” Sapphire laughed. “My assistant was asking me if you couldn’t just use my old measurements, and you would not believe how hard I laughed, darling. My sides! Ah.”

Rarity snickered. “I think you’ve done very well for yourself. All that dancing seems to be keeping you in lycra and spandex just fine.”

“Please!” Sapphire clicked her tongue. “I look in the mirror with these costumes on, and I see a wrinkle that needs to be ironed out, and the wrinkle’s always on me!” Rarity laughed. “It’s a gen-u-ine tragedy!”

“I can forgive you for thinking about mid-life crises then, if that’s why they’re on your mind.”

Sapphire giggled. “I’ve got my little boy-toys, don’t you worry about that. I just like mine with abs you can grate cheese with. ”

Dash poked out of the changing room, and Rarity absently shifted the jacket on her back until her wings popped free from the holes she hadn’t even noticed. She flared them, that felt way better. “Rarity, you got any cheese in the fridge? I wanna test something.”

“I am plenty impressed with your stomach without needing to waste a block of parmesan on it.” Rarity made eye contact with Rainbow before she could be a smart-alec about it. “Yes, it may still go in it.”

“Well aren’t you just the thing.” Sapphire covered her mouth as she giggled. “I didn’t get your name.”

“Red Delta.” Dash lied. “Hey, it’s cool. It’s kind of funny though, you’re making it sound like you’d respect Rarity more if she was just using me to get laid. Like, it’d be way worse if she was actually dating me or something.”

The giggle died in Sapphire’s throat, and she looked at Rarity nervously. “Yes, it did sound like that, didn’t it?”

“We’re not dating, so who cares.” Rainbow said, and Rarity let out a little sigh of relief. As soon as Sapphire looked away from her and back to Dash, Rarity glared burning holes in the back of her head - a furious look that disappeared whenever Sapphire looked back again. “Just, it wouldn’t be that embarrassing, would it?”

“I am late! Just look at that.” Sapphire coughed. “By Friday you said? Wonderful. Wonderful! I’ll have to see you then, and tell me everything. Pleasure to meet you, Miss Red Delta.”

“Sure, whatever. Thanks for saying I’m cute.”

Sapphire gave an outrageous wink over her shoulder as Rarity all but pushed her out of the store, closing the ‘Open!’ sign over behind her and leaning against it with an exhausted breath out.

“I’m not embarrassing though, right?” Dash asked Rarity, now that they were alone together.

“To me? No.” Rarity’s eyes went hard as flint as she glared out the front door. “Which is why I did not once deny who or what you are to me. You bit your tongue a bit. That can’t have been easy for you.”

“Yeah, well, she’s right though, right?” Dash asked, trying to sound cool. “Like, you don’t got to be mad at her for saying the same thing we’re thinking.” She said it to try and make Rarity less mad, but instead it looked like she’d stabbed her by saying it. “What? We said the same thing about keeping it casual.”

“You are more than just—” Rarity started, stopped. “It’s not because—” Stopped again.

“You want someone you can pay taxes and a mortgage with, and I’m not that yet, right?” Rainbow prodded. “Cause I know I’m not ready for that stuff, and I don’t want to have to be.”

Rarity looked… inwardly angry, like a volcano that had its vent entirely clogged up and nowhere to burst. Rainbow watched as every time she tried to disagree, to say why it was wrong, she couldn’t. It just made her try harder.

“Hold still.” Rarity instructed, in an icy tone.

“What?”

Rarity pulled a razor blade from her dressmaking supplies and held it up. Then, with a bloodcurdling, frustrated scream she tore at Rainbow’s skirt with it, shredding the fabric into ribbons - but never cutting all the way through, or cutting a piece entirely out. Dash flinched twice, first from the scream and second from the razor tugging at her skirt.

At the end of it though, the skirt looked… awesome. Way more punk rock, it made the outfit feel a lot more her.

“There, better.” Rarity said, relaxed as she put the razor away. “You’re a horrid martyr.”

“No I’m not.” Dash blinked. “Am I?”

“You find ways to make everything your fault, so it’s something you can fix.” Rarity glared at her. “I am struggling to find a way to say that you are more than just an attractive lay to me, and that I am not simply taking advantage of you, without confronting the fact that I am refusing to put my money where my mouth is.”

Dash shook her head. “Sorry, still don’t get it?”

Rarity groaned and pushed her face into a hoof like she had a stress headache. “I am an emotionally guarded pony-pleaser, selfless to the point of selfishness, and I’ve spread myself far too thin. I am not capable of being what you need, and it is no fault of yours that you have needs.” Rarity let her hoof fall away to glare at Rainbow again in warning. “It is agony to think that anyone could make you feel like the reason I would keep you at an arm’s length is any fault of yours.”

Rainbow kind of swayed on her hooves while she took that in. Maybe it was that martyrdom thing in her head, but what it sounded like Rarity was saying was that Dash wasn’t too immature for her, she was too much messed up for Dash. Which was basically the same problem, except Rainbow had no power to fix it from the other end.

Which meant Rarity had to be wrong or this sucked. She needed to buy time to work out how she was wrong, though.

“You’re not good enough for me, is what you’re saying?” Rainbow teased, and Rarity didn’t stop glaring, but she did crack a smile in spite of it.

“Yes, that is exactly what I’m saying.”

“I dunno about that, I think you’re cool.” Rainbow shrugged. “I haven’t stopped wanting to have dinner with you, anyway.”

Rarity snorted. “You know what I find most interesting about that?”

“What?”

Rarity leaned close and nipped the tip of Rainbow’s ear, and Dash’s knees locked like a fainting goat. When she felt hot breath right after, she almost went over on her side. “You’re still not used to the pony side of things, are you?”

“Uh, no?” Dash answered honestly because suddenly she was too stupid to figure out how to lie.

