The Part Where Things Are Complicated
Rainbow Dash nudged the door open with her shoulder and entered the locker room, squinting through the collected steam and trying not to lose the towel she had balanced behind her neck. She’d thought she heard voices when she flew up to the front of the building, and sure enough, the rest of her academy squad was already inside, thoroughly engrossed in various acts of incomprehensible femininity. Raindrops was tugging at her mane with a hairbrush by the sink, Sunny Day stood by her side in a fluffy pink bathrobe just a shade darker than her coat, and judging by the wide variety of mane care products lined up outside the shower, the thick fog choking the air could probably be blamed on Cloudchaser. Rolling her eyes at the sight, Rainbow Dash headed for the last free sink in the row and hoped she’d slip by unnoticed. Chatterboxes, she could deal with. Makeovers and manestyling? Not so much.
“So yeah, usually I don’t even have to do anything. It just stays straight kinda by itself,” Sunny said, dabbing at her fringe with her hooves before turning to grin at the bathroom’s newest occupant. “Hey, Rainbow Dash!”
Rainbow gave a half-hearted wave and let the conversation carry on without her. Her mane didn’t look any different than usual: thin, loose, and uncomplicated, just the way she liked it. Besides, what would be the point of fixing it if they were all about to hit the sack anyway? She was just here for a quick mint leaf and a jump in the shower. The rest of them could spend all night here if they wanted; she, on the other hand, planned on getting plenty of rest so she could be the first one out on the runway tomorrow morning. Not to mention, her wing still ached from when she’d smacked it in that canyon during the exercise that afternoon.
“You’re so—ow!—lucky, Sunny,” Raindrops bemoaned, wincing as the brush caught on a knot between her ears. “Stars, I’d pull night shifts for a month if I could just—ooh...”
“Here, lemme help you with that,” Sunny offered, grabbing the brush out Raindrops’ hooves with her teeth and gently guiding it the rest of the way down the other pony’s neck. A relieved grin lit up Raindrops’ face, and she graciously offered her thanks.
“It just gets so tangled every time I fly faster than normal,” she explained. “I don’t know, I guess I’m just not used to practicing this long.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Rainbow saw Sunny nod sympathetically. “Yeah, you said you were a mailpony, right?”
“Born and raised. ‘Member that big magic blackout in ‘49?”
“Uh... no.”
“I’m pretty sure we weren’t alive in ‘49,” a voice from behind the curtain remarked. Yep, definitely Cloudchaser.
“I know that,” Raindrops argued back. “I mean you know what it was, right?”
The brush paused in midair. “Uh...”
“Aw, c’mon!” Raindrops shouted, the tail end of her complaint rising in an indignant squeak. She was laughing beneath it, though, and so was Sunny Day.
“I always slept through history class, are you kidding me?” Sunny mumbled in between giggles.
“What I was gonna say-”
“Look at this kid,” Cloudchaser interrupted again. “Going to history class.”
“What I was gonna say... oh, forget it,” Raindrops groaned.
Sunny Day stuck her hoof over her mouth and tried to bend the smile off her face, but the brush still lodged inside it made the gesture a little clumsier than she’d probably hoped. “No-no-no, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she managed to stammer. “I wanna hear.”
Raindrops turned away from Sunny and faced the occupied shower. “Do you wanna hear, Cloudchaser?”
The pattering, splashing sound of water spraying from flapping wings filled the room, and Cloudchaser’s dripping head appeared above the curtain rod. “Not really, but I’ll totally fake it if you pass me the hoof wax,” she said. Sunny gave her a look that seemed to have absolutely no effect, then rolled her eyes and kicked a nearby tub of creamy white goo towards the shower. Cloudchaser grabbed it, sang out, “Carry on!” and disappeared again.
“I was just gonna say my grandma flew letters from Canterlot all the way to Hoofington and back for a few days,” Raindrops said a bit morosely. “I always wanted to be like her. That’s it. Story’s over.”
“Meh,” the shower curtain commented. “The movie was better.”
Sunny shot another glare at the shower for Raindrops’ shake, but Rainbow could see pretty clearly how hard she was biting her lip. “Oh my gosh, you’re awful, Chaser!” she squealed before giving Raindrops’ mane one last gentle stroke with the brush and fluffing up the tail end for effect. “Well, I think that’s really cool,” she assured her manestyling client. “All I’ve ever delivered is flowers. Guess somepony thought I was pretty fast at it.”
The conversation ground to a halt, and the uncomfortable silence that followed reminded Rainbow Dash that she hadn’t come in here to eavesdrop on her fellow recruits. Unfortunately for her productivity, it also reminded Sunny Day that there was a fourth pony in the room. “You’re on the Ponyville weather team, right, Rainbow?” she asked.
An off-putting affirmative answer was already on its way through Rainbow’s lips when Chaser cut her off before she could get a word in edgewise. “Hay yeah, she is!” she boasted, sticking her head around the curtain to direct a celebratory hoof-pump towards her boss. “Best team leader ever, too! No wonder you guys schooled us at capture the flag today.”
“You mean Rainbow and Lightning schooled us,” Raindrops added with a meek half-smile. “Thunderlane and I hardly found any.”
Great. Now it felt like she was ragging on Raindrops too. “Don’t worry about it,” Rainbow tried to say before a flash of pain in her wing sent her teeth clacking together in mid-syllable. “Every bit... counts,” she finished a moment later with a lot less gusto and a lot more of a forced grin. None of the ponies she was talking to bought it for a second.
“You okay?” Raindrops asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Rainbow replied quickly. “Banged my wing a little bit. Not too bad. I’ll be fine.”
“You want me to look at it?” Sunny offered.
“No, seriously, it’s co-”
“I wanna look at it.”
“I really don’t-”
“You’re not gonna win this one, boss,” Cloudchaser advised in a deadpan. Rainbow completed her team member’s trifecta of nasty looks, and kept making excuses right up until the moment Sunny Day’s hoof grazed her busted wing.
“Look, you’re really nice and all, but I just wanna go to bed and get some rest so I can-oooooowwwwwkay, that didn’t hurt.”
Sunny Day snorted, and the steam hanging overhead suddenly seemed a lot warmer than before. “Oh, stop acting all macho,” she scoffed at Rainbow, her hoofs gently prodding at her wing as she grit her teeth again and tried her best to imitate a cockatrice victim. “Spitfire isn’t even here right now.”
“Not like she’d come into the fillies’ locker room with us to begin with, right?” Raindrops threw in with something very close to resembling sarcasm, her comment seemingly meant for Cloudchaser judging by where her sideways glance was pointed. Cloudchaser, for what it was worth, seemed amused.
“Man, and here I was thinking that rough voice’a hers was just hormones...” she chuckled. The proper dots in Raindrops’ mind took a moment to get connected, and by the time they did, every other pony in the room was just barely succeeding at keeping a straight face.
“What does that... oh. O-oh horseapples, I-I didn’t mean...”
Correction: completely failing at keeping a straight face. “I didn’t mean it like that!” Raindrops shouted, her eyes wide and her face a vibrant shade of scarlet.
“Relax, Raindrops,” Sunny Day said once she’d wiped the tears from her eyes. “She can’t hear you.”
“Unless she wants to hear you,” Cloudchaser suggested with an impish grin. Finally, Sunny seemed to stop playing dumb to the snide mare’s games.
“Give her a rest, Cloudchaser,” she said. “And gimme my hoofwax back.” After seeing the other mare’s irreverent shrug and watching her tub of wax skid across the floor again, she turned her attention back to Rainbow’s wings, and soon after seemed to find whatever it was she’d been poking around for. “Aha. You’ve got a couple coverts bent out of shape in here.”
“Really?” Rainbow Dash couldn’t help but ask. She’d made sure to give herself as thorough a checkup as she could before coming in here. The cloud shower would’ve stung like all get-out if she’d gotten in like that. “Thought I got ‘em a-ooooooohhhhh, wow.”
