//------------------------------// // The Mane Issue // Story: Autumnal Extensions // by Rego //------------------------------// The melodious humming of Rarity filled Carousel Boutique as fashion perfection neared completion. It had been far too long since she’d gotten “in the zone,” as it were, and she was certainly going to capitalize on the inspiration before it fled forever out of her reach. It was such a rarity for Rainbow Dash of all ponies to agree to model for her, and she planned to make the most of it while the athlete was willing to stand still. Granted, it’d be much harder to move under her voluminous mane. For her part, Rainbow had done her best putting up with her friend while she worked. She groused under the extra weight of her rainbow-powered mane and tail. Starlight Glimmer swore that the effect of their failed prismatic enhancement would wear off eventually, but without the pure energy coursing through her entire being, the extra rainbow everything just weighed her down. She could barely fly under all of it, which her so-called friend was taking full advantage of. Rainbow grunted as she felt Rarity shift her hair again. “Now, now, darling. There’s no need for that sort of attitude when I’m almost done. If you keep being good, I’ll be sure to get you a lollipop.” Rarity trilled as she flopped the rainbow mane to the other side. “Oh, sure. You’re not the one practically drowning in mane over here. I was supposed to be pulling back-to-back rainbooms off like it’s nothing!” “Nonsense, Rainbow. You look lovely, and, dare I say, dashing under all of that wild mane!” Rainbow fought back a gag at the painful pun. Rarity giggled at her friend’s cringing. “That’s only wild because you’re holding it up with your magic!” Rainbow bopped her friend’s horn, interrupting her channeled levitation spell and causing everything she was holding to drop at once in a mess of hair, textiles, and tools. Rainbow almost tripped over herself as her mess of mane and tail fell to the floor. Rarity scoffed at the brute as she rubbed her horn. “Now look at what you made me do! Where did you learn to do that, anyway?” “You try living with a magical mare who’s grabby with her magic. You pick up a few tricks.” “Ah yes, that sudden marefriend of yours. Autumn Breeze, was it?” she asked while searching for the lost fabric under Rainbow’s mane. She hoped nothing was tangled in the mess. “Autumn Blaze. And it wasn’t sudden!” “Oh, of course. My mistake. After all, I only left for Manehatten for two weeks to check in with Coco and come back to hear that you’ve started living with a special somepony of a species I never even knew existed. Nothing out of the ordinary there.” Rainbow gulped and flitted her eyes away from her friend. “Okay, so I just work a little fast.” “I’m teasing, darling! Don’t worry. From what I can tell, that beautiful mare in the clouds is quite a catch! I’m looking forward to getting to know her once I’ve figured out how to gossip with only yes or no questions. Oh, I do hope she doesn’t mind modeling some dresses for me. Her mysterious au naturale aura is just begging for me to make a new line! Maybe something around jungle flora.” Rainbow chuckled. “Yeah, don’t worry. I think she likes all that frou-frou stuff, too. You should see what she’s done with her room! It’s got enough vines and flowers that it gives the ruins in Daring Do and the Temple in the Sky a run for their money. Had to add a few rain clouds just to keep them watered or else they’d start eating the walls.” Rarity stopped her searching and gave her friend a curious glance. “Her room, you say? You mean to say you two aren’t sleeping together?” Rainbow blushed bright red and stammered in response trying to start a sentence with several pronouns before Rarity interrupted with a tittering laugh. “I guess you’re not going as fast as I thought.” Rainbow scowled and plopped down on her rear, knowing full well it would mess up Rarity’s work. “Don’t you give me that look, Rainbow Dash! I think it’s absolutely precious what you’re doing. After all, there’s no need to rush under the sheets when you’re trying to get to know somepony. Now, get back up. I’m almost done.” Rainbow mumbled several unsavory curses under her breath as she got to her hooves. As she was righting herself, her left hindleg’s hoof caught a bundle of her tail and she slipped straight to the floor. “Stupid rainbow power hair. Wish Starlight would’ve just cut it off. It’s so annoying!” “While I do agree it may be a bit much, I am glad Twilight stopped you two before you did any damage. Who knows what would happen once her spell wore off. I’m sure you’d rather not be flying around bald, now would you, dear? How would you leave your little