This was going to be a complete waste of time; Rainbow Dash just knew it. She promised Applejack she would ask her other friends for help, too, though. She had to at least make a token effort so she could say that she tried. Having made up her mind, the blue mare quietly nudged open the door to Rarity's boutique and peered inside. “Rarity? You around?” she called halfheartedly, hoping beyond hope that she'd either find the place deserted or so busy that the resident dressmaker wouldn't have time to talk.
She had no such luck.
“Why, Rainbow Dash!” Rarity gushed. She turned out to be both present and suffering through a particularly slow business day. "And coming in through the front door for a change," the unicorn noted, "Usually your entrances tend to be a tad more, shall we say, dynamic?” Although Rarity's flawless, ingratiating smile never faltered, there was no mistaking the slight accusatory tone in that remark. ”But never mind that. Welcome, welcome! To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Rainbow Dash - who realized with a pang of guilt that this probably was the first time she had entered Rarity's shop through conventional means - tried to think of a suitable answer to that question, but drew a complete blank. Why was she here? What was she hoping to accomplish? Her question concerned supersonic flight, not super-fabulous fashion.
Before she even got a chance to throw out a strategically placed 'um' to stall for time, however, Rarity answered for her.
“You must have heard about it, I suppose,” the unicorn concluded cryptically. She let out a deep sigh and her luxurious, well-coiffed mane bounced as she nodded sagely. “Well, I cannot say I did not see this coming. It's hard to keep a monumental accomplishment such as this a secret, of course. I cannot blame you, Rainbow dear; I completely understand you rushing over here right away. You must be ever so thrilled!”
“Yes..” Rainbow Dash bluffed, her curiosity piqued and her quick-witted mind racing. She swiftly called upon her considerable experience in the field of pretending-to-know-what-ponies-were-talking-about. It was a skill she had honed to near-perfection in her Basics of Flight classes, given the fact that she was more interested in the actual flying than the total snoozefest of the underlying theories. “Yes, I'm dying to see the.. thingie?”
Okay, so maybe she was a little rusty.
But Rarity hardly seemed to notice her cerulean customer's confusion; she appeared to be beside herself with pride and anticipation. If she was truly upset by Rainbow Dash's unexpected visit, she didn't show it.
“Come along now, follow me,” Rarity called enthusiastically, leading a bewildered Rainbow Dash to a small room in the back of the shop where she tended to work on her most top-secret projects. “Well, here we are,” she simpered, inclining her horn towards an object hidden beneath a cloth. “Ready for the Pièce de résistance?”
“Sure, ready when you are!” Rainbow Dash said, feigning confidence and trying to conceal the fact that she still had no idea where this was going. It didn't help that she wasn't quite sure what Rarity had just said, having never been to Prance. The unicorn's enthusiasm was proving infectious, however, and Rainbow Dash found herself growing excited despite her ignorance.
“Voila!” Rarity said dramatically as she raised the dark cloth that had been draped over the fruit of her labors with her natural telekinetic powers. She looked at Rainbow Dash expectantly; she always adored the stunned reactions of customers whenever she exceeded their expectations and was all the more eager to please now that the recipient was a close friend.
She was not disappointed.
It took a moment for Rainbow Dash to pick her jaw up off the floor. Even then she was rendered nearly speechless. “Rarity, this is.. this is..” the blue mare stammered, wide-eyed and lost for words.
“Yes, yes?” Rarity demanded happily, “Magnificent? Unparalleled?”
“Soooo AWESOME!” Dash cried instead. But if Rarity was unsatisfied with the other mare's limited vocabulary, the squeal that followed more than made up for it. Before now she had only heard Rainbow Dash produce that noise when the Wonderbolts were present.
But this reaction was inevitable. The equinnequin Rarity had unveiled displayed a flight-suit very similar to those the Wonderbolts wore during their spectacular shows. The talented seamstress' perfectionism showed in the way she had created it to fit Rainbow like a second skin, which would reduce wind resistance to a minimum. And making it far more feminine and shapely, in addition to fine-tuning the colors to be a perfect match to Dash's blue coat? Well, that was just a standard procedure.
The suit was unadorned and practical, befitting of its intended wearer. But on the flank, where Rainbow Dash's cutie mark would be, a rainbow design made of tiny, brightly colored gemstones sparkled.
Finally, the ensemble came with a stylish, streamlined pair of goggles that would protect its wearer's eyes when they were traveling at insane velocities.
Rainbow Dash took in all these little details as she circled Rarity's creation. The grin on her face was so persistent that she feared it would never come off again. “For me? You made this for me? Seriously?” she kept repeating until she finally voiced the question that was burning on her mind: ”What the hay did I do to deserve something like this?”