Sunny Day’s methods were quick and brutal, but inarguably effective. As Sunny Day spit out the feathers she’d just yanked from her companion’s wing, Rainbow Dash reveled in the joy of not feeling like she had a two-by-four speared through her pinion. She could be thankful too that it wasn’t a sprain or something worse; a couple missing feathers wouldn’t keep her out of the air, and Twilight could grow them back once she got home anyway.
“Stars above, are you two making out out there?” Cloudchaser shouted over Rainbow’s blissful thoughts. “Am I missing this?”
Rainbow turned back to Sunny Day, and found herself liking the peachy-maned mare a little more when they both cocked an eyebrow at the same time. “Such a dirty mind, Chaser,” Sunny Day teased back. “I bet Thunderlane loves that about you.”
Cloudchaser made some noise of protest, but Raindrops’ shocked exclamation drowned out whatever it was. “Her cousin?”
Now it was Cloudchaser’s turn to cut off Sunny Day. “Okay, first of all,” she said, snapping the curtain back as she hopped out of the shower with towels wrapped around her waist and mane, “he’s not my cousin. More like my... sorta... I don’t know what he is, but we’re not related. Our families just know each other from way back. ‘Sides, my little sis Flitter’s had a crush on him since she was a foal. Still gets a little hot under the collar every time he flies by.”
“Oh,” Raindrops mumbled. “Really?” She was trying to hide the crushed look on her face and, as Rainbow couldn’t help but notice, not doing too good a job at it. To her credit, though, Cloudchaser seemed to sense that teasing her about it wasn’t the right route to take. The twin holes Sunny’s glare was boring into her chest probably helped her make up her mind too.
“W-Well, it’s... not like he’s off the market or anything,” she said. “Actually, I don’t think he’s all that into her. We’re kinda like brother and sisters who just... hang out. A lot. And aren’t related.” She cleared her throat and looked for a sign that she’d done enough from Sunny Day. Somehow, the accent of her fuzzy pink robe just made her sky-blue eyes look extra intense. “Geez, I don’t tell you how to live your life,” Chaser muttered before pulling her mane towel over her face.
“Do you have a coltfriend back home, Sunny?” Raindrops asked once Cloudchaser noticed them all watching her and made a rude gesture with her forehooves. Seeing that she seemed to have successfully escaped the conversation, Rainbow Dash picked a fluoride-treated mint leaf out of her bag and started chewing, one ear still tuned in to hear Sunny Day’s response out of inescapable curiosity.
“Not at the moment,” Sunny replied. “There’s a couple cute guys at work, and I was pen pals with this one unicorn from Trottingham when I was in flight school, but... I dunno, it just didn’t work out. It’s always weird, trying to flirt with a guy who isn’t a pegasus. I mean, I always end up talking about catching updrafts and aerial maneuvers, and I guess they always try to sound interested, but it never clicks.”
“Tell me about it,” Chaser agreed. “Ever tried making out with an earth pony at two thousand feet? Dude was petrified. Stiff as a board in every place but one. Talk about an awkward first date.”
“Can’t... say I’ve tried that either,” Sunny said, though with a bit of an edge to her voice that bordered on judgmental.
“Oh, c’mon, it ain’t that racy. Not like I slept with the guy,” Chaser retorted. “A bit of necking on Solstice Eve never hurt anybo-”
Chaser fell silent, and Rainbow turned around just in time to see the door swing shut behind the reason why. True to her name, Lightning Dust’s presence seemed to electrify the air in the room. Rainbow had never met a mare who seemed to just ooze confidence like that—well, except for maybe herself. Eyeing the rest of the room with what looked like a practiced look of disinterest, Lightning made her the way to the last sink in the row, the one right next to Rainbow Dash. For a moment, Sunny opened her mouth like she was about to greet her, then seemed to think better of it and went back to picking at her teeth. A good thirty seconds of silence passed, and then, of all ponies, Raindrops was the one who broke it.
“I’ve never kissed anypony,” she admitted, her voice so small it nearly got lost in the humid cloud still hanging overhead.
“Lack of opportunity, or lack of options?” Chaser asked. Her tone was purely conversational this time, and Raindrops’ shy smile seemed to indicate that she’d noticed.
“Both, kind of,” she said. “I guess I always wanted it to be special, for it to be just the right stallion at just the right time, and it... hasn’t happened yet. No butterflies in my stomach or wings popping...”
“Till Thunderlane?”
That clammed Rain right up again, but for the first time since she’d walked in, Rainbow saw a friendly grin cross Chaser’s lips. “Hey, just askin’, sister,” she said with a laugh. “Far as I know, he was looking forward to meeting some new mares here. You oughta give it a go. Worst case, I hear Snowflake’s single too.”
Raindrops bit her lip and snorted, slapping a hoof over her mouth a second too late to cover it up. “Besides,” Chaser went on, “ponies make the whole thing out like it’s way too big a deal. Honestly, it’s not even that great unless you’re with the right guy. It ain’t my style, sure, but there’s nothin’ wrong with only having one coltfriend your whole life if that’s what works for ya.”
“I take it you’ve had a few coltfriends, then?” Sunny interjected, wearing a sly smirk that Chaser matched a moment later.
“A few,” she teased back. “Mostly first base, couple’a doubles. No homers yet.” The other corner of her mouth twitched up. “In case you were wondering.”
“Thanks for the update,” Sunny intoned. “Same here, though. Call me sentimental—”
“‘Sappy’,” Chaser immediately called her.
“—but I figure I’ll wait till I’m married for that. I don’t think it’s a big deal either, just... risks versus rewards, I guess. What about you, Dash?”
“Hwhuh?” Rainbow garbled through the leaf bits burning against her gums. She’d registered her name being spoken at the same time she realized she’d probably lost half the taste buds on her tongue for how long the chewed-up mint leaf had been sitting on top of it.
“Got any romantic exploits worth writing to the paper about?”
Rainbow snagged a gulp of water and swished the leaf bits around, then spit the whole mess out into the sink. “Not really,” she answered quickly. “Few guys in flight school, couple failures-to-launch in Ponyville. Just waiting for the right stallion, same as you guys.”
Sunny smiled and nodded, then leaned forward a bit. “Lightning?”
Lightning glanced up from the mirror for only a moment. She had packed just as light as Dash: just mint leaves, a brush, and a small bottle of ointment for something or other. “I’ve been around,” she said nonchalantly, and after a few moments Sunny clued in to the fact that that was all she was gonna get.
“Well, it’s almost nine, and we’ve got an early start tomorrow,” she said, directing her next question at the other side of the room. “You two coming to bed any time soon?”
“Sure,” Raindrops answered.
“I’ll let you open the door for me. I’m beat,” Chaser added. “Catch ya tomorrow, Dash.”
“Later, Dash.”
“See you in the morning, Rainbow.”
The three other mares all left together, and then the room was finally silent. Though she didn’t hold any hard feelings towards any of her squadmates, Rainbow Dash still couldn’t help letting out a small sigh of relief. She’d never understood why other mares felt the need to talk so much in the locker room, let alone about that kind of stuff. First kisses? “Romantic exploits”? Who the hay cared about any of that? What did it matter who made out with who, or when, or for how long?
She let the matter stick in her mind for as long as it took to walk over to the shower Chaser had just left, then let it drop. If she hadn’t figured it out by now, she probably never would. The sky was blue, pegasi flew, Pinkie Pie was random, and most fillies liked to gossip in the bathroom. Maybe someday she’d get interested in a guy and things would take off, but for now she had bigger and more important things on her plate. Like impressing Spitfire. And making the Wonderbolts. And getting through with this shower before she passed out in the middle of it.