rainbow contrail you’re so proud of?” Another bitter grunt told Rarity that she was right. Knowing she was running low on good will from the pegasus, the fashionista worked quickly to make the final alterations to Rainbow’s dress. She scooped up the overflowing hair and deposited it carefully into a cleverly hidden scoop to the dress’s side. “Marvelous! Now behold, Powered Perfection!” Rarity carefully spun Rainbow around to see herself in the mirrors angled around her. The cyan pegasus brushed a mass of mane out of her vision so she could see herself from every angle. The dress was a great departure from Dash’s preferred form-fitting formalwear and was layered upon itself with great swathes of fabric wrapping over and over around her body. Much like her hair, it would be difficult for her to move in the dress given the concentric circles hide the chutes holding her hair in place rather than dragging the ground. Her exaggerated tail was also folded dramatically so it wouldn’t drag across the floor as she walked. Thankfully, the hair was pinned up with the subtle glow of Rarity’s magic keeping the mane together at Rainbow’s side. There wasn’t enough hair spray and conditioner in Equestria to keep this much mane under control. “I just need to convince Starlight to come up with a more permanent mane spell and everypony who is anypony will want a piece from this new big mane line!” “R-right…” Rainbow didn’t dare say a word about how heavy she felt under all of it. Anypony prissy enough to dare to wear it would be crushed under the weight if they weren’t a world-class athlete like her. “Can I go now?” Rarity rolled her eyes with a knowing smile and began helping Rainbow out of her dress. After dropping a few pounds of unnecessary weight, the pegasus heaved a sigh of relief and carefully fluttered into the air. “Finally, freedom! Hope I never have to go through this again. See ya, Rares!” Rainbow rattled off quickly as she flew towards the window as fast as the wind resistance would allow. Fwoomph! Rarity’s dainty snickers fell into unladylike snorts of raucous laughter, seeing Rainbow Dash lodged halfway through her usual escape window. Rainbow moaned in frustration, hoping her friend’s laughing fit would end before she died of embarrassment. One messy flight to her cloudominium and Rainbow heaved a sigh of relief to be home. Now all she needed to do was wait for the botched spell to disappate and she’d be the fastest flier in Equestria again, instead of a glam rocker nightmare. Without anypony’s magic to keep her flowing locks under control, her long hair dragged along the clouds behind her. If it was any longer, she could droop her tail over the edge to see if some prince charming would be tempted to climb it. Rainbow wished she was tired. Sure she was drained from dealing with Rarity all afternoon, but she was still brimming with too much pent up energy to nap the spell away. Her wings were begging to zip around Ponyville if not for her stupid hair getting caught on everything. She pushed open her door wondering what she was going to do until her hair returned to normal. “Autumn? I’m home! You here?” A confirmatory knock of a hoof on a kitchen counter told the pegasus that her kirin was here, and maybe whipping up something good for dinner. Rainbow trotted carefully across the living room, ensuring she didn’t get tangled into anything. For once, she was cursing how awesome her house was since there was so much ornate pegasi clouditecture to get caught on. Rainbow arrived in the kitchen area and smiled at her precious marefriend who was in the middle of happily humming an ancient tune to the beat of her vegetable chopping. Autumn Blaze lived up to her exotic name as the only kirin anypony had ever seen. Her pristine fur and shimmering green scales flowed flawlessly towards the mare’s wonderful face. Her golden eyes burned with fiery passion that fueled the magical antlers rising from her head. Her bright auburn mane was good too, but manes were the last thing Rainbow wanted to think about. “Hey there, beautiful.” Autumn giggled and turned to meet her marefriend’s eyes when they went wide with surprise. Her knife clanked to the cutting board as her eyes traced the length of Rainbow’s mane. She didn’t seem to even notice the other changes like the lightning bolts or wing tips. “O-oh, this? Yeah. Starlight, you remember Starlight Glimmer, right?” Autumn nodded dumbly, still following the trail of flowing hair. “Well, her and Twilight were talking about magical stuff and the eggheads got started on rainbow power. It was this thing that happened to the six of us when…” Rainbow trailed off as Autumn approached awestruck by Rainbow’s mane and following it around the room. She