“You have almost no physical attraction to me right now, do you?” Rarity asked.

“Uh.” Dash tried to be less stupid and failed. Rarity was still right in her ear, their cheeks pressed together. “You’re really pretty for a pony?”

“I thought so.” Rarity grinned and leaned back, kissing Dash’s cheek again on the way through. “I must have done something right, to give you a crush large enough to make up the difference.”

“I’m kind of a disaster,” Dash agreed, eyes half lidded, smiling like a dope.

“Thank you for coming, for me.” Rarity held the back of Rainbow’s head as she pressed their foreheads together, held their faces close. “It does mean a lot, to me, that you’d make the effort.”

“Hey, if I have to choose between being with you in this body, and having nobody in my body….” Rainbow’s eyes fluttered close, her brain was so overloaded it couldn’t handle light anymore. “Obvious choice, right?”

And then, because her eyes were closed, she wasn’t ready when Rarity just… tilted her head a little and closed the distance to kiss her. A light flick of a tongue against her lips invited her to open her mouth, so she did.

It made her hyper aware of how different her mouth was. It was longer, and narrow. Her tongue, too. Rainbow wasn’t the best kisser at the best of times, mostly she made out like a hungry vacuum cleaner, but now she had even less idea what to do with anything than usual.

And Rarity was… perfect. She teasingly bit Rainbow’s bottom lip and pulled it, stretched it out and let it snap back, and Rainbow groaned at the hurt of it. Rarity was way rougher than she expected her to be, but it wasn’t a bad thing, just… When she was aggressive at slipping her tongue into Rainbow’s mouth, she had no idea what to do about it back except appreciate that Rarity was doing it. She was just kind of letting her flex, show off how good she was, but it gave her nothing to work against.

Rainbow felt hormone drunk, totally out of her depth, like she was losing at kissing.

Rarity drew back looking like she’d pulled off a prank on her. Rainbow had forgotten they were both ponies for a second. “Was the choice really so obvious?” she asked, catching her breath.

Dash couldn’t keep her eyes off Rarity’s mouth. “You kiss so much better as a pony.”

“I had my reasons to be eager to drag you over here.” Rarity grinned. “I wasn’t just testing to see if you would. Not too strange for you?”

“Nah, I just had no idea what I was doing. It’s like… Weird. I’ve got too much face like this, and I can’t figure out what I’m supposed to do with it.”

“I’m sure it’ll come to you with practice.” Rarity smiled at her one last time and, when Rainbow leaned for the kiss again, instead she turned and trotted back into the boutique. “Let me get my coat for the evening. Before we get too ahead of ourselves and spoil our appetites.”

Rainbow watched her go, and wondered how many chances she’d get to kiss Rarity back before the skill difference stopped being cute and started being frustrating. Problem was, there wasn’t anyone else she wanted to practice on to make up the difference, which meant spending those chances figuring her out…

Which meant trying to figure out how to do better while Rarity was absolutely ruining her.

Rarity had picked a really nice, expensive restaurant that you needed reservations to get into. Even she needed reservations, she said, clearly impressed. And it was a really cool gesture, really nice, because what Rarity was basically saying was; See, I do see you as being mature enough to handle this stuff, this is the kind of place I feel like I can take us to.

The problem was Rainbow was absolutely friggin’ miserable, but she had to pretend she wasn’t or else Sapphire Shores and Twilight and everyone was going to be right about her. And the point was Rarity was trying really hard to give her that chance, so she had to take it, right?

Still, Rarity looked fantastic in her glittering dark blue dress with meticulously hand-stitched sequins. The shade of the sequins was almost the same, but lighter and darker in ripples and curls like the reflections on the surface of a lake as it gets deeper from a shoreline.

Rainbow looked at the menu. “The caramelized pear gravy sounds nice, with the… What is it?”

Rarity looked for it on the menu. “Kasespatzle? What an interesting combination. It’s a gryphon dish, it’s like a… a gnocchi hash brown?”

That… didn’t sound great. “Is Sizzlefruit any good? I’ve never even heard of it.”

“It’s a Southlands delicacy, a bit of an acquired taste to my mind that I never acquired the taste for. Spicy and sour, very peppery, I’ve had one brilliant marmalade of it but I would avoid it as a main, to start.”

“Gotcha.” Rainbow grimaced. “See, normally what I’d do at this point is take the easy way out and just ask for a steak, but—” Rarity gave her a warning look and held a hoof to her lips, and Dash noticed a curious look from a pony a table over. “Yeah, see?”

Rainbow wondered about this place. You needed a reservation to get in, which made her think that it was going to be crowded, but there were only about eight other people in the whole restaurant sitting around the candlelit tables. There were more ponies in the kitchen than were eating. The red wallpaper and wood paneling made her feel like she was sitting in a Prime Minister’s office or something - definitely not a President’s, too European.

“I’ll be having the umeboshi, fermented yoghurt whey, and kelp, I think.” Rarity grinned at the look Dash gave her. “It’s better than it sounds, I promise. You like sour flavours, don’t you? It’s not as acidic as an energy drink, at least, much more… rounded.”

“I wasn’t drinking them for the taste but, yeah, actually.” Dash stared at Rarity’s order on the menu like it was a seeing eye puzzle, like it was something that’d make sense to her if she just read the words enough. “It’s more like, you say something’s fermented and I give up on trying to guess what it’s going to taste like. I remember drinking Calpis in Japan, and it’s just this drink that tastes kind of fruity, but you’ve got no idea what fruit it tastes like? Sweet but not sugary? Kind of chalky, almost.”

“So, what is it?” Rarity asked.

“It’s just fermented milk.” Dash shrugged. “No idea how. I thought fermenting stuff just made it more bitter or something, but then I had kimchi and I have no idea how they get from cabbage to that.”