Stifling a yawn, Rainbow ducked behind the curtain and prodded the cloud overhead back to life. It was a pretty neat setup, she had to admit: the shower was technically open to the outside, but the hole in the roof was covered one of four thick, fluffy clouds that fed into each of the shower stalls and the sinks nearby. The clouds absorbed sunlight all day and stored it as heat for the water inside, which made for one of the best luxuries pegasus life had to offer. The instructors were tough and the food was tougher, but if there was one thing Rainbow Dash loved about the Wonderbolts Academy almost as much as getting into it in the first place, it was ending every day of muscle-destroying exercises and drills with an all-natural, blisteringly hot cloud shower.
The water beginning to drip out of this cloud was little more than a trickle, but still felt warm to the touch. That was all right; it’d probably take it a minute to get up to full strength. Not too long a wait. She turned around, snapped the curtain back, and nearly tripped over the lip of the stall trying to stop. Lightning was standing right in her path, almost—but not entirely—blocking her from getting out.
“Hi,” Rainbow said after a long, awkward pause.
“Hey,” Lightning replied.
“You, uh... you want the shower?”
“No, go ahead.”
Rainbow Dash cocked an eyebrow. Even with the way capture-the-flag had gone today, Lightning still seemed like a pretty cool pony, but this was way past quirky and toeing the line of becoming full-on weird. “Oh... kay, then,” she said. “You mind if I...”
Lightning cocked her own brow, then stepped aside. Rainbow shuffled past a bit faster than normal, a tiny tingly feeling working its way through her shoulder blades the whole time. She could feel Lightning’s eyes on her the whole way across the room.
“Man, today was killer,” Lightning said, just as Rainbow reached the sink where she’d left her towel. She tossed it over her shoulder and nodded.
“Yep,” she replied briskly.
“Ready to kick some more tail tomorrow?”
“Yeah, of... course.” Lightning was still standing in front of the shower. “Y’know, I’m pretty sure the other showers are empty.”
Lightning shrugged, turning her head to glance at Rainbow for just the briefest of seconds. “Kinda had my eye on this one.”
Rainbow grit her teeth and sucked in a heavy breath through her nose. “Look, if you want the shower-”
“You don’t have to give me the shower,” Lightning interrupted.
“Great. Awesome. Then if you don’t mind, I’m getting i-”
“Let’s just share it.”
Rainbow Dash was a lot of things, and speechless was almost never one of them. Yet here she was, jaw agape, staring at her lead pony and trying to think of some way—any way—she could possibly be misinterpreting that. She was joking, right? She must be joking. With that low, sultry voice, though? With the way she’d almost jumped in behind her when she went to kick the water on? With what she and the other cadets had been talking about right after Lightning slunk in without saying a word?
“I’m sure there’s room,” Lightning added, her tone now as casual as if she were discussing tomorrow’s forecast. Nope. No way. Her hunch was right. This was happening.
“Okay,” Rainbow said, choosing her words carefully so the weight she meant to give them was clearly communicated. “I’m just gonna assume you’re... kidding right now, and pretend this never happened.”
Another shrug, this time accompanied with a headshake and a seemingly emotionless smirk. “You’re not that stupid, Rainbow.”
“Well, whatever I am, I’m not what you think!” the wing pony spat. Her gut was boiling, the opposing instincts to fly or fight still jockeying for position inside it.
“Yeah, I can see that,” Lightning droned back. Stars above, why wouldn’t Lightning just look at her? What the hay was wrong with her?
“Is this just some head game or something?” Rainbow asked next. If anything, the bubbles in her stomach were just inflating even bigger. “What, are you mad I didn’t keep up with you today? Is that it? Am I supposed to repay you for letting you down or someth... what the hay are you trying to do?”
Finally, Lightning turned around. The look in her eyes was opaque, like a blackboard still showing the tracings of something hastily erased. “I’m not trying to-”
“No, you know what?” Now Rainbow’s gut had made up its mind. Now it was her turn to interrupt. “I know what you’re trying to do. And I’m not interested. I’m not that kind of pony. And most of all, I sure as horseapples am not gonna be your wing pony tomorrow. You got that?”
Rainbow waited for a reply, but none came. The fire in Lightning’s mane had moved down into her eyes, and right now Rainbow could’ve sworn it was taking the form of something like disapproval. Anger, even. Every muscle in Rainbow’s body grew taut, then exploded into action. She whirled around on the spot and was halfway out the door when Lightning shouted something after her.
“What are you afraid of?”
There was another Rainbow Dash never was: paralyzed. Tonight had marked a lot of firsts for her, in retrospect. “Not of you,” she snarled.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Lightning growled right back. “What are you afraid of?”
Rainbow whipped around, propping the door open with a flared wing. “I’m not afraid of anything!”
“Then why are you running?”
Rainbow’s mouth shot open to reply, but nothing came out. Her insides were beginning to twist into a knot again, but higher up this time, in the hollow space right behind her breastbone. “Gimme a break,” Lightning went on. “I must’ve met a hundred thousand different pegasi in my life, and not one single one of them could ever keep up with me before you. You rounded this place five hundred times without breaking a sweat, you cleared the Dizzitron faster than anypony these drill sergeants have ever heard of... stars above, I took a two-hundred-mile-per-hour nose dive through a crack in the ground the size of a fruit cart, and you followed me every inch of the way completely blind. Fly together? We could fight a war together and still be the last two standing when the sun went down. And now you want me to believe that after what I just said, after what I just asked you to do, you’re just gonna let that slide? You’re just gonna walk away?”
Rainbow’s whole body had gone rigid again, but the thought of channeling that energy into an attack might as well have been a fruitless daydream. She wanted to do it—every inch of her burned to do it—but the wispy, tenuous threads connecting ideas with actions refused to solidify, as if Lightning’s stare alone kept breaking it apart before her mind could tell her legs to act on it.
“I don’t really make a practice of this, you know,” Lightning informed her. “Quite frankly, there aren’t many stallions I’d consider doing this with, let alone mares. Which of course begs the question: why, of all ponies, did I pick you? I mean, if we’re being... objective here, you’re cute enough. Nice body, good muscle tone, probably fun to have to parties. Finer edges of the personality could be better, but then again, whose couldn’t? Yeah, you know what, Rainbow Dash? You’re all right. You’re fast, you’re friendly, you’re a one-of-a-kind no-holds-barred badass...”
The corners of Lightning’s mouth lifted up. “And I’ll bet you every bit I’ll ever own that you’ve lied awake at night asked yourself the same questions I have.”
The silence carried on for a good half-minute. Rainbow’s wings were outstretched on her back, one still resting against the open locker room door. She took a moment to swallow away the dryness building in her throat, then folded her wings against her sides and let the door swing shut. Lightning’s eyebrows jerked up for a split second, and her tail twitched right up at the base.
“You know what’s funny?” Lightning said with a chuckle. “If it were you here by the shower and me standing over there by the door, I’d be biting my lip and seething the same way you are right now.” She stepped away from the shower, slowly meandering towards the center of the room. “Suppose you could say that’s why I said what I did in the first place. The second I saw you standing next to me the first day here, I knew you. I knew what kind of mare you were. And now I know I was right.”
About a year ago, Rainbow Dash had run for miles through Whitetail Woods with her wings tied to her back by a thick coil of her friend Applejack’s rope. That same pressure, that same distant sense of being trapped even as the situation around her forced her to ignore the fact, was returning to her now. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Lightning came to a halt. “Again with the playing stupid, come on!” she grunted, her eyes squeezed shut in exasperation. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
“You tell me, then, if you’re so sure,” Rainbow bit back. It was a weak answer, but right now she’d say anything to fly back out the door, do anything to breathe again. But Lightning wasn’t quitting. She had her advantage, and she was going to press it.
