The first thing Rarity did when she and Rainbow made it back to their shelter was eat several cloves of a sugar apple and chase it with nearly a bucket of water. She honestly couldn’t fathom how Rainbow thought eating crabs was okay, and not only acceptable, but tasty as well! But as Rainbow had told her, it was a pegasus thing, and Rarity, being a unicorn, was entirely unfamiliar with it. She idly wondered whether Fluttershy had likewise ever partaken in such crustacean carnivory.
Once she’d gotten the taste out of her mouth (if not the memory of the sensation, utterly horrifying and alien to her), she trotted inside their shelter, motioning with a flick of her tail for Rainbow to follow. Rainbow did just that, eying Rarity with mute interest as the unicorn flopped down on her bed of fronds and mosses and rested her chin on crossed hooves. “Well?” she asked, watching Rainbow expectantly. “Are we going to get started?”
Rainbow might have had a groan or something to say, but she bit it back and moved toward Rarity. She had gotten the unicorn to eat a sand crab, so it was only fair that she pay her back. She straddled Rarity, maybe a little bit uncomfortable by the compromising position, and put her hooves on the mare’s shoulders. “I have no idea what I’m doing, Rares.”
“It’s really not that difficult,” Rarity insisted. “Haven’t you had massages before? I thought the Wonderbolts would have masseuses on staff before and after their shows to tend to their sore fliers.”
“You remember the spa, don’t you?” Rainbow asked. “It wasn’t really my thing. I don’t like ponies touching my wings.”
“Such a foal,” Rarity said with a derisive snort. “Start at my neck and simply move your hooves in slow, regular circles. Do remember to apply some pressure, darling; just because I may look like a porcelain doll, I will not break as easily as one.”
Shrugging, Rainbow set her hooves to work. As she worked on Rarity’s neck, she could feel the taut muscles lying beneath her pearly coat. Her hooves slowly caused them to relax, and she flinched when one of the muscles suddenly gave way and seemingly melted, eliciting a happy sigh from her friend. “If I hadn’t seen you play tennis, Rares, I’d be impressed,” she said. “You’ve got that varsity athlete build on you.”
“Then my exercise regimen has been paying off,” Rarity happily cooed. “Dieting is good for keeping the fat off of your frame, but exercise tightens the skin and fills in the space with muscle. It gives you a sleek but firm form and fills in your curves stunningly.”
“I’ll say,” Rainbow murmured under her breath.
“What was that?”
“Nothing!” Rainbow jammed her hooves a little harder into the space between Rarity’s shoulder blades, and the fashionista flinched and squeaked. “Sorry! Didn’t mean to do that.”
Rarity relaxed again and focused on her breathing exercising. “No, no, darling, I’m quite alright. I’m tough enough to withstand a little punishment. Please, keep at it.”
“If you say so,” Rainbow said, shifting further down Rarity’s back. Her hooves pressed on a sore spot, and Rarity’s spine cracked under the pressure. Rarity moaned and her eyes fluttered while Rainbow just did her best to keep herself professional. Lower and lower her hooves worked, until they got to the outwards bulge of Rarity’s hips. There, Rainbow hesitated, unsure of how far to go.
“Why did you stop?” Rarity asked, all but answering that question for her. “You’ve been doing splendidly, darling, but I would appreciate some attention around the base of my tail.”
“Why you gotta say it like that, Rares…” Rainbow muttered. Swallowing hard, she allowed her hooves to drift the final few inches into terrain she’d never dared to cross.
As much as Rarity tried to keep her form svelte and lean, she knew precisely which contours to emphasize and exaggerate. The effect was subtle at a glance, but Rainbow found herself well past ‘a glance’. Rarity, for her part, merely hummed and smiled, oblivious to the growing fluster on Rainbow’s face.
When it was finally over, Rainbow withdrew her hooves like she’d been burying them in the hot coals of a fire. Rarity trilled and stretched, her neck popping a few times as she worked her head left and right. “My, you’re good at this,” she praised, forcing herself to rest on her flank, supported by one hoof in the sand. She noticed the breakout of red on Rainbow’s face, and she raised an eyebrow even as the corner of her muzzle tweaked upwards in amusement. “Why, Rainbow, what’s wrong? You seem quite beside yourself.”
Rainbow looked at her hooves, then at Rarity’s cutie mark, and then finally at Rarity herself. “I did not expect when I crash landed here that I’d be feeling up your butt, Rares.”
“Please, Rainbow, that was hardly ‘feeling up’ my butt, that was merely one friend giving another a much-needed massage.” She blinked twice, looking sweet and innocent, fully knowing and enjoying the discomfort she was causing Rainbow. “Are you perhaps implying that I need to lose weight?”
“No!” Rainbow protested, immediately trying to backpedal away from that notion as fast as she possibly could. She could smell the horrors such a dangerous road led to from miles away. “Your butt is great! Perfect! There’s never been a butt as awesome as yours!”
Rarity put a hoof to her lips to smother the ladylike giggle trying to escape. She was, perhaps, taking too much pleasure from this, but she couldn’t help it that Rainbow got so cute when trying to deal with a proper lady like herself. A part of her wanted to push the teasing further, but she finally reined it in; it wouldn’t be kind to toy with her friend like that. Even if she liked to imagine she was quite striking with her sweat-slicked mane and fringes of sand lining her muzzle from her crabbing earlier in the day.
But here she had to admit that her refined grace didn’t have anything on Rainbow’s rough-and-tumble look out here in the wilderness. Even removed from civilization and merely struggling to survive, Rainbow had an innate athletic beauty that Rarity found herself admiring. Here, Rainbow looked completely in her element, in the excitement of the wild. Rarity, by contrast… well, Celestia only knew how awful she looked, but it was likely nowhere near as stunning as Rainbow.
Rainbow was still fidgeting awkwardly in the sand, trying to right the derailed train in her mind and lead the conversation away from Rarity’s body. Rarity decided to offer her a lifeline and finally stood up. “Do you perhaps want to go to the lagoon, Rainbow?” she asked. “It’s a wonderful day for it. It’s much too hot to even lie in the shade; the shallow water will do us good.”
Rainbow happily took the opportunity to change the subject. “Yeah, that sounds pretty good. I can at least listen for airships. Maybe later we can go scale the east ridge and see what we can see from there; it’s taller than the hill we got the fruit from, so who knows how much we’d be able to see?”
“I certainly wouldn’t know,” Rarity said, following Rainbow out of the tent. “But I suppose there’s only one way to find out!”