“I’m sure Twilight might have a better explanation for you.” Rarity thought. “Pinkie Pie’s actually very good at this. She is a pastry chef, which is not nearly so easy as she makes it look.”

“That’s right, the Princess and Pinkie aren’t dating on this side, are they?” Dash grinned, letting her eyes wander away from Rarity’s choice and trying to choose between the other five menu options - she felt like she was playing Russian roulette for her stomach, honestly. “Pinkie tried to get Twilight into cooking because it’s just chemistry, right? It kind of worked, Twilight got really into brewing her own coffee. Like, roasting, grinding, getting all the temperatures exactly right.”

“Strange. She always asks for tea, when she visits?”

“Yeah, because now everyone else’s coffee is ruined for her.” Dash laughed. “She’s the only one that can make it how she likes it now.”

“Milk, three sugars, if I remember correctly.” Rarity leaned across the table, chin on a hoof.

“Huh? No, that’s how I take it, I think Twilight—” Rainbow started, stopped. Again, Rarity’s eyes twinkled in that way she did when she was waiting for Dash to catch up to her. “Right, you meant me.”

“I didn’t get a chance to offer before. I like my little chances to show I’ve been paying attention.”

Dash did not want to admit how much ‘attention’ did it for her, but it was pretty obvious from the way Rarity was looking at her that she knew she’d scored a direct hit. “I really wish I’d been paying attention to more than just your butt right now.”

Rarity stopped still as she processed that, made absolutely sure she’d heard Dash say it. “I beg your pardon?”

“I mean, your human butt is like, one of the best I’ve ever seen? Soft and firm at the same time? Like, you spank it and there’s a solid thwack to it, but you rest your hand on it and it’s all give.” Dash nodded thoughtfully at the memory.

“Dash,” Rarity hissed, trying to sound annoyed. “We’re in a very nice place right now.”

“Whereas pony butts,” Dash gestured to Rarity’s with her wing, “kind of go all the way up, right?” Dash continued. “It’s leg all the way up to the tail. So I’m like, okay so this has to be what a perfect pony butt looks like. What makes it that? Is it good enough I can kind of appreciate it as its own thing?”

Rarity hunched forward a little, wishing her dress had a collar she could pull up and hide behind, opting to pull her chin off her hoof and shield her face with it instead. “Well?” she asked. “Can you?”

It was the worst possible moment for the waiter to show up, and the look he gave Dash made it clear he’d done it on purpose. Rarity sat back up straight in her chair and went bright red, and Dash pulled up the menu again and picked something blindly.

“The umeboshi, thank you.”

“I’ll have the uh, salamagundi with hucklemon?” Dash asked. There was no way she pronounced it right, she pronounced every syllable separately like she was chewing paper

“Excellent choices, ma’ams.” The waiter took their menus. “And for drinks?”

“Yes, we’ll need a minute to discuss that.” Rarity slipped the drinks menu across to Dash. “I was thinking a wine flight for tasting. Would you be interested?”

Dash looked at the flight. It was five glasses of very expensive wine you were kind of supposed to drink in order, but still, it was five glasses of expensive wine. Rarity looked excited to explain all the flavours and types to her, and Rainbow’s stomach knotted. “I’ll just have a water, thanks?” she said to the waiter.

Rarity gave Dash a confused look. “Just the house red for tonight then, I’ll trust the sommelier.”

“Of course.” The waiter made for the kitchen and left them again. Rarity was still trying to stare through Dash, trying to work out what had happened.

“It was all just going to taste the same to me anyway,” Dash said. “Would have been a waste.”

“There were red and white wines on there. Surely you can tell that much of a difference?”

Dash shrugged. “I can taste that it’s different, yeah. It still would have just tasted like wine, though.”

Rarity wondered about that. “Are you more of a gin girl, then? You’d look quite handsome with an old whiskey glass but it doesn’t seem your palette-” Rarity stopped, because Dash was looking sweaty and seasick. “You will openly talk about my butt without lowering your voice, why is this what gets to you?”

“I kind of talked to the other Rainbow about this.” Dash started, stopped. “You know how she gets about cider, around cider season?”

“Yes?”

Dash glanced away. “Yeah, uh. Cider’s alcoholic on Earth. More alcoholic than beer, even.” She wasn’t even just looking sick from the embarrassment about it, just thinking about specific drinks had too many associative memories now. Just bringing up ‘gin’ reminded her of all the times she brought gin back up on herself. One of the better aftertastes, honestly, but it made the back of her throat taste blunt. “We still drank it about the same, though.”

Rarity’s eyes widened. “I’m sorry, I had no idea.”

“Yeah, and I’m kind of proud of that, honestly.” Dash rubbed the back of her neck. “Sunset helped me a lot, with everything. She was really good about keeping it private. It’s kind of a sign of how much you lost control, how many people you couldn’t hide it from, so it’s cool that one didn’t travel.”

“I can switch to a lemonade, if it’d make things easier for you?”

“Nah, you’re cool.” Dash waved it off. Honestly, it really would make it easier for her, she just didn’t want to put her problems on other people. It wasn’t fair to ask. “It’s really not a big deal.”

“No, no,” Rarity thought. “I won’t trouble you to ask more, though if you want to talk about it, I’m interested in hearing about it.”

Dash stared at Rarity like she’d grown a second head. “Why? It’s just, I made a lot of mistakes, I made my friends sad, it was way harder to stop making them sad than I thought it’d be, the end. There’s nothing interesting there, it just sucks.”

“I deal with a lot of rich ponies,” Rarity glanced around the room and lowered her voice, “and they have the most boring stories. You need conflict to drive a story, see, and so many of them have other ponies to solve their problems. Something goes wrong, and money makes it go away. Now, not all of them. I find surgeons wonderful company no matter how successful they get, and the Princess has the wealth of Equestria under her and she has no less conflict in her life for it.”