grabbed it with a hoof and ran over it with her face. Rainbow chuckled nervously. “You know what? Not important. What is important is I volunteered to get rainbow-fied. I mean, I’d never flown so fast in my life after we beat Tirek and I wanted to see if I could really power up my performance! It kinda... backfired I guess? Now I’m stuck with an annoying amount of mane to deal with until it wears off.” Autumn dropped Rainbow’s mane and looked at her marefriend troubled. “Oh, don’t worry. It shouldn’t last much longer… I hope.” Autumn shook her head and pointed at Rainbow’s mane and smiled. “What? You mean you like it like this?” Autumn giggled and blushed while nodding profusely. “Well, I don’t! It’s getting tangled and caught in everything. I can’t even fly right with it even though my wings look like they could handle it.” Rainbow flared her wings revealing the multicolored tips of her feathers from the latent rainbow magical effects. “I just got away from Rarity who made me wear the heaviest dress ever. I can’t wait for this stupid thing to go back to normal. Starlight said it’d probably wear off by sundown.” The kirin gasped and looked out the window towards the late afternoon sun. A wave of panic crossed her face and the kirin darted into her room faster than Rainbow had ever seen her move. A clamoring of opening drawers and shuffling clutter filled the air, and Rainbow risked peaking around the doorframe. Her quarry located, Autumn giggled lightly sending a chill down Rainbow’s withers. She knew that girly giggle. It was the same kind the other girls shared when they had dragged her to the spa. That harmless snickering sound sent a wave of newfound terror through Dash as she worried what the mute mare might be thinking. Autumn grinned widely and turned around, holding aloft her prize: a large, ornate hairbrush. “Oh, ponyfeathers...” “And you’re absolutely certain,” Rarity stated rather than asked. “Outside of your ring of friends? Yeah.” Starlight answered. Rarity had been trying to convince the powerful mage to come up with a fashion-forward version of the botched spell from earlier, but Starlight already knew it was impossible the moment the designer brought it up. “I mean, you could just magically grow a pony’s hair out, but there is no way to replicate the other changes you six went through for other ponies thanks to the elements’ influence. Even if I pumped them full of magic, most manes would just flare up like Celestia’s or Luna’s until the excess magic was exhausted.” Rarity sighed dramatically in defeat as her hopes of Powered Perfection ever becoming a thing vanished in a cloud of smoke. Starlight led her dejected friend into the main hall of Twilight’s castle. “I suppose it is for the best anyway. Even though the hair was rather lovely, some of the other… unwanted visual effects might clash with my designs. For example, our hooves were covered in our cutie marks in all different colors. I don’t even want to imagine trying to design around them. What could be any worse of a fashion disaster if they were conflicting and complimenting colors at the same time?” “I dunno.” Glimmer chuckled darkly to herself and smiled wickedly at her friend. “What about a pony with a medical talent?” “Oh my. Syringes, teeth, or eyes all just... clustered together around the legs…” Rarity shuddered as her pupils shrank into the whites of her eyes. She shook her head and blinked herself back from the abyss. “Starlight? Remind me to send Princess Luna a personal request to monitor my sleep for the next forever, please.” Starlight reached for the door to let Rarity out of the castle until they exploded inwards in a flash and mass of familiar rainbows. A raspy yelp echoed through the halls with Rainbow Dash tumbling head over hoof into the wall in a clump of tangled mane. “Darling! Are you alright? And what in Celestia’s name happened to your mane!” Rainbow shook the stars from her eyes and looked around frantically. “Rarity? Where the hay is Starlight?” The purple mage in question answered by grumbling and spitting some errant rainbow mane out of her face. She shot rainbow a heated glower from the broom of tail she had been swept up in from in the crash. Rainbow smiled sheepishly and Glimmer teleported herself next to Rarity, taking a few brambles and sticks with her as she righted herself. Her anger subsided seeing the state of the mare. Rainbow’s long, flowing mane was littered with debris from all over town. Sticks, leaves, muffins, a tray of emerald sprinkled cupcakes, apple cores, an exotic flower bulb, hayburger trash, and were those Mayor Mare’s glasses? Without any magic power to keep Rainbow’s hair in check, it just picked up whatever she seemed to crash into while