“What did you do?” Rarity repeated incredulously. She looked solemnly at the other pony. “Why, darling, you saved my life! And after I acted so shamefully.. This really was the least I could do to repay you.”
“Oh, that,” her savior mumbled. Recalling the incident that occurred at the Best Young Flier Competition reminded Rainbow Dash of her actual reason for coming here. “Well, not that I don't totally appreciate it, Rarity, but you really didn't need go out of your way like this. You would've done the same for me,” she said resolutely.
At first, Rarity looked like she wanted to argue, to justify her desire to give something back and explain why she felt indebted to Rainbow Dash. But in the end she acquiesced and smiled gratefully. The blue mare's words, however cliched, had taken a load off her shoulders.
“Well, the suit is yours regardless. I shall not accept 'no' for an answer," Rarity said with an air of finality. "But I still have to put on some finishing touches, so perhaps you can come and pick it up later?”
“Oh, I definitely want the suit!” Rainbow Dash hastily assured her. She felt giddy at the prospect of going flying in it; it would be just another step closer to her greatest ambition.
“Splendid! I would get on it right this instant, but I'm actually expecting Fluttershy to drop by any minute,” Rarity told her. ”We scheduled today for our weekly visit to the spa, you see. Come to think of it.. Well, it is probably pointless to ask, but perhaps you would like to join us, Rainbow Dash? My treat, naturally. We seldom get to talk, you and I, and I would rather like to amend that.”
“I wouldn't mind chatting sometime, Rare. But spas – not really my thing,” Rainbow Dash replied almost immediately.
Neither of them heard the door being gingerly opened.
“I thought you might say that,” Rarity said, and she sounded genuinely disappointed. ”But really, it is not all that bad dear. You can relax and allow yourself to be pampered a little. Maybe even get your mane done!”
Inadvertently, the unicorn glanced at the other mare's shock of unkempt but uniquely prismatic mane. Both barely veiled disapproval and manic eagerness shone in her azure eyes at the sight of so much makeover potential. She couldn't imagine anypony not wanting to fully capitalize on the physical traits that set them apart.
"Naw, I do my own mane."
"Really. How.. quaint," Rarity said with a forced smile, glancing at Rainbow Dash's unevenly cut bangs. "But perhaps a professional might come up with something which would look, erm, cooler?"
“I like it the way it--” Rainbow Dash began.
“Oh, Rainbow Dash is getting her mane done?” a soft voice behind the pegasus said nearly simultaneously.
“I am NOT,” Rainbow Dash said brusquely, growing tired of the subject.
“Eep..”
Rainbow Dash froze. Too late had she realized to whom that other voice belonged. She instantly regretted raising her voice; it couldn't have been aimed at a worse pony. She spun around and, sure enough, there stood Fluttershy looking like she wanted to bolt for the door.
“I was just coming to see Rarity,” Fluttershy said quickly, as though she needed to justify her presence even though she had been expected. “I heard the two of you talking. I'm sorry for eavesdropping. It was impolite of me to do that, and I..”
“Fluttershy, stop. Just stop, okay?” Rainbow Dash interrupted the skittish pony's superfluous apology, while sheepishly rubbing the back of her neck with a hoof. “I didn't mean.. You have nothing to apologize for.”
“Quite right,” Rarity added reassuringly, just barely stopping Fluttershy from apologizing for being so apologetic. “Lovely of you to drop by, dear! I was just telling Rainbow Dash here about our weekly get-togethers and invited her to come with sometime.”
“That would be fun, I think,” Fluttershy beamed. But when she remembered the blue mare's outburst from earlier her smile faltered. “But I suppose she'd rather not..” Her large, blue eyes darted over to Rainbow Dash; she seemed to be waiting politely to see if her guess hadn't been too presumptuous.
“Well, I--” Rainbow Dash said hesitantly. She frantically tried to come up with a plausible excuse.
Rarity sensed weakness. “Oh please-please-puh-lease?” she whined, beseeching the demurring mare with her hooves clasped together. She kind of ruined her overacting with a conspiratory wink towards Fluttershy though.
“Pretty please.. with a sugar cube on top?” Fluttershy tried, emboldened by her friend's hilariously over-the-top plea. “If you aren't too busy,” she couldn't help but add.
Rainbow Dash opened her mouth, ready to decline again. But when she looked from one mare to the other, both of them looking at her hopefully, she found she could not do it. Rarity was up to something of course, but snubbing someone who had just given her the coolest gift ever seemed extremely ungrateful. And then there was Fluttershy. If Rainbow Dash hadn't known any better she could have sworn she was at the receiving end of one of her infamous Stares, except this one would put every puppy-dog in Equestria to shame. It was obvious that it would make her happy if Rainbow Dash tagged along.