“So what?”

Rarity reached across the table, an offer to take Dash’s hoof, and Dash found herself pulling her hooves away from fidgeting under the table to meet it. “I’ll let you in on a little secret. Experience doesn’t come with age, age merely provides more opportunities for it. In time you’ll no longer think of yourself as the person who made those mistakes, but forevermore will you be the person who overcame them. That is already who I see, and that will always be interesting to me.”

Dash tried to pull away from Rarity’s hoof, flinched out of it, but Rarity held tight and stared her down. “Thanks,” she said, instead.

“You don’t mean that.” Rarity squeezed Dash’s hoof harder. “Why not?”

“Because you’re saying it was basically worth it just to get over it, right? Like, I’m more interesting now.” Dash tried to pull away again, and this time Rarity let her. “And it wasn’t, it was just, bad. I messed up and I hurt people who didn’t deserve it.”

“That is not what I said,” Rarity said, and to Rainbow it sounded cold and angry - but when she managed to look at Rarity’s face there was no sign of it there. “I am saying that you will get to live the rest of your life as better for it. Whether or not the price was worth it, it has already been paid. That is something to look forward to, not back on.”

Rainbow balked. She almost wanted to run, and it was only how calm and proud that Rarity was acting that was keeping her pinned to her seat. “Listen, I’m better now, but this is something that’s never going away, right? Like, I still, I don’t… Is relapse a thing, in Equestria, or is that a thing that doesn’t happen here?”

“It is, but you won’t.” Rarity said so confidently that Rainbow kind of… it was like someone rung her soul like a gong. Rarity wasn’t placating or reassuring, it was just like she’d looked into Rainbow’s heart, did a risk assessment, and came back with a result as objective as an engineer checking bridge foundations. It was the kind of belief in her that Rainbow couldn’t doubt. “And if you did,” Rarity continued, “then it would be something you could learn from, to make it easier to never happen again.”

The waiter arrived with their drinks. Rarity held her wine glass off the table the second the waiter let go of it. “Excuse me, I’ve changed my mind, could I have the lemonade instead?”

The waiter took the wine. “As long as the madam is aware that once it has been poured, it cannot be returned.”

“Then it will make a lovely gift for the kitchen.” Rarity smiled at the waiter.

“Of course.”

Rainbow pulled her leather jacket’s collar up around her face. “You really didn’t have to do that.”

“No, I didn’t,” Rarity agreed. “It was enough that I wanted to.”

“Is this just, part of dating someone younger than you?” Dash asked nervously, trying to break her own sense of tension. “Just, unloading life advice like that?”

“Absolutely.” Rarity rolled her eyes. “It’s the next closest thing I can get to yelling at my younger self everything she took too long to learn.”

“But… You’ve got a younger self you can yell at?”

Rarity rolled her eyes. “Yes, but she won’t listen to me.”

Rainbow snorted hard at that. “Wait, really?”

“She’s gotten it into her head that if I learned it, then she can learn it on her own. The rest she ignores because she thinks she can do better.” Rarity scoffed at that, as the waiter quietly put a lemonade in front of her. “I knew she’d be like that, obviously, that’s half of what I was trying to yell at her about.”

Rainbow snickered, and thought about asking advice from her older self and… empathized with the younger Rarity a lot, actually. She wanted to treat that Rainbow as her floor, not her ceiling, which meant trying to take different advice. If she wanted to talk to that Rainbow, it was going to be because ‘different’ ended up way worse and she knew she had a safety net to fall back into.

Rarity felt more like going for the next swing of the trapeze act.

Their plates were slipped in front of them. Rarity’s looked like a weird yellow liquid with green and orange jelly lumps in it, while Dash’s looked like the fancy folded napkin spikes you get at weddings, made out of grilled vegetables. There were two of them, not that big.

“Lovely. Yours looks interesting.” Rarity eyed Dash’s napkin-spike vegetables across the table.

“I have no idea what this is going to taste like.” Dash took a bite. It was an explosion of flavour, like, good, like, really good. She could see why Rarity liked this place so much. She took another bite, finishing the first of her spikes. “Wow. This is insane.”

“The menu can be a bit intimidating. Even for locals the ingredients here can be a bit strange and unfamiliar.” Rarity took a spoonful of hers and made a look of complete and utter bliss. “It’s a matter of trust, I find. Things I’d normally be too intimidated to try, I try here. This is a restaurant I know that if it’s on the menu, it’s there for a reason.”

“Which is why you took me here, right?” Dash asked, taking a bite of her second spike and having her head explode with flavour again. She thought her tastebuds would be numb by now, it felt like they should be. “To show I can trust you with the unfamiliar?”

“That would have been clever,” Rarity grumbled, clearly annoyed she hadn’t thought of it. “This was just the nicest place in Ponyville I could think of.”

Rainbow took her last bite of the dish, and the last bit of sauce off her plate with the edge of a fork. “So when’s the next course?”

Rarity looked up and blinked. “Ah, dear. That was it, actually, you’re meant to take smaller bites. After this would just be dessert.”

“What?” Dash blinked. “No way. That was like…” She looked at the other diners. “What do I do if I’m still hungry?”

Rarity sighed. “That is the other side of the unfamiliar, of course. Sometimes you need to learn some things just aren’t for you.” She raised a hoof and the waiter was beside them. “Excuse me, can I have this to-go?”

“To-go?” the waiter asked, somewhat incredulously. He shook his head. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Thank you.”

The waiter disappeared and came back with a plastic container, which Rarity poured her meal into, and a bill which he immediately gave to Rarity instead of putting in the middle of the table, which frustrated Rainbow. “Hey, uh, we could be splitting it, you know?”

“Excuse me.” The waiter bobbed his head without taking the bill back from Rarity, who shook her head. Like, it was just that assumed that Rarity had to be paying for both of them.