“This isn’t about you,” she said. She was pacing again. One of her forehooves hovered off the ground, freed up for wild gestures that punctuated every sentence. “This isn’t about me, orus, or we. It’s about them. It’s about three mares who are completely comfortable knowing nothing about love, and one who stays quiet because she’s too proud to fake it. You wanna know what would’ve happened if I’d cornered Cloudchaser in here, or Raindrops, or Sunny Day? They would’ve laughed. They’ve would’ve blown it off. Chaser would play along till the joke went cold, Rain would figure I was making fun of her and shuffle off with her tail between her legs, and Sunny’s so moondamned happy-go-lucky I reckon she’d go and take it as a compliment. But you... what did you think I meant? What was the first thought to enter your head?”
Only the individual shower stalls had cloud-roofs in here, but for a moment Rainbow Dash could’ve sworn one of them had sprung a leak and splattered its ice-cold contents all over her back. “It’s not like... like I don’t like fillyfoolers or anything,” she struggled to say. “I’m not afraid of them.”
“And you’re not afraid of being one either,” Lightning added. The sympathy in her tone was surely manufactured, but although she recognized that in an instant, Rainbow still found it almost impossible to be sure. “To you or anypony you know, it wouldn’t matter if you were gay, straight, crooked, or sideways.” Lightning stopped again. A yard or two was all that separated her from her partner now. “You’re afraid of the choice between them. Of having to choose. Of not knowing how to choose.” She shuffled, shrugged, smirked. “Of the curiosity.”
The oddest sensation had come upon her: she could still feel the humid air of the locker room pressing against her skin and hear the faint patter of heated raindrops against the shower tile, but in spite of all that she still couldn’t quite believe that she was actually here. She felt detached from her own body, curious to see what happened next yet completely unconvinced it would actually happen to her. It was the same feeling she would’ve had if she’d been reading about this in a book somewhere, or hearing somepony else tell her the story of a story they’d heard a long time ago. And try as she might, some part of it didn’t add up. There was some part of Lightning’s tale that was too honest, too genuine to be anything but real.
“I get it.”
Rainbow Dash snapped out of her reverie just in time to see Lightning laugh. The lead pony’s eyes, though, never shifted to meet her partner’s. “C’mon, are you kidding me?” she scoffed. “We all have it. Even if it’s just for a second, lying in bed at night all alone, imagining what it might be like to share it with your best friend or worst enemy or, for what it’s worth, even your sibling. It’s the way our minds work. Possibilities fly into our heads, then fly right back out the other side as if they were never even there. We reject some of them, ignore others, and forget all the rest. The thoughts don’t stick, because they’re not supposed to.”
Now Lightning’s lips softened a bit. “But you can’t accept that. Your mind doesn’t work like that. You need to act. To decide. It’s why you’re so good at flying. It’s why you always keep it together when everyone around you is losing their mind. You don’t think. You don’t decide. You just react. And when a thought passes through your skull that you can’t just react to, that some tiny little part of you wants to think about, that’s when you choke.” Now, finally, Lightning’s eyes dropped. In the moment before they bored into those of her wing pony, Rainbow saw them twitch towards the door. “That’s when you run away.”
Suddenly, it all made painful, very real sense. She knew now why she hadn’t been able to understand half of what Lightning said, what had kept her from arguing against it, what had nailed her hooves to these tiles and set little pins pricking into every nerve of her body: fear. But not of what Lightning wanted to do to her. Not even of the thought that she might have to fight off one of the closest friends she’d ever made. It was exactly what Lightning had said all along: the curiosity. The big voice locked inside her throat screaming “No!”, and the little one in the back of her mind asking “Why not?”
How was she supposed to know which one was right? How could a question as simple as the one Lightning kept skirting around asking turn into something so complicated? And what in Celestia’s name was she supposed to tell Lightning when she eventually demanded an answer? Her words were so fluent, so flawless; she’d guessed each twist and turn this conversation would take, and steered through every one like a seasoned pro. How long had she been planning this? How long had she thought through exactly how she would get her wingpony into this precise spot?
“It was just a thought,” she said weakly. “Just one of those things I’ve always wondered about. I knew I was never gonna try having... being with another mare.”
“How?”
Though the rest of her was trembling, Rainbow still managed a scowl. “What d’you mean, how?”
“How did you know?” Lightning asked her again.
“Well, it’s not like I could just walk up to one of my friends and ask them to sleep with me!” Rainbow shouted.
“We’re not friends.” When she saw the look on Rainbow’s face, Lightning clarified. “What I mean is, we’ve known each other for two days. We’re acquaintances. Circumstantial roommates. We could leave the academy at the end of the week and never see each other again.”
“What if someone found out?”
“What if they didn’t?”
“What if I don’t like it?”
“What if you do?”
“What if-”
“What if you never stop asking yourself that question?” Lightning snapped. “What if you turn around and leave right now and spend the whole week wondering what you gave up? What if you go the entire rest of your life reliving this moment, trying again and again to make the choice you couldn’t right now? What if, what if, what if?”
Rainbow stood with her jaw open, the empty space inside it filled with all the questions Lightning had just stolen out of her mouth. The lead pony’s orange mane was frazzled now from the heat. She was breathing hard, her face clenched like someone had yanked a cord behind her head and pulled her skin tight across it.
“Stars, it... you can’t stand this,” she sputtered. There were no theatrics now. She was rambling, and Rainbow couldn’t bear to look away. “I can’t stand this. I can’t stand watching your eyes dart away from every filly who flies by because you’re too petrified to let them linger. I can’t stand knowing this is eating you up inside, and I can’t stand knowing you’re never gonna fix it because there’s no way you could by yourself. So you know what? Here I am. There are a million ponies you’re worried about scaring off, so I’ll be the one who’s gonna stick around for the whole thing. You wanna get this thought, this... parasite out of your head? Give it to me, then. Show me what you got, and when it’s all said and done... at least you’ll know.”
Rainbow unstuck her tongue from the back of her gums, then closed her teeth over it. Lightning seemed to have calmed down again, but she still wasn’t done. “Look, don’t take this as me trying to swing you one way or the other. If you think it over once I shut up and your answer’s still no, then I’m not about to lose the best wingpony I’ll ever have over something like this. But just... just think about it. Just make a choice. Because you wanna know something else?”
The world around her was a thousand miles away. Lightning’s nose was just a few inches from her own.
“You aren’t the only one who’s sick of asking ‘what if’.”
And like that, it was over. Lightning straightened up, wetted her lips, and walked back towards the sink at the far end of the room, where her small bag of toiletries had sat completely forgotten the whole time. She’d done her best not to look back, but her eyes had definitely skirted back her way at least once. Not trying to swing me one way or the other, my flank, she thought.
But she’s not blocking the door, another part of her argued. You can still leave. And that was true: Lightning might be fast enough to reach the door before somepony else in this academy, but she’d said it herself, hadn’t she? They were both in every way the other’s equal. She really was going to let her go. And so followed, of course, came the question Lightning knew perfectly well Rainbow couldn’t begin to answer now.
Yes. No. Never. Always. It seemed like every possible response, every word in the whole moondamned Equestrian language was strung out across her brain, each strand of thought crisscrossing over the next and tangling in knots with all the consequences that would come with each one. That was another thing Lightning had gotten inexplicably right about her: she really didn’t know how to make a choice like this. Everything else in her life was so simple. Black-and-white, even, as ironic as that fact might be for a mare named Rainbow Dash. There was a good choice to make, and a bad choice to make. Either she made the right choice and things worked out for the better because of it, or her friends inevitably told her where she’d screwed up and pointed her back towards the goodly path again. It was never like this. There were never two right answers, each one made unique only by whether she alone preferred it. What did she prefer? What did she want?