With a sigh, Rainbow realized that resistance was futile.
Hey, how bad could it be?
“This is horrible..” Rainbow Dash gasped. She stared at the disfigured blue mare in the mirror, unable to fathom how she'd ever let anypony do this to her. Each separate strand of color in her mane had been individually braided and the effect was an almost medusian head of short, uneven braids that stood on end. To add insult to injury, each serpentine pig-tail was fitted with a matching bow near the end.
The unlikely trio of of mares were currently in the beauty salon of the spa Rarity and Fluttershy frequented. They'd already enjoyed most of what Rarity would consider 'the usual,' and up to this point even Rainbow Dash hadn't had too much to gripe about. She hadn't seen the point of most of the luxurious treatments lavished on them and they'd gotten a little tedious at times, but they hadn't been unpleasant per se. So most of the day had gone quite smoothly. (Apart from a minor, familiar incident involving cucumber slices.)
When they'd arrived at the salon for a little preening however, Rarity had told the beautician present that her services would not be required today. Since she was one of their best customers the spa staff readily agreed with Rarity's every whim, even when she requested that they be allowed to use the facilities present to give each other makeovers.
And by 'each other,' she had of course meant 'Rainbow Dash.'
“Not to worry, not to worry,” Rarity consoled the distraught pony, although she sounded a little frantic herself. “Just an experiment gone a teensy bit wrong. I can fix this..” She'd never encountered a pony whose mane and tail she couldn't make at least 20% more fabulous with a few simple modifications. But Rainbow Dash's mane wasn't merely unruly, it seemed to actively resist the unicorn's fevered attempts to tame it.
“Just have to put this.. there, and.. oh, it is hopeless!” Rarity cried. She looked about ready to tear out her own mane. ”Fluttershy, a little assistance if you please?”
“Oh, anything I can do to help Rarity,” Fluttershy said. She beamed encouragingly at Rainbow Dash, who shot her a pleading look in return.
“Scalpel,” Rarity demanded. She did not look away from her 'patient,' intently focused on the disastrous 'do before her.
“S-scalpel,” Fluttershy repeated haltingly as she took the sharp instrument in question very carefully into her mouth and passed it to Rarity. She looked a bit concerned about what the unicorn was planning to do with it, and she was not the only one.
Rainbow Dash, who had been secured to a hairdresser's chair, was frantically shaking her head. (This whole scene was disturbingly reminiscent of a nightmare she once had, albeit one featuring another pony wielding the knife.)
“Hold still, dear,” Rarity said intently. Droplets of sweat ran down her forehead as she carefully manipulated the floating scalpel with her magic, but they were dutifully wiped off by Fluttershy.
With a few expert incisions Rarity managed to cut all the bows and ribbons she'd tied into Rainbow's mane, all of which had gotten hopelessly tangled. “Blowdryer, stat!” she urged immediately afterwards. Fluttershy hastened to oblige. Requests for combs, brushes, and several kinds of extremely fixating hair gel followed in rapid succession, which Fluttershy all obediently provided. After nearly an hour an exhausted-looking Rarity stepped back and admired her hoof-work. “There. An avant-garde variation on the classic pixie-mane, with a certain wild nonchalance,” she explained. ”A style perfectly suited for you, darling. If I do say so myself..”
“Lemme see, lemme see!” Rainbow Dash said, scrambling out of the chair for a chance at seeing herself in one of the salon's many mirrors. She dreaded the sight of whatever posh manestyle Rarity had foisted upon her. When she glanced at her reflection, however, Rainbow Dash did a double take. Her mouth hung open and her eyes were wide. “This.. This looks..” she stammered, while Rarity looked on with confident pride. “This looks exactly the same!” she finally blurted out, sounding both relieved and incredulous. And indeed one would be hard-pressed to point out any significant difference between the before and the after.
“No no no,” Rarity said with a frown. “It's clearly more elegant, more refined now,” she insisted. ”I spent minutes painstakingly arranging each individual lock, to make it look appropriately chaotic and I-don't-care-ish!”
“Well I think it looks great on you,” Fluttershy told Rainbow Dash with a smile.
“You're.. not really having a good time, are you?” Fluttershy asked sympathetically. The glum expression on Rainbow Dash's face made her question extremely rhetorical.
After the debacle with Rainbow Dash's makeover, Rarity, who was still upset that her 'brilliant re-imagining' of Rainbow Dash's manestyle had garnered only lukewarm praise, had briefly excused herself to visit the Little Fillies' Room.
