Tight Fit

There weren’t that many clouds to bust in the summer. And since Rainbow was paid by the dispersed volume, her mortgage would put her squarely into the red in those few months. As much as she’d love to lay about and bleach her coat a bit, she had to admit that it wouldn’t hurt to get an odd job now and then.

Or so she thought. Some jobs, it turns out, are more odd than others.

“Fogging hail!” Rainbow swore as she stumbled through the air, wrestling with her new outfit. The suit covered her hoof to neck, tightened around all the wrong kinds of places, and chafed like an expletive that would be very much unsuitable for any kind of audience. After all, she was on the cusp of becoming a Wonderbolt cadet this autumn. She'd have to learn to keep appearances.

The forest clearing she was supposed to be landing on was just ahead, and she wasn’t keen on making another pass. On any other day, she’d be there in a jiffy, maybe even landing on a copper bit. Possibly with a flashy pirouette in case anypony was looking.

Today, she just slowed down, swore as the weight of her clothes pulled her down, compensated to pull up, lost air speed, almost tripped over the treetops, swore again, desperately flapped her wings, swore for the third time as the base of her wings tangled in the suit, and landed with all the grace of a particularly foul-mouthed brick.

Rainbow Dash climbed out of the short furrow she’d dug, decided that her schedule would allow for additional fifteen seconds of swearing, and let out a deluge of sounds some could possibly consider to be words.

Her immediate ire spent, she took a deep breath. You’re a professional, Dash, she reminded herself, still huffing and puffing. Just like a Wonderbolt. You want to get into the Wonderbolts, don’t you?

“Right!” she agreed with herself and set out for the task at hoof. “Now where is that…” she patted her new ‘uniform’ and grumbled. From her neck down to her hooves, the outfit was all straps, pockets, zippers, patches, or combinations thereof. “I look ridiculous,” she muttered as she finally found a small pouch in a triangular pocket across her left thigh.

She’d put it there five hours ago as she was leaving Tall Tale. She’d been absent-minded as always, and only had herself to blame for it missing. “Unwashed unicorns!” She blamed her employer, and bit her lip. Swearing at the clouds was cool, but swearing at ponies wasn’t. She nodded to herself and walked to the middle of the clearing, pulling her goggles down to her neck.

Inside the pouch was a large, semicircular gemstone in an ornate setting. She placed it on the ground and took a quick step away. Nothing happened. “Stupid magic!” Rainbow swore again and tried to remember the instructions. Twilight mentioned gem flares once, but apparently, they were illegal near settlements. According to her, they gave unicorns horrible headaches.

In a minute or two, Rainbow remembered there were two parts to the flare. She groaned, and patted herself down, finally finding the other gem-in-a-pouch. This one was blue, and the setting was the mirror image of the first one. She put the two side by side, and they snapped together. Rainbow’s hair stood up with some unseen force, and she stepped back just as the gems began producing a harsh, multicolored light.

Rainbow shielded her eyes as the gems hovered into the air and flashed brighter than the sun. A loud crack! and a spray of wet dirt later, the now-coughing pegasus blinked the blindness away.

A pony stood in the middle of the clearing, surrounded by several large bags. He wobbled, smiled uneasily, took a step forward, and began to topple forward. Without thinking, Rainbow rushed forward and caught him, before setting him down.

“Hey, don’t die, you gotta pay me first!” she slapped his cheek. She didn’t remember if he was always this pale, or this gaunt. Just put on a few pounds, she thought as the unicorn coughed, then pushed a curl of his hair out of his eyes.

“Oh, the prototype!” he was staring down at her, eyes glistening.

Rainbow rolled her eyes and let him fall onto the ground. She stood up and took a step back. “In all its glory,” she stated mockingly, stretching.

The unicorn nodded, and positively jumped to his hooves, still staring at Rainbow’s body. “Good, good! How did it go?”

Before she could say anything, the unicorn was on her, staring at various places with intent that was positively unseemly under the circumstances. “Hey!” Rainbow yelled. “Eyes up here!”

The unicorn locked eyes with her, and Dash froze. He was smiling – grinning ear to ear, in fact, as genuine as Pinkie Pie got. But his eyes were different – that stare was that of a hawk. Those green eyes bore into Rainbow’s, filled with some deep, inner fire. “How did it go?” he repeated, almost whispering.