She wanted to take the simple route. She wanted to just go along with Lightning for the sake of knowing, for the sake of experimentation, for the sake of peace. And even as the decision solidified in her mind, she knew all along that it wasn’t hers. Lightning had made it for her, blindfolded her and spun her around before pointing her in the opposite direction of the target she’d been aiming for. She knew that she’d played into Lightning’s hooves, bought her bluff, bit on the fat, juicy worm at the end of her hook. Whatever stupid metaphor you wanted to use for it, the fact remained.
But what she also knew—and Lightning didn’t—was that when this was all said and done, nothing at all would really change. Sticking around after weather duty to watch a pickup hoofball game didn’t make her a fan of the sport, and whatever happened here wouldn’t cause some catastrophic shift in her personality. She would still be Rainbow Dash, and the mare across the room trying oh so hard to be coy would still be Lightning Dust. Yeah, this was the choice Lightning had wanted her to make, but that didn’t make it hers alone. If Lightning was going to enjoy this, then maybe Rainbow Dash would just have to enjoy it even more.
“Okay,” Rainbow said, cutting off Lightning’s next tirade before it could get started. She took a moment to enjoy the shock that rippled through Lightning’s body too fast for her to control it, then glided past her and threw back the shower curtain. Freed of its confines for the first time since Rainbow turned the shower back on, steam poured forth from the stall, drifting up to form miniature clouds overhead that were gradually sucked back into the tuft that created them. She left the curtain open behind her, and was just about to start easing her way into the water when a pair of hooves landed on her back and sloppily found purchase on her shoulders. In the split-second before Lightning managed to turn her around and push her up onto her hind legs, Rainbow started to feel more confident about that little spark of honesty she thought she’d heard in Lightning’s spiel. By the time her back made contact with the rear wall of the shower and Lightning’s chest was flush against hers, she was absolutely positive.
The Part Where Things Aren't
For what felt like hours, Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust remained locked in what the former could only think of as some kind of limbo, both more or less willing to proceed but neither quite knowing how. Lightning’s breaths came in short, heavy bursts, each puff of air against Rainbow’s exposed neck forming an irregular rhythm with the skyrocketing pulse she could feel pounding out of the other mare’s chest. Scalding hot water poured off the pair in sheets, most of it gravitating towards Lightning since she was more directly underneath the stream. Beneath a blurry red and yellow fringe obscuring the top half of her vision, Rainbow could see her friend’s fiery orange mane wrapped in soaking wet clumps around her shoulders and neck, the little tuft that usually stuck out from her forehead now plastered against it. Once she noticed that Lightning’s eyes were still glazed over and pointed at her partner’s collarbone, she let her own eyes drift downwards.
True to form, not an inch of Lightning Dust’s frame showed any sign of physical frailty. Through the soggy veil of belly fur that covered them, Dash could feel Lightning’s powerful abdominals flex in and out with every breath the opal-coated mare took. The muscles along her chest and sides were visibly toned too, probably thanks to the immense wingspan she had on display behind her. Lightning probably had a good four feet between the tips at least, a good indicator of exceptional wingpower and, if the urban legend was true, sexual prowess.
Her lower half continued the same trend: though the two of them were pressed too close together for Rainbow to see any of Lightning’s middle past her sternum, a quick glance around the foreleg Lightning had propped against Rainbow’s shoulders revealed a tight, perky little flank, not at all bony but still smaller than normal. Rainbow swallowed hard, and took a deep breath of her own. She didn’t want to call the jury in on what had brought out the butterflies flapping around in her stomach, but staring at the rivulets of water rolling past Lighting’s naked cutie mark and snaking down the backs of her thighs was certainly riling them up.
Another few moments passed, and Lightning still didn’t make a move. In equal parts ready to get things started already and to get a bit of control back on her side of the situation, Rainbow lifted her forelegs off the wall and slipped them past the underside of Lightning’s, sliding up the wall and reaching around the mare’s back until her hooves met again at the ridge of her spine. Lightning jerked as if she’d been pinched, and her breath hitched in her throat before rushing out right into Dash’s parted lips. Rainbow was slightly taller than Lightning now, and found herself relishing the fact a lot more than she might have expected.
“So...” the wing pony led off. “What now?”
The question was hardly even necessary. Rainbow felt Lightning’s reaction coming in every muscle that tightened all across her body, in every droplet of water that sprayed from her wings as they gave an involuntary shudder amid the water showering them both. She closed her eyes just soon enough to miss Lightning’s snout darting up under her chin, clumsily bumping against her cheek and nose before her lips finally found the matching pair they’d been searching for. Rainbow’s hooves were forced back against the wall as Lightning’s forelegs shot up to cradle the other mare’s face, and as a whimpering moan echoed from Lightning’s mouth into Rainbow’s, she felt within her chest a deep, inescapable, all-encompassing sensation of... of...
Well, nothing, honestly. Lightning was kissing her and she was doing her best to return the favor, but something about it just wasn’t right. It wasn’t the feeling of it, she supposed. The pressure of Lightning’s lips against hers was the same she remembered from the times she’d done this before. It was the little things, the factors she never could’ve described another time but seemed blatantly absent in the moment. She’d kissed a few stallions before, and each time their lips had been soft, their touch warm and delightfully smooth even after things started to heat up.
Lightning, on the other hoof, was going after her like a starving mare after a feast, enveloping her entire mouth with lips as rigid as stone. At the start, Rainbow had just assumed it was how Lightning did things: hard, fast, and with alluring strength and passion. Once she reached a full minute without shifting her form or even her stance against the wall, though, her actions didn’t seem powerful so much as just desperate. It occurred to Rainbow once again that in this position, she was still slightly taller than Lightning, and with it this time came another thought: when the other girls had been talking about the other stallions they’d kissed, the only one who hadn’t said anything at all was Lightning Dust.
With her mouth blocked off as it was, Rainbow Dash chose to communicate with her body instead. After flexing her back and rolling off the wall, she kept herself upright by bracing her hooves under Lightning’s forelegs again. Lightning twitched and gasped at the feeling, then broke away, out of breath already from her frantic efforts. Her balance regained, Rainbow cupped a forehoof under Lightning’s chin and slowly pulled her back in. When their lips met this time, Lightning was a lot less stiff, and a lot more putty-like in Rainbow’s slightly more knowledgeable hooves. The kiss lasted longer this time, given extra flavor by the water that inevitably filled both their hooves and broken only when they surfaced to get rid of it.
And yet, it still wasn’t quite what she’d hoped. The butterflies were settling down again, and through the gradual hesitancy she began to taste in Lightning’s impressionable lips, Rainbow could tell she wasn’t alone facing that problem. This wasn’t enough. Something needed to be different. Something—
When she looked back on this all later, Rainbow admitted to herself that what happened next shouldn’t have come as a surprise. It wasn’t like Lightning would’ve put on that whole pageant for her if all she’d wanted was a quick peck on the lips. Her own motions should’ve given it away too: the way she was slowly shifting to the side, the way she’d shuffled her hind legs to make sure she’d be able to stay standing like this, the way her hooves had trailed down Rainbow’s shoulders to her arms, her sides, her flank. All of this should’ve let her know exactly what one track Lightning’s mind was on, but even still, when the gentle pressure on the backs of her thighs suddenly became a paralyzing pressure in the crevice between them, it was all she could do not to cry out in shock. Or anger. Or maybe, if the swarm of fluttering wings taking off in that same area were anything to go by, something else entirely.
For a few long, stomach-churning moments, Rainbow’s mind was blank. Not even hijacked by what Lightning was doing to her, just completely empty of all thoughts and memories. She couldn’t have moved if she wanted to, and if you had to go by body language, you’d be pretty sure she didn’t want to at all. By the time her awareness of the situation came rushing back to her, she had sank down the wall a bit, and Lightning wore a cockeyed smirk that she’d put on every time Rainbow had seen her blow her competition away out on the training circuit. It was... cute. That was the word that had escaped her for days. Lightning Dust looked impossibly cute when she put on that look. And cocky. And awesome. And maybe, when she was soaking wet and standing over her with her hoof pushing into her vagina, just a little bit hot.