trying to fly with an irresponsible amount of weight. She looked like she had lost a game of hoofball with a trash can. Starlight could only imagine what else could be hiding in there. “Wow! What a rush! Thanks for the lift, Dashie!” Pinkie Pie thanked her friend as she bounced out from the unknown depths of Rainbow’s mane. The bubbly party mare collected her pastries onto the tray and skipped down the hall towards Spike’s room. That answered that question. “Starlight! Ya gotta change me back to normal, like now!” “What are you talking about? The spell should almost be burnt up.” “Well at least hide me!” The panicking pegasus shouted as she looked around for hair or hoof of her kirin pursuer. “My marefriend wants to give me a makeover!” “Rainbow, I fail to see how that could possibly be a bad thing, especially given your… less than stellar state this evening.” Rarity punctuated her point by plucking the red flower out of Rainbow’s mane. “But I’ve already had one makeover! Putting up with two in one day? I can’t even…” Rainbow stuck her tongue out in disgust. “I barely style my own mane in the morning. What would everypony say? It’s so uncool!” “And here I thought we were making so much progress with your beauty regimen,” Rarity huffed with a disapproving shake of her head. “Rarity? Where did you get that flower?” “Where do you think, Mane-iac? From your mane.” “B-but that only grows where Autumn is from!” At once, the bulb started glowing. It whisked away from Rarity’s grasp, expanding as it flew, and exploded in a burst of rose color revealing a wild-eyed Autumn Blaze holding a hairbrush in her clenched teeth. The kirin looked worse for wear as well, covered in sticks and mud from chasing her marefriend down. She giggled maniacally as she approached Rainbow’s flowing locks. Rainbow yelped, realizing she was pinned under the mass of her own messy mane. Autumn was going to get her and do all sorts of namby-pamby nonsense while she just had to sit there and take it! She could practically feel her epicness slipping away from her hooves. The feeling suddenly became very literal as the lightning bolts on Rainbow’s hooves faded away. At once, she heard a whooshing sound of hair sweeping across the floor as it retracted towards her head and rear. Unfortunately, it also brought along everything that had been tangled up in it in a whiplash of garbage walloping the pegasus in the face and burying her in a heap of trash. “Rainbow? Are you okay in there?” Starlight asked as the three equines approached the groaning mess. Rainbow emerged like a dirty mole from the filth with a banana peel on her hair. She shook it off and felt her head. It was light like it should be! She smiled triumphantly and flew into the air freely while Starlight and Rarity held their noses. “Woo hoo! Rainbow Dash is back in business, baby! No more makeovers for me,” Rainbow proclaimed in front of everypony in stark contrast to the trash pile she had emerged from. She puffed her chest out and zipped the foyer in a cleansing tornado that wiped away the grime and deposited it onto the pile below her. “Ha! Eat that every—” Rainbow stopped as she saw her marefriend. Autumn Blaze dropped the brush out of her mouth as her eyes watered. Her golden eyes shined from tears streaming down her face. The kirin turned away as sniffles started to overcome her. “Autumn…” Rainbow uttered, but Autumn recoiled, hurt scrawled across her face. The kirin’s eyes flittered around the room, seeking something, anything to help her communicate something to the ponies around her. Anything to express her sorrow. Seeing nothing, she looked at her hooves and gave up, weeping silently and openly in front of everypony before turning around and running out of the castle. “I am disappointed in you Rainbow Dash. How could you?” Rarity admonished. “I-I just didn’t want to go through anymore frou-frou stuff today.” “Apparently, your lovely marefriend did! Didn’t you even think for a second that Autumn might enjoy some quality time with the pony she loves? You keep your mane so short as it is, it’s hard to do anything with it. What if she likes styling manes? She most certainly puts effort into hers every day. Do you even know if she likes doing that?” “No. I mean, I don’t exactly know, but I guess—” “Of course you don’t know! How would you know? You would have to ask for her first! And when would the too-cool-for-frou Rainbow Dash even consider asking anypony about beauty tips? If it’s not about Daring Do or the Wonderbolts, it has to be staring you in the face before you’d even think to ask.” Rainbow bristled at the accusation and flared her wings. “Well, why should I have? It’s not like I can just talk about stuff I don’t know anything