Rainbow blinked, and shook her head, turning to the bags to hide her discomfort. “It sucks for flying,” she stated bluntly. As he got his bearings, she walked to one of the bundles the unicorn came with, and started unwrapping it.

“Oh, tell me all about it!” the pony walked beside her, and she could feel that stare on her again.

“It’s loose in all the wrong places,” Rainbow enumerated as she undid the straps and freed the tent out of its bag. “It’s uncomfortable, and tight around my—” she paused, and coughed. “In the wrong places. Are you gonna pitch a tent?” Phrasing, Rainbow. “I mean, the sun’s going down.”

The unicorn nodded absently and his horn hummed. The other tent began unfolding by itself, and assembling into a vaguely triangular shape. “I’m sure I can adjust the dimensions,” the unicorn muttered, and Rainbow felt a hoof touch her side.

“Hey!” she protested as a strap tightened across her midsection. “Is this really—” Another tug made the suit rub around the base of her wings in a way that made her bite her lip. Good thing, too, since the next few adjustments mostly concerned her thighs, and—

“Okay, stop,” she stepped away.

The unicorn looked up, then down, his eyes widened, and a blush put some color to his in sunken cheeks. “Oh! I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“I am not sleeping in this thing,” Rainbow said icily. “So unless you want your ‘prototype’ torn up, you better start unstrapping it.”

The tent fell to the ground. “Of course!” Tendrils of magic hummed across her body, straps and zippers vibrating in ways the pegasus found unusual and strangely pleasant. Or maybe it was the sense of tightness disappearing. Whatever it was, Rainbow sighed in contentment when it was done.

“Finally,” she grumbled, and shook the now-opened layer off of her. As she did, the underlayer squeaked, and she groaned again. “Is that necessary?” She poked at it. The whole surface was covered with a network of tubing, filled with some sort of liquid and moving slightly.

“I’m afraid so,” he replied, “unless you want to get a heatstroke.” A long zipper across her chest opened, and the tubing disconnected, with the underlayer opening like the petals of a plant.

Rainbow Dash stepped out of the front hooves of the suit, then out of the back. “It chafes a lot,” she complained. “And all those tubes…” She decided not to mention the tubes had a bad habit of bunching up in various crevices, and seemingly moving on their own.

“Right,” the pony nodded and coughed. “Right!” his smile came back on. “I know what to do about that I think! I’ll have it ready by the morning.”

“Focus, Twily,” Rainbow sighed.

“Twily?” the unicorn blinked.

“She’s a friend,” Dash smirked. “She’s a nerd, too. Let’s set up those tents, I need some shuteye.” And a backrub, she realized, but that ain’t happening.

The pony nodded, his magic hummed, and the tent began to pitch itself again. Yeah, that's how those usually go, Rainbow thought, and chuckled at her own joke.

Rainbow had the satisfaction of finishing long before the unicorn, and helping his fancy magic with her good ol’ hooves. “You don’t go out on a lot of hikes, do ya?” she asked as she grabbed his tent, and turned it the right side out.

“Not since school, no,” he replied, hovering sticks to her. “I’m way too busy.”

“With the suit?”

“Yeah!” he nodded vigorously. “I’ve been working on that thing a year now. Enchanted the tubes and everything.” He paused, and rubbed his neck. “Just gotta test it, you know? Even if it’s not… uh… you know. Finished.”

Rainbow laughed. “At least you admit that,” she looked at it again. “So why a flight suit, of all things?” She frowned, remembering the various ponies who had made suits for the Wonderbolts throughought the years. “There are plenty of those out there.”

“Not like this one!” the unicorn smiled. “Environmental control, resilient materials, excellent aerodynamics…”

“I take it that those are still on the drawing board,” Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “All those zippers and stuff make an awful lot of wind noise, you know?”

“Right! I’ll keep it in mind, thanks!” For a moment, he stood, and stared off into space, then nodded quickly. “I… have a few ideas.” He smiled. “You can do a lot with the right material.”

“Right…” Rainbow replied uncertainly. “So… what’s the rush? Can't you just work on the thing for a month or two?”

“I’m… uh…” the unicorn blushed again. “I’m kinda running out of bits…”

Rainbow stopped and set down the tent cord. “And you were going to tell me when?”