“Yeah...” Lightning hissed into Rainbow’s ear, drawing forth a shudder that started at the base of Rainbow’s tail and traveled way further than the words of any colt ever had before. “Thought you might like that.”
“Uh...” Rainbow practically drooled. What was she supposed to say to that? Wasn’t she supposed to be in control right now? Wasn’t her body supposed to agree with what her mind was telling it to do?
“Maybe you’ll like this too, then,” Lightning added, her teeth scraping against the tip of Rainbow’s ear just before her lips closed around it. That would’ve been enough for another chill down Rainbow’s spine on its own, but Lightning wasn’t just seducing her; she was multitasking. Her hoof was moving now, slowly rubbing back and forth along the slit between her legs and parting the lips surrounding it a little more each time.
“I thought it’d be hard getting you in here,” Lightning sighed. Her mouth moved away from her ear, eliciting an almost plaintive whine from Rainbow that cut out the instant Lightning’s lips touched down at the base of her neck. “I had no idea you’d be this easy.”
“Ha-ah...”
Lightning’s elbow jabbed into Rainbow’s stomach, but once again Rainbow was more preoccupied with the other mare’s hoof, which was now almost vertical and brushing against the little button at the front of her marehood that’d been buzzing with energy ever since they’d gotten in here. Her motions were faster now, aided by a liquid embellishment too slick and deliciously warm to be the water washing over them, and matched by Rainbow with gentle, unconscious thrusts of her waist.
“I told you,” Lightning gasped. Rainbow hadn’t so much as pointed a sultry look her way in the last minute, but Lightning seemed to be getting off just by being close to her. “I told you you’d... you don’t how long I’ve...”
Lightning surged forward, her hoof slipping almost all the way back to Rainbow’s tailhole, and both mares gasped. Their lips were inches apart again, but more kissing was the last thing on Rainbow’s mind right now. She needed to pull herself together. She needed to regain control. So in the brief extra second Lightning needed to recover, Rainbow pressed her advantage. She leaned up, sank her teeth into Lightning’s shoulder, and wormed one strong forehoof into the small of the other mare’s back. The other forehoof went straight to Lightning’s cunt.
That one moment stretched into several as Lightning’s jaw dropped open and a rattling sigh punched out of it, giving Rainbow a chance to think over the path her thoughts had just taken. It was a cunt now, wasn’t it? Marehood was a misnomer, a polite imposter standing in for an impolite subject. Even vagina seemed too formal, too scientific. They weren’t dealing with formality and politeness anymore. This was all physical, all mutually beneficent carnal pleasure. In a way, the vulgar term was the last thing she needed to legitimize it.
Cunt. Pussy. Cooter. Twat. She would’ve blushed at the words any other time, but now they were exciting. Now they were powerful. And right now, that power was curling into a tight little ball below her stomach, just begging to be set free.
“Thought you might like that too,” she hissed, and it took no time at all to know she was right. She hadn’t even started rubbing yet, and Lightning was already dripping wet. The hoof Lightning still held in Rainbow’s groin—in her snatch—was operating free of its owner’s control now, sawing back and forth like she intended to cut Rainbow Dash in half. When Rainbow finally began returning the favor, the speed only increased.
“I knew... it would work...” Lightning heaved, each burst of a phrase fueled by desperate gulps for air that increased in pitch every second. “Knew you cou... couldn’t resi...”
Rainbow reached far back enough to stretch Lightning’s entrance with the edge of her hoof, and whatever taunt she’d been dying to let loose shattered in the face of a moan loud enough to wake the dead. Not that Rainbow Dash cared anymore. The whole academy could come and watch now, for all she cared anymore.
“Knew you’d be... begging for this before long,” Rainbow growled, her teeth still clenched under Lightning’s chin. “Li... little slut.”
“I’m a slut?” Lightning asked. She was grinning again. Her motions had changed from back and forth to up and down, forcing Rainbow’s pussy lips apart again and sending waves of pleasure through her that made her flanks tingle and her head spin. “Look who’s ta... talking. I bet you won’t even last another minute.”
Lightning’s jibe spurred Rainbow’s mind—and her hoof—back into action. She thrust her hoof even deeper inside her partner’s cunt, and felt her inner walls tighten in anticipation. “Is that a challenge?”
Lightning threw her mane back with a jerk of her head and laughed, though the noise that came out of her mouth sounded more like a sigh. “It’s a fact.”
Another spasm rolled through Rainbow’s body as Lightning’s hoof slid past her clitoris again, but by sheer force of will she kept her composure. “We’ll see about...” she started to murmur, but in the end the effort required to form a coherent sentence proved too much to handle. If the words had come, she would have too.
The battle for dominance between the two mares raged on for almost a full minute, silent but for the occasional grunt of exertion or stifled cry of pleasure. Lightning went on the offensive right from the start; Rainbow barely had time to recover from her first close call before the feeling of Lightning’s tongue lapping at the water beaded on her neck nearly sent her over the edge again. She flailed out with her free hoof hoping that dumb luck would give her something to desperately grab on to, but luckily for her, the closest thing to it was Lightning’s tensed, muscular flank. A few experimental kneads earned her a release from the torment of Lightning’s skillful mouth, as well as a groan that Lightning bit back with an audible clack of her teeth. Everypony had a weak spot in situations like this, and it seemed Rainbow had finally figured out where Lightning’s was.
That fortunate discovery, however, only leveled the playing field again. Rainbow had successfully steeled herself against anything her lead pony could throw at her, but if anything, Lightning was even more determined than her not to give any ground. Massaging her clit and smearing her fluids all over her thighs made Rainbow’s legs quiver more than it did hers, and the way her chest rose and fell in time with her own strokes in Rainbow’s pussy hinted at the same thing happening in reverse to her. An unstoppable force had met an immovable object in the Wonderbolts Academy locker room, and if something didn’t turn the tide soon, they’d stay locked together like this all night. All night long...
Rainbow Dash shut her eyes tight and forced the thought out of her mind. Focus. She needed to focus. She needed to end this, to sate the two ravenous beasts of lust and desire for physical superiority intertwined in her gut. She wanted to win. She wanted to come. Oh, Celestia, she wanted to feel Lightning come first.
But that wouldn’t happen if they just kept grinding against each other till one of them collapsed from sheer exhaustion. There had to be another weak spot, another part of the nubile mare’s body where just the right touch would make her melt into the milky puddle they were already forming around the shower drain. What else would make a mare like Lightning Dust roll her eyes back into her head and scream for more? She was feisty, passionate, at least a little bit kinky—why else would she have wanted to do this in the shower? And her ass... she just about went crazy when Rainbow grabbed her ass.
Lightning’s tongue was back at Rainbow’s collarbone again, and slowly but steadily trailing up towards her ear. She didn’t have much time to consider the plan that sprang into her mind, so she just went with it. As Lightning kissed her way past Rainbow’s cheek and as her pussy preemptively convulsed with pent-up energy, she squeezed at her flank with one hoof and frantically worked at her clit with the other, using the double-edged assault to keep her from noticing the latter hoof creeping closer and closer to her tailhole.
With a throaty moan, Lightning slid Rainbow’s entire ear between her lips, her tongue washing all around its edge before poking inside. Rainbow’s hips bucked, and her whole lower half shrank inside. It was now or never. Teetering at the height of gratification, Rainbow thrust her hoof into and over Lightning’s pussy, coated the tender pucker behind it in her juices, then pulled her asscheeks apart and pushed into it. Hard.