about, Rarity!” “Because your marefriend is mute!” Rarity’s yell echoed through the halls of the quiet castle. She hadn’t hit her, but Rainbow felt as if she’d been bucked square in the chest. The pegasus faltered and looked away from the angry mare. “Honestly, Rainbow. You need to get your head out of the clouds and learn to listen. She can’t communicate to you unless you take the time to let her. You need to be generous with your words and speak for the both of you. Otherwise, you were better off leaving her in the forest.” Rainbow Dash whimpered, her wings and head drooped as she fought back the disappointment in herself. She wasn’t feeling very loyal at the moment. “Okay, okay! You’re right. I screwed up. I screwed up big time! Sweet Celestia, I need to fix this. Oh geez, how do I even begin to apologize to her?” Starlight and Rarity eyed each other and shared a nod between themselves. The two unicorns looked back at the somber pegasus and Starlight smirked. “I think we might have an idea.” Rainbow nervously shuffled her hooves outside of Autumn’s room. The door was closed and covered with vines, meaning that she was not interested in being disturbed. Of course, the pegasus wouldn’t let a few weeds stand in the way of her apologizing for her stupidity. Especially when there was a time limit. “Autumn… are you… well yeah, I know you’re in there, but can I come in please?” A low and morose growl resonated from beyond the door in reply. “Look, I know I messed up. I shouldn’t have flown off like that, especially when I saw how much you liked my mane.” Rainbow listened for a reply. Giving her marefriend a moment, she finally heard a sniff and whimper from the other side of the door. “I was just being selfish. I didn’t even think to ask you about it. Heck, I don’t even know what you liked about it. Maybe because it was different or you like ridiculously long manes or you just wanted to mess with me.” She paused again. There was no reply this time. “Rarity really yelled at me after you left. I… I deserved every word of it. I wasn’t listening when I should have and I hurt your feelings, and I don’t even know how! Was it because you wanted to spend time together or you like playing with manes? I don’t know! And that’s the point! And I really need to stop talking now.” Rainbow bit down on her tongue and perked her ears to listen again. She heard a snapping sound and looked up to see the thorny vines pull apart and wither away. Even though it looked like she could, Rainbow still waited before entering. “Can I come in?” In reply, the bedroom door opened revealing Autumn Blaze sitting in the center, facing away from the door to the window outside. The moon shined brightly, catching the scales on her back as they glistened in its silver light. The garden of flowers and foliage rustled from the breeze blowing from outside, carrying a medley of scented blooms to Rainbow’s nose. The pegasus carefully made her way into the room. She didn’t have to see Autumn’s face to know she was still crying. “I’m sorry, Autumn. I’m sorry I ran out like that without even asking you why you liked my stupid mane. I should have listened.” Autumn sighed sadly and laid her head on the floor with her ears flopping down. “Can you forgive me?” Autumn nodded, her eyes still transfixed on the moon. “Great! That’s a relief.” Rainbow released the breath she’d been holding and laughed. “If I’m honest, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do if you didn’t. I don’t know how I was going to manage for the next however long this lasts.” Autumn blinked curiously and turned her head towards Rainbow Dash. Her golden eyes bugged out and then sparkled like sundrops at Rainbow’s rainbow powered mane. It was floofy and pristine just as it had been the day they returned magic to Equestria. Autumn’s hairbrush stuck out of the top, glowing with a mote of magic. “After a quick bath, Starlight recast the spell and zapped something into your brush to keep the whole thing together until I got home. She said all you gotta do is pull it out and—” Before Rainbow could finish, Autumn had already pulled her brush out of Rainbow’s mane, causing the whole thing to flop over them both in a mess of Rainbow hair. Autumn giggled and pecked a kiss on Rainbow’s nose, catching a few strands on her lips in the process. Rainbow joined her with a raspy laugh as well and pulled Autumn into a deeper kiss under her messy mane in the moonlight. “You know, this isn’t half bad,” Rainbow mused as Autumn methodically ran her brush through Rainbow’s hair. Autumn giggled at her marefriend’s delighted sighs as she continued to stroke one after the other. The two had been at it for hours with the kirin gleefully styling the colorful mane. She