“I’ll be paying by cheque, if that’s alright?” Rarity asked, and the waiter nodded, so Rarity pulled out a pocketbook and wrote a way-too-big number with an immaculate flourish. “Perfect as always, I hope the chef accepts the glass of wine as a token of apology for not staying for dessert.”

“He will be happy to hear that, madame Rarity.”

The waiter slipped away again, and Rarity gave an awkward smile to Dash. “They’re artists, as much as anything. They really will be disappointed they didn’t get a reaction to dessert. Your record finish will have to be a show of appreciation enough.”

Rainbow looked at Rarity’s tupperware. “If you wanted to stay for dessert—”

But Rarity was already waving it off. “I’ve made a mistake,” she explained. “I wasn’t thinking, when I picked this place. I just chose where I would take someone I am taking seriously, and in doing so I have treated you like you are anyone else. Which is a very stupid thing to have done because I am quite attracted to who you actually are, and this has done nothing but imply otherwise.” She sounded genuinely disgusted with herself; Dash was actually taken aback by the force of it.

First she tried to work out how she messed up at pretending she wasn’t miserable, found all the little gestures through the conversation she’d let that leak out, had totally gotten wrong enjoying the food too much - was that a mistake? That was the first time she really got this place. Except Rarity was already out of her chair, offering to help Dash out of hers to leave.

Not Dash’s fault, then. Rarity was just… scarily socially aware. Worse than a mindreader, someone who worked out what you’d think before you even thought it. Dash stood up. “I took it as a compliment that you thought this was the kind of place you could take me.”

“Which is why you were never going to tell me, were you?” Rarity said low, so the other diners didn’t hear her bitter hiss as they made for the exit side-by-side.

“Sorry.”

“What?” Rarity looked surprised. “No, that was at myself, I’m realizing the position I put you in, how unfair it was. I would desperately like to make it up to you?”

Rainbow had no idea what to say to that, so she said, “Sure, that sounds cool,” without really thinking about it.

Rarity practically threw Rainbow into her bedroom like an airplane baggage handler tossing luggage onto a plane. It was pretty clear it was just because it was the best private entertaining space in the boutique - the bedroom was huge, the giant four-poster bed was comfier than any couch in the place, and it wasn’t like ponies had TVs to build their living rooms around.

No, Rarity was too driven to make up for her mistake same-for-same.

“I’m going to be honest, when you dragged me upstairs I kind of thought you might be planning a sexy way to make it up to me.” Dash lay back on Rarity’s bed and laughed. She sank into it, it felt like a cloud - she actually knew what those felt like for real, now, too.

Rarity shook her head. “Please, bad precedent. You’ve seen how the younger me is with Applejack about that. No, when I ravish you later, stars willing you will know my motives are pure. For now it would do nothing to show you I understand my mistake.”

“No, you pretty much nailed it while we were walking out.” Rainbow nodded. “Hey, so, did you say you’re going to ravish me?”

“Later, yes.” Rarity tutted, pulling a scroll out of her writing desk. “Here we are.”

“I was kind of noticing you didn’t give me underwear with this.” Dash flicked her skirt with a wing, and Rarity turned from her writing desk across the room to watch.

“Nobody wears it, darling, it’s actually more of a, a statement if you do wear any.”

“Right but like, before I was naked.” Rainbow flicked her skirt up again. “Now I’m not wearing underwear with a skirt. That’s different.”

“Is it?” Rarity’s eyes sparkled, and she turned back to her envelope. “I’ll have to remember that for the human side of things. What makes it different?”

“It’s just….” Rainbow flicked the skirt up again and watched it catch the air as it fell back down. “It just kind of means easy access. It’s like, I don’t want anything getting between you and me later, because the skirt’s open, right? Like, you can—”

“Oh!” Rarity exclaimed, flushing. “Oh, and you thought—so this whole time—” Rainbow nodded, and Rarity shook her head back. “And you didn’t say a word about it until now.”

“Yeah, I thought we were thinking the same thing, so no point in saying it.”

“Well, if you had said something earlier, we would have been.” Rarity said, still flushed red, as she finished her letter with a flourish. “There. Sound good?”

Rarity used her magic to float the letter to Rainbow, who leaned up off a pillow to read it. “Never heard of this stuff. The Tasty Treat? You have delivery in Equestria? I mean, I can grab it, but I kind of got comfortable already.”

The letter floated back, and Rarity looked absolutely devious. “No, ‘we’ don’t have delivery in Equestria. We share a very good friend, though.” Rarity burned the letter in green flame. “You’re in for a real treat, I promise you.”

“Woah, what was that. Was that magic?” Rainbow watched the smoke pour out the window and zip off into the distance. “Where’s the smoke going?”

“I’d rather not spoil the surprise.” Rarity grinned, shutting the window tight. “I’m surprised, actually. Getting more used to Equestria, then?”

Rainbow mostly thought about how Rarity was still Rarity if she closed her eyes when they kissed, before. Since then she just thought of doing everything with her eyes closed, focusing on the feeling of Rarity doing things to her instead of getting caught up on… fur, hooves, horns, wings. “I’m getting better at not thinking about it, anyway.”

“You say that, and I never did get an answer to whether you appreciated my butt ‘as its own thing’,” Rarity teased, turning and flicking her tail before crawling into bed next to Dash. She stayed propped up on an elbow, not getting too comfortable. “Well?”

“Lemme see it again?” Dash asked, and Rarity turned and gave a look over her shoulder as Rainbow studied it. “Definitely still like your human side better,” Dash admitted, “but I do like how much it shows off your legs, like this.”