The two remaining ponies had moved into the hot tub and it had taken every ounce of restraint from Rainbow Dash's side not to do a cannonball into it. She was beginning to feel rather restless after all this fussing and fawning. Instead she settled for a few languid laps around the large tub, paddling her hind legs whilst floating on her back. Fluttershy was content to occupy a small spot near the edge, where she relaxed while balancing the heavy towel wrapped around her mane.
She wasn't much of a swimmer, after all.
“Naw, it's alright - I'm having fun!” Rainbow Dash replied, making sure to contort her face into a depressingly unconvincing grin.
But Fluttershy just smiled and looked at her serenely, until Rainbow Dash caved and dropped the act. “Oh alright, so it's not really my idea of a great afternoon,” the blue mare admitted with a sigh. She stopped swimming around and settled on the opposite end of the tub, spreading her wings to let them drip-dry.
“It was very nice of you to give it a try though,” Fluttershy said soothingly. “Rarity might be a little, um, overzealous sometimes, but she means well.”
“You two are really good friends, aren't you?” Rainbow Dash responded, trying to keep her tone conversational and only vaguely interested. She was looking intently at Fluttershy however.
Fluttershy was taken slightly off guard by this abrupt change of subject, but nodded and smiled happily. “Oh yes, we spend lots of time together! And she's always there for me. She really is a great friend.”
“That's nice,” Rainbow Dash said tersely. She wondered at her own tone. What the hay was wrong with her? Surely she wasn't jealous of the closeness between Rarity and Fluttershy; envious of the fact that they spent more time together than she and the other pegasus ever did? That was ridiculous. Her own choices were to blame for that.
Quickly, Rainbow Dash dunked her head underwater to cool off a little and clear her obviously muddled brain. When she resurfaced Fluttershy was looking at her with a mixture of puzzlement and.. something else.
Amusement? No.
Pity? Naw.
Affection? Now that was just wishful thinking.
Rainbow Dash gave up. She couldn't figure it out; she sucked at this. Why did it have to be so complicated? Once again she found herself wishing everypony came with a manual containing detailed instructions on how to interpret the subtle signals and all the hints between the lines. She'd been pining for this sadly nonexistent reference guide ever since her teens, when hormones had started raging and she'd found that being a filly herself gave her absolutely no priviliged insight into the wiles and intricacies of her female peers. They'd all been too busy inexplicably swooning over colts, anyway. Always asking her if so-and-so had said anything about them; information they'd imagined Rainbow Dash was privy to since she'd spent so much time hanging out with the boys that she was practically considered one of them.
“Snap out of it,” she told herself.
“Um.. excuse me?” Fluttershy said, politely pretending like she hadn't just heard Rainbow Dash talking to herself aloud.
“N-nothing,” the flustered blue mare responded. “Just got a little woozy from all this steam is all. Had to, you know, snap out of it.”
Egads, why was she so lame?
“Yes, it can make you a little.. light-headed, can't it?” Fluttershy said, considerately going along with Rainbow Dash's rather flimsy fabrication. She was biting her lower lip for some reason, and tilted her head cutely as their eyes met. Usually, in keeping with her name, Fluttershy couldn't abide more than a few seconds of eye contact with others and would quickly look away. But this time she endured it and their eyes remained locked. Somehow, between those overlarge orbs of sparkling pink and blue, more was being communicated than their clumsy words could ever hope to convey.
It was hard to tell in this moistness and heat, but were Fluttershy's pale cheeks flushed a bit more than before? Or was Rainbow Dash just imagining things? She gulped and blinked her eyes a few times, clearing them of the water that dripped from her soggy mane. Which clung rather unattractively to her head, she realized, in a surprising moment of self-consciousness.
“H-hey Fluttershy?” Rainbow Dash began, trying to sound casual but failing from the get-go. To make matters worse, she had no clue where she was going to take the vacuous, off-hoofed question. What was going on here? Why was she suddenly the shy, stuttering, awkward one?
“Yes?”
“You know.. Um..”
“... Yes?”
“Ah, here you are girls!” Rarity said, bursting into the bathroom with a flourish. She was wearing a gorgeous, homemade bathrobe with her cutie mark stitched into the back. A matching white towel was wrapped around her head so as to protect her precious mane from the humid atmosphere. “Terribly sorry to have kept you two waiting, but there was a line like you would not believe.”
“Oh, that must've been annoying..” Fluttershy sympathized graciously.
“Extremely annoying..” Rainbow Dash concurred through gritted teeth.