Pillows
Rainbow Dash staggered through the door moments after Twilight did, a stack of three plain brown boxes piled on her back. Twilight sighed happily, dropping her own box from her magical grasp onto a neat stack in the main room of the building. The building itself wasn’t special, just an average Ponyville house on an average Ponyville street. Plain white walls lined the entry way, leading into an average sized living room. But to her it was special; to her it was the best thing that had happened to her since Rainbow had proposed. This was not her house, far from it. It was their house. It had been tough to leave the library, but it was well worth it to live with her wife in their own house. To her surprise it had been Rainbow who had first suggested it, the night after their wedding. The pegasus seemed more then ready to sell her own cloud home, but flat out refused to move into the library, something about being ‘way too egghead’. Though Twilight new the real reason, even if Dash would never admit to it. The truth was that there was always something special about the first house you buy with your spouse, and whether she would admit it or not, Rainbow was a huge softy when it came to romance.
“Hey… Twi… a little… help?” Rainbow’s words, broken up by strained gasps, brought Twilight out of her thoughts.
“Oh, right, sorry.” Twilight smiled sheepishly as she lifted all three boxes off Rainbow’s back telekinetically and set them on the rather large stack now occupying their living room.
“Remind me again how I got stuck carrying all of your books.” Rainbow half-complained-half-whined, stretching her back and wings now that she was free of the weight.
“Because you offered.” Twilight deadpanned, barely giving a moment’s pause for the pegasus to argue before continuing. “Now, I think that’s everything,” She paused, taking a scroll and quill from a table nearby and checking an item off before moving down to the next one on the list. “Now, we need to unpack essentials today, the rest can wait for tomorrow.”
“And what, exactly, counts as essential?”
“Anything we’ll need today, so that should include anything for the bathroom and bedroom-”
“Bedroom stuff depends on what you want to do tonight.” Dash cut in, waggling her eyebrows suggestively, earning nothing more then a slightly annoyed sigh from the unicorn.
“For sleeping.” She stressed, shooting a brief glare at the cyan pegasus who still wore a cheeky grin before turning back to her list.
“And one of the kitchen boxes for an easy dinner tonight.” Twilight finished happily, turning to the pile to begin finding the boxes she had previously marked ‘essential’.
“Alright, I’ll start on the bedroom box.” Without a response a box marked ‘bedroom essentials’ was placed on her back. Taking the lack of a response as her signal to get to work, she started down the hall to the stairs, climbing them before walking down another hall to the bedroom. Balancing the box with the aid of her wings, she made her way over to the bed and slid the box off her back. With a hoof she nudged it open, only it didn’t open. She tried again, this time with both hooves, and got the same result. She braced herself against the floor and pulled with all the strength she could, yet still the box held fast. Upon closer inspection, she realized Twilight had taped the box closed with what must have been the strongest packing tape in the world.
“Alright Dash, are you gonna let a little tape get in your way?” She said, taking a step back and puffing her chest out.
“Or are you gonna show that tape who’s boss?” She tackled the box, hooves teeth and wings ripping and tearing at any surface she could grab. For a while the box held steady under her assault, but eventually she heard a slight ripping sound of cardboard tearing in half.
-_-_-_-
“Hey Rainbow, how’s the-” Twilight was stopped mid sentence and halfway through the door by a room that looked like it had been hit by a tornado… after Discord had been through… riding a hurricane.
“Hmm? Oh, hey Twi, I’m almost done.” Dash smiled, having stopped her futile attempts at making a bed. The sheets were tucked under only three corners, the pillow was half way out of it’s case, the blanket looked as if it had been chewed on and crumpled, while still folded at the end of the bed, and Dash was standing on top of it all, holding the corner that had yet to be tucked in her mouth while her legs were spread out in an attempt to hold the other corners in place. The room itself looked even worse then the bed. There were bits of cardboard strewn across every inch of the floor, feathers were spread around the room, some white and others were a light blue, matching Rainbow’s to a T. The only thing that looked somewhat normal was her brush, sitting on a vanity table on the far wall of the room, but a closer inspection of that revealed it to have three broke bristles - which annoyed Twilight to no end - and a strip of torn fabric trapped by one of the broken bristles.
“Rainbow… why does it look like Discord came through here with a stampede of long-legged rabbits on a sugar high?” Twilight asked, taking advantage of her deep breathing techniques to keep herself calm.
“What? Oh, yeah… sorry about the mess, but you used some pretty strong tape on those boxes, so I had to get a little… forceful.” Dash smiled sheepishly and blushed, looking around at the chaos her ‘forcefulness’ had caused.
“Rainbow… why don’t you… go… somewhere else for a second.” Before Rainbow had a chance to answer she felt the familiar feeling of Twilight’s magic wrapping around her body and dragging her out the door moments before a purple glow surrounded the door and slammed it shut.