“I must admit, I do see your point.” Rarity said wistfully, rolling back to face Dash again. “I love my silky-soft fur too much to give it up – right up until the moment it gets wet and sticky, and then I am so jealous of skin I could scream.” Dash grinned at that, and Rarity tapped her nose with a hoof. “Yes, it’s funny now, but just you wait until everyone else can see what we’ve been doing because there’s a damp spot that just won’t come out, and see how funny you find it then.”

“I kind of like how steady everything feels, here,” Dash admitted, wiggling her front legs. “Never have to worry about tripping or falling over or anything here. Feels way harder to get taken out by a banana peel.”

“Much stronger, too.” Rarity poked Dash in the ribs. “Can’t forget that.”

“Yeah, what’s up with that? Stuff that should kill me just gives me a scuffed knee here, and apparently it only takes weeks for broken bones to heal up?”

“I’m not sure if we’re durable or you’re just fragile,” Rarity wondered. “We’d need a third universe to compare, I think.”

“Gee, thanks,” Rainbow muttered. “What else do you miss?”

“Necks,” Rarity answered, immediately. “We’re spoiled in riches and wonders here, but human necks are hardly there at all. I tried to bite you properly, and I swear I could barely fit my mouth between your jaw and your shoulder, and even then I had to push your head out of the way a bit.” She thought about that a bit more, and tapped her chin. “Now, doing that was devastatingly attractive, I will say, I just resent that I needed to do it.”

Rainbow looked at Rarity’s neck, and took in all at once just how long it was - where a human neck might be as tall as a fist, here they were more like a foreleg. Dash reached up to touch her own and wondered if the whole thing was as sensitive, but she couldn’t tell, it was like trying to tickle herself. Because if it was… Yeah she could definitely see missing that. “Isn’t there a problem trying to do anything with it though?” she asked. “I mean, what with the fur and all, everything’s gotta be impossible to…” She tried to think of the least weird way to say it, failed, and shrugged. “You can’t suck on anything.”

“What?” Rarity blinked. “That’s something I find so frustrating about your side, you can’t bite anything properly.”

“I thought you bit great, actually.” Dash grinned. “Totally worth the bruises.”

“I did well enough, given the circumstances, but I was hardly satisfied with that performance.” Rarity brushed her mane out of her eyes – eyes now focused on Dash’s neck. “Perhaps a demonstration would be easier?”

Rainbow offered her neck, but even that enthusiasm wasn’t enough. Rarity reached across the bed to twirl a hank of Rainbow’s dyed-red mane around her hoof and pull her head back, smiling wide when she got that sharp little gasp out of Rainbow she did from the last time they’d done this in very different bodies - and then she bit hard underneath Dash’s jaw, along the side, where the sinew ran down from the back of her ears, and Dash was swimming through stars.

The slight layer of fur took the sharpest edge of the teeth off, so Rarity could bite down way harder than last time before it started to cross the bad-pain threshold. Rarity squeezed as she flicked a tongue below the furline and directly against Dash’s skin underneath, and then when the pressure was enough to make a seal she suckled properly, and Dash’s ankles crossed over as she squeaked.

Rarity leaned back and wiped her lips. “See? I suppose bare skin is nice once you’ve had some experience, but for me it just feels too much like holding back.”

Dash pulled a pillow over her face while she recovered. “I hate this.”

“What?”

“It’s weird finding out I like anything about these bodies like that.”

“I should hope not.” Rarity tutted. “This is my real body, after all, at least to me. I would prefer you be open to the idea you might like it.”

Before Dash could say anything to that, or think anything about that, there was a grinding sound as Rarity’s second-story window was pulled open, and an absolutely incredible smelling paper bag hurtled through it. Rarity grabbed it with her magic before it could hit the far wall and brought it back over to the bed.

“Thank you, Twilight.” Rarity sang out happily, and the window slammed shut.

“You didn’t.” Dash stared at the bag, bursting out laughing. “You totally did!”

“Listen, she can teleport here from Canterlot and I cannot.” Rarity rummaged through the bag and spread the little plastic containers across the bed. “Drat. I’ll need to go get bowls. And forks. Don’t go anywhere.” Rarity pushed herself off the bed, much to Dash’s disappointment, and turned back thoughtfully. “Normally she just leaves it at the front door and knocks. Do you think she’s upset we didn’t invite her in?”

“You think she saw…” Dash pointed to her neck, and Rarity hovered beside the bed thinking about it.

“She most definitely did.” Rarity tapped her chin. “She’s likely more annoyed about that than anything. Maybe inviting her in would have just made things worse.” She gave Dash one last wicked look before making for the doorway. “Heavens, she might have thought I was joking, that would be a disaster.”

“Wait.” Dash sat up in bed, trying not to tip any of the containers over. “What do you mean you weren’t joking.”

But Rarity did not turn back, giving Dash no read on her as she closed the bedroom door behind herself. Dash fell back against the bed.

“I mean, I wouldn’t be into that though, right?” she asked herself. “Like, Rarity’s one thing, ‘cause I already like her. But the Princess is like, huge, and she’s got all that wing, and she’s—” Rainbow flushed, and glared at nothing. “She’s way more pony than most ponies are! Relax.” She was definitely still flushed.

Dash pulled the pillow back over her head and punched her face through it. “Nope. Nope. Don’t want pony threesomes. I got one exception. One! Exception. Two makes it a thing.” She thought about how long Twilight’s muzzle was, even longer than Rarity’s, and wondered… did she kiss it from the front and figure it out, or if she went around the sides… Not it hinged way back, right? She’d be able to fit all of Rainbow’s muzzle in hers, and then if Rainbow opened her mouth to kiss back-

She jumped halfway off the bed like a startled cat when Rarity came back with the bowls and plates. “You were thinking about Twilight that entire time, weren’t you?”

“And you!” Rainbow shot back. “I mean, no.”