“Oh, I still have enough to pay you!” the unicorn waved his hooves defensively, before wincing. “Just, uh, not much after that, you know? Once we get to Canterlot,” he shrugged. “Well, the plan was to hope I’d have enough to get the suit dry-cleaned, patch up any holes, and present it to the Wonderbolts.”

Rainbow blinked. “The Wonderbolts?!” she said awed surprise. “That’s… uh… a bit ambitious, isn’t it?”

“They are the best,” the unicorn said matter-of-factly. “If they think I’ve done well enough, well, then it’s the truth.”

Rainbow just nodded, remembering her own continuing attempts to get into the ‘bolts good graces. “Good luck,” she said, and meant it.

They finished pitching the tents, and Rainbow quickly disappeared inside hers. It had really been a long day, first flying all the way to Tall Tale and then north after meeting with the unicorn. And it would be a long day tomorrow. As she chewed on a protein bar, she listened to the distant hum of magic, snipping of scissors, and gentle tinkling of metal mixing in with the evening sound of the forest. It was almost like relaxing in the spa, listening to Rarity’s shop across the street.

The sounds sent her off to sleep before she knew it. She had dreams she would not remember, filled with warm embraces, leaving her to wake with a heart racing and cheeks blushing, for reasons she could not place.

She stretched, and headed out. The unicorn, covered with layers of cloth, lay on an impromptu workbench he’d made from some suitcases. He was drooling over his own prototype. Literally, this time, Rainbow thought with a smirk and a chortle that woke the other pony up.

“Morning,” she said. “Did you bring any coffee?”

He yawned. “It’s in there somewhere…” he blinked the sleep out of his eyes and stood up shakily. Rainbow’s eyes inadvertently glanced down, and widened at a purely male byproduct of an expeditious awakening, now dangling impressively between the gaunt unicorn’s legs. A second later, he was blushing, sitting, and pointing at a duffel bag by Rainbow’s tent.

Rainbow turned quicker than would be cool and collected, and made sure to pay as much attention to the bag as possible, hoping the unicorn would make himself presentable. Not all of him is thin, a voice in her head noted as she rummaged through the bag. Apparently, the unicorn's idea of travel food was canned mushrooms. In a side pocket of the bag, Rainbow found a can opener, a fork, and a large, ugly knife with serrated edge and a tacky pink handle. The thought of breakfast made her stomach grumble, but she wasn’t keen on turning around just yet.

“I can't find the coffee,” Rainbow said instead. "There's a brook nearby," she continued, remembering her flyover. “I’ll… uh… go fetch some water.”

Wordlessly, the unicorn hovered a water bag to her. She grabbed it in her mouth, and flew off without as much as a glance back. She didn’t know how much time guys needed for that morning issue to get fixed, so she was in no hurry.

The water was pristine, and a small pond glistening in the sun seemed positively inviting. After a moment, the pegasus thought why not, and dove in. The morning water was cool and refreshing, chasing the memories of yesterday’s foam out of her matted fur, and the twinge of the morning’s surprise out of her nethers. She swam across a couple of times to warm herself up, and dove occasionally to wash herself properly. Once she was done, she climbed out and filled the water bag, heading back to camp on hoof.

The unicorn had already set up a small campfire, and took the bag with a thankful nod. A few minutes later, the smell of coffee and mushrooms filled the clearing, and soon enough, they were breakfasting in silence.

“So, what next?” Rainbow asked after a few minutes, playing with an empty can. “We’re at least a day from Canterlot.” With a frown, she pointed at the flight suit prototype. “Or more if I’m wearing that thing,”

“I’ve made some modifications,” the unicorn said, swallowing his food. “And I think I can configure it better for the next leg of the journey.” A tinge of magic brought in a rolled up parchment, which turned into a surprisingly detailed map north-western Equestria.

“You’re going to fly north,” the unicorn indicated, “as far as you can to the mountains.”

“North?” Rainbow asked. “But Canterlot is east of here.”

“I need the suit tested in a cold climate,” the unicorn explained, and smiled. “You are paid by the day, aren’t you?”

Rainbow nodded. “You’re the boss. So, you want me to take the gem thingamagicks again?”

He nodded. “Yes, same as before – just find a clearing, set up the flare, and I’ll teleport in the supplies. I'll prepare things on this end while you're en route.”

She nodded, and stood up. “Alright. Let’s go – time’s a wastin’.”