She’d been expecting a squeal of delight to punch its way out of Lightning’s throat, but what she ended up getting was even better: Lightning’s lips slid off Rainbow’s ear with a distinct pop as she coughed out a breathless wheeze punctuated by an uncharacteristically tiny squeak. Rainbow’s hoof was trapped between Lightning’s thighs as she ground her pulsing cunt against it, and before now her entire foreleg was drenched in the slick, warm come spurting out of her and splashing onto their hind hooves below. The sight of all that happening right on top of her, coupled with the weight of Lightning’s limp torso sagging into her, formed a weight in her groin too heavy to shake off, and the little drop of drool that fell from Lightning’s bottom lip onto her nose was the last straw.
The bliss that rocketed through her body in heavenly waves was indescribable, almost incomprehensible; for a few moments, her benumbed brain was sure something had gone wrong. It couldn’t be right that it hit her this hard, that its intoxicating pull over every inch of her body was this inescapably intense. Her mind was gone, encompassed by pleasure and a burning desire to stay that way forever, and her pussy seemed to have a mind of its own now, flexing and shuddering around Lightning’s strong, sexy, soaked forehoof.
Gradually, the scorching heat in her groin receded into her stomach again, where it subsided to a gentle, flickering glow that sent tongues of delicious warmth licking down her legs and up through her heart to the tips of her ears. Whether due to extra muscle or just the awkward position they were in, Lightning was a lot heavier than she looked, and Rainbow had to maneuver her hoof out from the mare’s folds and around her back with its twin just to keep them both upright. Lightning’s eyes fluttered open at the contact and, as Rainbow let the water of the shower rinse the byproducts of her encounter down the drain, lifted up to meet those of her partner. She raised her hooves and hung them around Rainbow’s neck again, then gently tugged her head down towards hers, a silent question that Rainbow was all too happy to answer.
Their last attempt at kissing had been strained and hopelessly incompetent; this one made up for it completely, and then some. Lightning was less nervous and Rainbow was a lot more comfortable with the idea now, and the result was a chaotic, exhilarating mess of soft touches and new sensations. Still wading in the dregs of her afterglow, Rainbow let Lightning steer for a bit, a role which Lightning took a liking to quickly. Her tongue poked at Rainbow’s lips, and after a few moments slid through them and across her teeth. Without missing a beat, Rainbow closed her lips around it and ushered it further inside her mouth, mashing her own tongue against it and savoring the distantly spicy taste of the other mare’s limber, talented organ.
Fog continued to build up on the locker room mirror, barely visible through a crack in the curtain, as the two mares caressed each other in a waterlogged embrace, their hooves brushing over every inch of skin within reach as their tongues explored the deepest depths of their mouths. The pressure in Rainbow’s belly was growing again, bringing with it a feverish desire for Lightning’s touch to dive south of the border again, and a spine-tingling urge to do something—anything—to get her pointed in the right direction. Like it had before, her mind made the jump from idea to action in a flash: in one forceful move, she tightened her grip on Lightning’s sides and flipped her around so that she was the one being pressed into the wall, her wings splayed behind her and her lips limp under the suddenly commanding ministrations of Rainbow’s tongue.
Lightning didn’t seem to mind being the center of attention. A deep, contented groan shook her entire frame, and her forelegs relaxed as they began to slide down Rainbow’s back. Just before she could cup her hooves around Rainbow’s ass, though, she shifted and slipped from her grasp, her lips finally separating from Lightning’s in the same motion. To her credit, Lightning didn’t complain, though the fact that Rainbow immediately moved down to kiss and nibble at her shoulder certainly helped ease the sense of loss. When Rainbow crouched down farther and her kisses gravitated towards the center of her chest, though, her hooves tightened around Rainbow’s shoulders, and her gentle sighs of pleasure hitched in her throat.
Keeping her hooves at Lightning’s hips and her wings spread for balance, Rainbow slid her lips down even further, past the tiny crevice at the bottom of her rib cage and onto the tight abdominals that only got harder the more attention Rainbow lavished on them. Lightning’s sighs had returned, though they were far from gentle now and steadily increasing in pitch and volume. She moved down another few inches, and stole a glance up as her flank touched down on the shower floor. Lightning’s chin was tilted down towards Rainbow and hanging open, and if her eyes got any bigger there wouldn’t be room left in the shower for the rest of her head.
It had dawned on her what was happening. She knew what was coming. And now it was time for Rainbow to deliver. On the other hoof, though, she’d probably never get another opportunity like this as long as she lived. So instead of trailing down another six inches and placing the lightest of kisses right on Lightning’s clit, she let her tongue slide right to the very edge of her slit, then, in spite of Lightning’s despondent grunt, sat back on her haunches and relished the profane view.
The sight of a vagina was hardly foreign territory for Rainbow, but she’d never seen one owned by a mare so overwhelmingly aroused. For a moment, bawdy curiosity overtook her sex drive: Lightning stood with her legs brazenly spread, her thighs coated with tiny flecks of water, her pussy lips swollen and glistening wet. Her eyes were shut now, her bottom lip clamped between her teeth, and the instant Rainbow reached out with a forehoof and grazed the edge of her cutie mark, her flank twitched and shuddered, and she could’ve sworn her pussy winked in anticipation.
Stars above, she was about ready to beg for another round. And even through the warmth of the shower spray rolling down her back and pooling between her legs, Rainbow could feel a very different kind of warmth spreading beneath her tail. Who was she to leave either of them unsatisfied? After all, she’d never leave a friend hanging. Rainbow threaded her hooves around Lightning’s waist and braced them behind her thighs. Lightning straightened up ever so slightly, and in the midst of that instinctive reaction, Rainbow made her move.
Her first lick was gentle, starting on the inside of Lightning’s thigh and ending as a fleeting skim over the length of her slit. The way Lightning reacted, though, probably gave any eavesdroppers a bit more scandalous of a mental image than that. The sound of her forehooves smacking into the shower tile echoed out of the stall like a whip crack, and the punchy moan that followed made her whole body vibrate with energy, especially the lovely little flower her wing pony now had her lips wrapped around. Rainbow couldn’t help but smirk. Despite her hesitancy before, she wasn’t a complete prude. She’d rubbed one out once or twice in her teenage years, and remembered well how tender she’d been after it was over. What she was doing must be torture for Lightning. And somehow, that just made it all the better.
She put a little more force into her next pass, spreading Lightning’s lips further apart and pushing her tongue as far up into her snatch as she could. Lightning was probably moaning again, but by then all Rainbow’s ears was picking up was white noise, and all her brain was sending out was static snow. The inside of Lightning’s love tunnel was blisteringly hot, and clenched so tightly around Rainbow’s tongue that she wondered whether she’d be able to pull it back out. The pressure would let up for fractions of seconds, only to return in force before Rainbow could so much as take a breath. Lightning wanted more. She wanted her deeper inside her. Rainbow’s hooves had started working at her ass on pure instinct, to help her both surface for air once in a while and keep going once her lungs were full again.
Lightning was balanced on the very edges of her hooves now, her forehooves pushing on the back of Rainbow’s head as she continued slurping at her cunt. The biggest surprise for the latter of the two was the taste; she’d read all sorts of stories about the flowery, ravishing flavor of a heated mare’s “nectar”, but the real thing was thin, tangy, and a bit sour—but not at all unpleasant. Oddly enough, that was the one thing the barleyquin writers had gotten right: whatever the taste was, it had blasted its way through the lining of her heart and set the whole thing ablaze. Any thoughts of her own satisfaction had been wiped away. For now, right now, when Lightning was running her hooves through her mane and her mouth was singing with the sharp smack of her arousal, this was enough. This was all she could possibly want.