“Mm.” Rarity crawled back into her spot on the far side of the bed, and her magic neatly distributed everything into serving bowls. One of them ended up on Rainbow’s lap. “On the one hoof, the romantic in me is charmed that you find me attractive enough to not care what body I’m in. On the other, I would like to know I’m desirable to you in every universe.” There was a competitive edge to her smile, a challenge she was going to win.

Dash sat up more, and Rarity pulled her leather jacket off her, pulling a spare coathanger from a wardrobe across the room and hanging it off the bedroom door handle for her. She kept the skirt on, though, the torn skirt that was just a bit too girly for her on its own. “I do, though.”

“Yes, you find me attractive.” Rarity sat back up on the bed, propping herself up against her pillows, and stabbed at a bowl of rice with a heavy green sauce Rainbow didn’t recognize, but smelled incredible. “That’s not the same thing. It’d be nice if you found the appeal in this species, just so you could appreciate what a truly exemplary specimen of it I am.”

Rainbow narrowed her eyes. She took a dark red bowl instead that smelled like cumin and fried onions and a bunch of other stuff she didn’t recognize. “Basically, you want me to find the Princess hot too, just so I can tell you you’re hotter?”

“Yes, obviously.” Rarity stabbed another bite of her food and gave Dash an expecting look.

“What if I think she’s hotter?” Dash took another bite of hers too to make it easier to keep a straight face. “As a pony, anyway.”

“I… well.” Rarity hesitated. There was a far-away look in her eyes as she stared straight ahead. “Really, I’ve done this to myself. She’s become unfair competition, since she replaced Celestia. She’s so tall now…”

“I was kidding, Rares.”

“You know how her mane ripples all the time, even in an airtight room?” Rarity continued, shaking. “Solar wind! Honestly.”

Rainbow balanced her food on her lap so she could lean over and kiss Rarity’s cheek. “Does it help that you’re the only two I could maybe think of as hot, even when you’re ponies?”

Rarity’s eyes cleared, and she snapped back to herself again. “I think I can work with that, yes.” She gave Rainbow a narrowed-eyed look. “Maybe?”

“Maybe,” Dash repeated, shoveling another mouthful so she didn’t have to say more. Except Rarity just started waiting for her to finish, so Dash had to start chewing slower and slower to get out of it. She was lucky it tasted so good. Rarity broke first.

“I was joking about inviting Twilight in,” she said. “Thinking about it more, though…”

Dash choked on her bite so hard bits of rice went up the back of her nose. Rarity had to thump her back to help her splutter it the rest of the way out. “You’re not really thinking about it, are you?”

“Only because I’m surprised at how much you did.” Rarity leaned across and stole a bite of Rainbow’s choice of dark red stuff, and hummed happily. “Well picked.” Rainbow held a fork in a wingtip and tried to steal some of Rarity’s back, but she used her own to deflect Rainbow’s with a fencing parry. “Ah-ah.”

Rainbow went for another strike, and Rarity deflected expertly again. Rainbow flicked her wingtip up, but when Rarity rose to meet it, she brought it down faster than Rarity could change course and manage to get a scoop around Rarity’s shrieked protest. “Hey! That’s mine!” Dash sprayed sticky rice over the top layer of bedsheets, which Rarity started picking up with her magic while Rainbow stole a bite.

Spinach! That’s what made it so green, there was spinach and—wow, it was really good too.

“It’s not just that it’s Twilight,” Dash finally admitted. “I mean, seeing her be good with Pinkie kind of makes me a bit jealous, but it’s not that. It’s more like, it’s thinking about the two of you together? Like—” Then Dash realized what she was saying, and her mouth clamped shut.

Rarity put her food down to crawl closer to her on the bed, eyes wide and shining. “Go on,” she demanded, face inches from Dash’s. Dash gulped.

“It’s just, you know what you two are like as a team, right?” Dash nervously stirred what was left of her food without eating it, toying with it. “It’d be like, both of you giving each other advice, suggestions, trying to one up each other. Like she’s being smart and you’re being creative and you’re both…” Dash tried to think of how to say it, and flushed right to the tips of her ears. “Really good at sharing.”

Rarity’s eyes sparkled. “Ah,” she said, at last. “I have never felt so profoundly flattered by someone explaining why they’d want to sleep with someone else.”

Dash snort-laughed at that. “Well, why were you thinking about it?”

Rarity grinned. “I was thinking how fun it would be to win.”

Rainbow almost choked on her rice again, but she was ready for it that time. “What if we ganged up on you, though?”

Rarity considered it. “No, I don’t think you have a chance at that.”

“What do you mean?” Rainbow sat up straighter, suddenly serious. “Maybe I can’t take you on my own, but with the both of us—”

But Rarity was already shaking her head. “No, you’d need to convince Twilight to change sides. You’d have an easier time convincing me to gang up on Twilight with you,” Rarity licked her lips. “It would be fun to make her beg… But you and her against me? Hardly.”

Rainbow glared, but she looked within herself and wondered. No matter how the math played out in her head, though, she could work out ways Rarity could take both of them, or Twilight could take both of them, but none where she could take out either of them. She had no bargaining power, except… “I think Twilight would totally side with me,” Rainbow said, “if she thought you needed to be knocked down a peg.”

“Moi?” Rarity sat up straight, her ears pricked high and an indignant hoof to her chest. “I will have you know that while I have a very healthy self-esteem, it’s only because I really am as good as I say.”

Dash started to move, stopped, and gave Rarity a meaningful look. Rarity used her magic to clear all the food off the bed and move their bowls to side tables so Rainbow could pounce on her, pinning Rarity’s wrists beside her head and climbing on top of her. Rarity squealed in surprise and indignant outrage: the pounce had been a complete ambush she had no way to know was coming.

That was kind of the best thing with Rarity: there were pro-wrestlers that couldn’t match her for kayfabe. They were the only two of their friends that understood it didn’t matter if an act was believable or not, the only thing that mattered was how hard you were willing to commit to it anyway.