had grown vines and wrapped it into a massive ponytail, dotted it with a myriad of blooming flowers like a long, wavy river, and even made it into a gigantic beehive briefly when Dash had nodded off for a while. Autumn had managed to snap a picture just before the pegasus had woken up. Now, Autumn was simply brushing the long, flowing rainbow like a massive fluffy cat as she spooned around her marefriend. The mass of mane made it a bit awkward to find a comfortable position for both ponies, but using the excess mane as a cushion that both ponies laid on seemed to do the trick. Autumn yawned loudly, almost losing her brush in her hooves. “Don’t you want to sleep yet? It’s like three in the morning.” Autumn dismissed the notion with the “pbbft” of a razzberry. “Ah. I guess you don’t want to waste a moment of the massive manebow mash, huh?” The kirin giggled at the terrible pun and tapped once on the rainbow colored wing. Rainbow yelped at the sudden touch. “H-hey! Lay off the wing tips! I don’t poke you anywhere sensitive like that...” Autumn growled and levitated a stick she’d used as a hairpin earlier and bopped Rainbow in the forehead with it. “Oh. Are your antlers sensitive?” Autumn hummed to herself and tapped Rainbow’s shoulder three times in a row. “Three taps?” Rainbow asked and turned her head as much as she could towards her marefriend. Autumn leaned over so Rainbow could get a better look at her.“What do you mean by that?” Autumn pondered for a second and then brightened at a eureka moment. She raised her foreleg and snaked it up and down. “Wavy?” Autumn shook her head. “Snakey? Water?” The flat look she fired back told Dash she wasn’t even close. Autumn thought about it again and waved her hoof back and forth, signalling she was starting over. Autumn nodded. “Yes?” Autumn shook her head. “No?” Autumn did the wavy motion again while bobbing her head up and down to the left and right. “Kinda?” Autumn smiled and shook her head vigorously as Rainbow’s correct guess. “So they’re kinda touchy? I guess that makes sense. Kinda wouldn’t want something you could ram something with to get hurt easily.” Autumn nodded in agreement. She clacked her hoof against her horn and didn’t react at all, but then channeled a little magic into it and tapped again, making her wince and dispelling her magic. “Oh! So they’re only sensitive when you’re doing magic!” Autumn made a giant circle with her forelegs making an “O” for her marefriend’s perfect charades guess. She then pulled Rainbow into a tight hug and rewarded her with a kiss on the cheek and leaving Dash with a wide grin splitting her face. “Well, I’m still gonna bop you on the head if you try to marehandle me out of bed in the morning with your magic.” Autumn soured, pulling her lips into a cute pout before bonking Rainbow on the forehead with the stick again. “Alright, alright. Just don’t expect me to be up every morning after I have Wonderbolt training, okay? I don’t care how delicious your apple pancakes are.” Autumn sighed, but tapped Rainbow tenderly on the shoulder in agreement. She laid back down and began working on the green sections of Rainbow’s hair. She nickered softly in delight as she lost herself once again to brushing the mare’s wild mane. “So, is there anything else you want to talk about?” Rainbow offered. “Like maybe you have some hobbies that I don’t know about or things your into that maybe some of my other friends might like? I’m all ears, tonight.” Autumn snorted and shoulder tapped twice. “Oh, am I in trouble?” she shuddered at the aggression behind the tap. Two much softer taps brushed Rainbow’s shoulder. “Oh.” Rainbow paused and considered the moment they were having. “Do… do you just want to enjoy the brushing quietly?” The kirin snickered sweetly and gently tapped Rainbow’s shoulder once more, which was followed by a loving kiss on the neck. “Okay, I can do that.” The marefriends laid together on Autumn’s soft bed of clouds. Autumn started humming another tune to the gentle strokes of her brush. Rainbow did her best to stay awake, but the soothing sensation and gentle massage of her long strokes lulled Rainbow to sleep once again. Testing the waters, Autumn perked up from the bed and waved a hoof in front of Dash’s face. When her marefriend replied with a deep snore, the kirin giggled mischievously. Reaching over to her nightstand, she pulled out a styling book that Rarity and Starlight had secreted away in Rainbow’s hair. She flipped through several pages, looking for another ridiculous manestyle to try out. Autumn stumbled across something called a jumbo bun. The cheery kirin suppressed her laughter, imagining just how massive of an orb she could make before her Rainbow Dash woke up again.