“Uh… sorry?” Dash offered to the closed door, sitting down and waiting for Twilight to do… whatever she was going to do.
-_-_-_-
A few minutes later Twilight trotted happily out of the room, finding Rainbow still sitting in the hall as if no time had passed at all.
“Ah, Rainbow, good, I need to talk to you.” Twilight said, almost a little too happily.
“Uh, sure, what’s up?” She asked, eyeing the unicorn suspiciously.
“Well, in your attempts to open the box, you managed to absolutely destroy one of the pillows, leaving us with only one. That being said, THAT PILLOW IS MINE! It’s only fair, since you’re the one that destroyed it.” Twilight smiled before trotting past her and down the stairs. “Now it’s time for dinner, and you get to help make it this time.”
About half an hour and many, many, many clean-ups later Dash once again found herself tossed out of a room by Twilight, this time it was the kitchen. She sighed as Twilight slammed the door with a huff. She had messed up… again. Because of her they were one pillow short, Twilight had to clean the entire bedroom, and make dinner, by herself. No matter what she did, it always seamed to end with her messing up and Twilight fixing her mistake.
She made her way slowly over to the couch, looking at the daunting pile of boxes they had yet to unpack, and wondering just how many more time she could screw it up.
“Stupid stupid stupid.” Dash berated herself, slamming her head into the arm of the couch with each repetition. With a final, and rather hard, slam she rested her head against the arm, breathing out slowly. She laid there for a few minutes until Twilight finally came out of the kitchen, carrying two bowls of soup in her magic as she made her way over to the table.
“Rainbow, dinner!” She called from the other room, forcing the pegasus up and off the couch to eat said dinner.
Rainbow Dash ate in silence, eyes trained on her bowl as she ate the dinner Twilight had to make, because she screwed up… again.
“Is something wrong? You’re awfully quiet.” Twilight asked, glancing up from her soup to look at the pegasus who had just finished her own meal.
“No,” She lied, she didn’t need to worry Twilight about her own failures, and she had been enough trouble for her partner already. “I’m just tired; I think I’ll hit the hay now, actually. I’ll stay off your pillow.” Without another word she stood from the table and walked up the stairs to their bedroom, realizing once she got there that she had left her bowl on the table. Just one more of her messes that Twilight had to clean up.
“Ok…” Twilight said, looking at the retreating form of her lover confusedly, before shrugging and finishing her own dinner. If Rainbow wanted to talk to her, she would. All Twilight had to do was make sure she was there when that time came.
She finished her soup quickly and put both her and Rainbow’s bowls in the sink to be washed the next morning. With a happy sigh she sat on the couch in the quiet house and began reading a random book from one of the boxes. After only five chapters she was stifling yawns, eventually deciding it was time for her to go to bed and shutting the book, her page marked with a lavender bookmark.
She made her way through the darkened house, the sun having gone down quite a while ago. She illuminated her path with a faint purple light from her horn, carefully avoiding boxes strewn almost randomly about the house in an attempt to put them in the correct places for when they were unpacked the next day. Eventually she made it to the bedroom, putting out the light from her horn and opening the door as quietly as she could; hoping to avoid waking the pegasus she knew was sleeping in the bed. Sure enough, once her eyes adjusted to the dark, she saw the huddled form of Rainbow Dash under the covers, her pillow resting on the opposite side of the bed as promised. She felt a tingle of guilt run through her gut at the sight, Rainbow was trying, and failing, to use her hoof as a pillow, and her face betrayed her discomfort.
With a quiet sigh she approached the bed almost silently and slid into her own side, resting her head on the pillow that Rainbow had specifically left for her.
“Twi?” The sudden voice made Twilight jump, turning to look at wide, magenta eyes staring at her, apparently wide awake.
“Yeah?”
“Sorry, for making you clean up after my mistakes, I mean. I know I screw up a lot, and I know more often then not you end up cleaning up the mess, and you have no idea how much it means to me that you’d stick with me after everything I put you through.” She then sighed and rolled back over, fidgeting a moment, trying to find a comfortable position. Upon finding none, she gave an annoyed grunt and rolled over onto her stomach.
Twilight gave a small smile and lit her horn, picking up both Rainbow Dash and her pillow at the same time. She flipped Rainbow over, placed the pillow under her head, and then set her back down, the blankets already covering her once again. Dash looked at her for a second before Twilight scooted over in the bed and resting her head against Rainbow’s chest.
“You don’t need to apologize for anything. I stay with you because I love you. Besides, you’re a much more comfortable pillow.” Twilight giggled as she got as close as she could, wrapping her hooves around the cyan pegasus.
“Thanks, Twi. I love you too.” Rainbow allowed herself a smile as she wrapped her own hooves around the lavender body next to hers, the embrace putting her doubts and fears to rest.