Rainbow looked down at Rarity. “Maybe it’s not about you needing to be taken down a peg,” She peppered Rarity’s neck with kisses. “Maybe it’s just that it’d be fun to see it.”

“No! You brute!” Rarity struggled against Rainbow’s hooves. “You savage. You dare remove me from my rightful place?”

“You’re looking great where you are,” Rainbow kissed the other side of Rarity’s neck and appreciated what she meant by just how much more of it there was than usual. She could work her way up or down the length of it and just keep going if she paced herself. “Looking pretty rightful to me.”

“You think?” Rarity batted her eyelashes, and Rainbow stopped kissing so she could lean back and show Rarity she was looking her up and down, taking her seriously.

“Yeah, looks rightful from here.”

“Hmm.” Rarity gave a doe-eyed look up at Dash, holding her forelegs up together in a pleading, innocent way. “What would you say looks most rightful about me?”

Dash froze and looked down. “Ah, it’s got to be your…” She thought about it. She couldn’t get over that she was looking at a pony. Like, did she find Rarity hot? Yes. Obviously. Still, trying to think of reasons why still broke her brain. If it was a human body she could say stuff like hips, or curves, or stuff about her chest, or all sorts of things. But trying to break Rarity down into pieces she liked, removing them from the whole? The whole was what was giving her permission to like the pieces! Just saying she liked Rarity’s legs was too much like saying she liked pony legs.

“Tsk.” Rarity’s forelegs dropped away, and her eyes sparkled in that way they did when she was doing something mean. “Too late.”

Rarity pulled Rainbow up with her magic, flipped upside down, and slammed her back down into the mattress like a meteorite. Then she crawled next to her and traced the tip of her hoof in lovehearts around Rainbow’s chest. It felt very, very nice actually.

Rainbow kept waiting for Rarity to climb on top of her, like she’d done, but she seemed to be too happy to just sit by Rainbow’s side, holding her down with magic and drinking in the sight of her. Climbing on top would ruin her view, it seemed.

“You were doing so well, too.” Rarity pressed down on Rainbow’s ribs a bit harder. “If you’d thought a little quicker, I would have accepted ‘how you look beneath me’.”

Rainbow kicked herself. That would have been a good answer. “I was being way too literal with it.”

“I could tell.” Rarity went back to her languid trace of love-hearts against Dash’s chest. “It’s actually gotten quite funny, now.”

“What?” Dash asked, putting up a token resistance against her bindings. “What has?”

“The denial.” Rarity stopped her tracing again, and Dash was starting to get so used to the touch she felt empty when it was pulled away. “It would be one thing if you were just trying to spare my feelings, but every time we get a bit more intimate I catch you staring. Now the problem is no longer getting you to see the appeal, it’s getting you to say it.”

Dash’s resistance against her bindings became a lot more sincere, but Rarity held. “No! You’ll never get it out of me alive! Hang me, draw me, quarter me, I’ll never admit I’m into ponies!”

“Admit it,” Rarity echoed, and her touch returned to Rainbow’s chest, and her hoof was warm. “Even in your denial, you confess.”

“Twist my words, twist my arm, see where any of it gets you, you… twisted witch!” Rainbow snapped, and Rarity gave a happy click of her tongue.

“Inspired, aren’t we?” The tip of her hoof trailed up, up Rainbow’s neck and under her jaw, tilting her chin up to force her to look Rarity in the eye. “Why must you make this so much harder on yourself than it needs to be?”

“I dunno.” Dash shrugged, and her bindings went slack. “Just, what’s in it for me, I guess? It’s kind of weird, and everyone back home’s going to laugh at me. It’s bad enough everyone’s going to make fun of me for liking ponies, it’d be worse if it’s true.”

“What’s in it for….” Rarity shook her head in disbelief of the question, then leaned closer to Dash and fluttered her eyelashes with a lazy, languid smile. “Why, you get me, of course.”

Dash considered this for less than a second before kicking away every conviction and ounce of self preservation out of her body, like ballast over the side rail of a sinking ship.

“I love your legs. I want to bury my face in your fur and just rub all over it. Pony ears are way, way better than human ears and I can’t stop thinking about how awesome that’d feel to nibble on. The muzzle stuff is still super weird to me for kissing but I think of, like, how good it might feel other places and my whole brain fogs over. Also my wings are super sensitive, it’s like having three backs and two of them explode when you touch them. I kind of want to lick your horn like it’s an ice cream cone? Also the magic is, it’s as cool as you made it out to be and you haven’t even done anything yet. Hooves are still weirding me out and the like, crotch tits stuff is a huge turn off but I’m kind of big into doing stuff with my mouth anyway if you hadn’t noticed, I mean, I kind of make it obvious? And the fact that it’s way, way better at doing stuff now makes it way easier to forgive the lack of fingers, even before the wing stuff. Also the range of motion is way better than I thought it’d be, like, our ponies just of just-” Rarity released the magic on Dash’s limbs so she could mime a Frankenstein walk over the bed, and then bound her again, “Like that, right? I can still just splay out like this, and it’s fantastic. I feel like I’ve got way less bones than I’m used to, but way more muscle, so I’m just super stretchy, and I want to know if you feel like that too-”

“I do.” Rarity agreed, making a ‘go on’ gesture, trying to interject without interrupting.

“Awesome,” Dash nodded, “That’s so cool. And like… What? Why’re you looking at me like that?”

“I’m just thinking about how pure my motivations for ravishing you are, right now.” Rarity kissed Rainbow on the lips. Close-lipped, short and tender. “I think I have proven, beyond a shadow of any doubt, that I know exactly who I am attracted to.” She kissed Rainbow again, and this time Rainbow’s lips followed after until the back of her head was lifted off the bed. “And I shall not make the mistake again of treating her otherwise.”