In a matter of minutes, Rainbow was practically gorging herself, her nose bumping into Lightning’s clit now as her tongue desecrated every inch of her sacred place it could reach. There were no sly quips from Lightning, no snappy comebacks from Rainbow now. Everything about it—Rainbow’s hooves yanking on Lightning’s ass, Lightning’s hooves locked at the base of Rainbow’s skull, the steam so thick they could barely see each other anymore—just sent more goosebumps rolling over their legs, more ecstatic shivers jolting down their backs, more messages into their brains that only read, “Don’t stop, don’t stop, oh stars above, don’t stop.” Even after Lightning finally lost her battle with gravity and slid ungracefully down to the floor, Rainbow didn’t pause for a second. She just pushed Lightning’s legs farther apart and dove down to her now exposed tailhole, still too tight to allow her tongue entrance but plenty sensitive enough to make Lightning whimper and squirm.
Rainbow thought nothing of the tugs she felt behind her neck at first—Lightning had been pulling her face closer to her muff the whole time. The more insistent they became, though, the harder they were to ignore, and finally Rainbow Dash pulled her head up for good and crawled over Lightning to where her hooves were directing her. She closed her eyes just before their lips met again, and lowered herself into Lightning’s lap as their tongues swirled over and around each other again, swapping saliva and the fading aftertaste of Lightning’s pussy. Just as she was starting to get into it, though, Lightning rolled off the wall and shoved Rainbow onto her back, threading their forelegs together as she licked at the roof of her mouth and water spattered off of them in a fine, blinding mist.
Rainbow tried to look up once she felt the weight of Lightning’s torso lift off of her, but the spray of the shower forced them shut before she could tell what Lightning was doing. Her hoof was halfway up to her face when the shower let up all of a sudden, as if Lightning had flown up and kicked the water off. But when she wiped her eyes clear and looked up, she didn’t see an empty white cloud drained of all moisture. Instead, she saw a pair of drop dead opal-blue legs straddling her head, and a hot pink slit hovering between them that, if she wasn’t mistaken, was descending straight towards her open mouth.
She craned her neck and met Lightning’s ass halfway, pulling it the rest of the way down with her forehooves as Lightning’s head dipped between her thighs. It was a lucky thing Rainbow’s tongue was already halfway inside her when her lips closed over her marehood, because if that had happened any earlier she would’ve forgotten what she was even supposed to be doing with it. No wonder Lightning had screamed herself hoarse before: a hoof was one thing, but Lightning’s warm, supple, flexible tongue rasping over her pussy lips, digging inside and stretching her cunt as wide as a stallion’s cock would, felt better than she ever could’ve imagined. Making Lightning feel the same way evolved from a intrinsic urge to an all-consuming purpose, and Rainbow tugged down harder, her muzzle buried between Lightning’s flanks and her tongue thrashing around inside her.
Time lost all meaning, seconds fading into instantaneous minutes as the two horny pegasi ate each other out. This time around, it was Lightning trying desperately to catch up with Rainbow, whose sloppy licks and kisses smeared Lightning’s juices all over her nose and chin, and would’ve had Lightning herself on her knees begging for more had she not been busy doing the very same thing in reverse. Every part of Rainbow’s body ached—she hadn’t even known her lips could get sore—and an electric tingle ran through her every time Lightning wiggled her tongue over her clit, and every time her own tongue jerked up to rim around the tight, spasming pucker that made Lightning’s knees go weak every time Rainbow came near it.
Soon enough, all of Rainbow’s attention was focused on Lightning’s tailhole, her wings spread for balance as Lightning detached herself from Rainbow’s pussy and slumped forward on her chest with her ass stuck in the air. Her back door was way too tight for Rainbow’s tongue to reach more than a few millimeters inside, but what an awesome surprise it was to find that she didn’t care. She’d never thought about whether she was an ass mare, and she wasn’t about to start now. All she knew was that her rimjob was turning Lightning into a drooling mess on the floor, and that it was making her whole lower half throb like it was about to explode.
It wasn’t hard to tell when Lightning was ready to burst either. Her mouth, lying sideways on the floor where her head had dropped, popped open with another tiny squeak just like before, then she threw her forehooves over Rainbow’s hind legs and shoved her torso violently back towards her partner’s face. Rainbow’s world went dark as Lightning’s ass blocked off her eyes, her pussy grinding back and forth so fast over Rainbow’s tongue that she could hardly do anything but lie back and wait for her to finish. She did her best to contribute anyway, pushing back at whatever she could reach while Lightning’s yelps and moans reverberated in her ears. And just when Rainbow was sure Lightning couldn’t possibly last another second, her head dipped down again and her amazing lips formed a perfect seal around her clit, suckling on it like a hungry foal at a milk bottle.
She did last another second. She lasted seven more seconds before her climax ripped through her body, scattering her limbs across the shower floor and deadening her wings like flimsy wire struck by lightning. As if the deluge of juices soaking her face and washing over her tongue wasn’t enough to send Rainbow screeching past the point of no return, Lightning’s euphoric moan vibrated straight through Rainbow’s cunt and all the way into her spine. A single last lick over her clit was all it took to finish her off. Rainbow Dash shuddered, screamed, and came as well.
Her second orgasm was twice as powerful as the first, and when each and every paralyzing torrent of ecstasy had drained from her body, they brought with them a sense of deep, almost overpowering fatigue. She hadn’t felt this exhausted in years, not even from the conditioning workouts during her first week of flight camp as a little filly. This was a different kind of exhaustion, one buried deep within the marrow of her bones and accompanied by soft beads of warmth that trickled through her veins and collected in a snuggly little pit right in the center of her belly. Her eyes fluttered closed under the shower’s spray, and the world faded away again as she dozed off, her head leaned against Lightning’s leg just as Lightning’s head was propped up on her stomach.
An vague awareness of something lost brought her back from near-slumber, and her eyes opened to an empty shower. At some point while she was out, Lightning had left, taking her things on the sink counter, leaving behind only the faintest whiff of musky arousal and berry-scented shampoo. The shower had receded to a narrow dribble, which Rainbow worked up the initiative to kick off after a few more minutes on the ground, her flanks twinging and tingling with the effort. Without that dull ache deep inside her marehood, she might’ve believed she’d dreamed the whole encounter. Even with it, she was too dazed and worn out to be entirely sure anyway.
She sloshed her way out of the shower and towards the sink, grabbing her towel along the way and using it to wipe as much as the mirror clear as she could. Her coat was matted and tender all over, and her mane was a wreck, strands of hairs sticking out every which way and tangled together in a technicolor clump. Thankfully, it was short enough to be presentable from a few yanks with a brush, and once she felt confident she wouldn’t wake up with her whole head tied in a knot, Rainbow Dash gathered her things and pushed the door open, the chill of the night air seeming to cut right through her overheated body.
In the morning, this would all be put out of mind. By the time they were up for exercises, Rainbow would know how she felt about the whole thing, and Lightning would know better than to ever bring it up in public. And yet, despite assuring herself that she just had to keep walking and let her mind sort itself out, her jumbled thoughts never coalesced into anything solid. When she nosed her way into her squad’s bunk room and crept past her slumbering squadmates, she had nothing. Even once she dropped her towel and toiletries in a heap at the foot of her bed and unceremoniously threw herself onto it, she had nothing.
It was only when she rolled onto her side and her eyes settled on the hazy dark mound on Lightning’s bunk that she remembered the decision she’d made, and immediately she knew that she would never tell Lightning about it, or anypony else for that matter. Not because she wouldn’t like it or because she couldn’t handle knowing the truth, but because it wouldn’t matter if she did. Lightning was a friend—after tonight, her closest and most distant one all at the same time—and she knew without a doubt that she was awake over there still, thinking many of the same thoughts going through Rainbow’s head now. If that’s the case, Rainbow thought, so be it. Let her make her own decisions. Let me make mine.
And so she did. And somehow, that power felt more satisfying than anything she’d just felt in the shower. Rainbow Dash nodded off again in minutes, and slept better that that than she had in years.