“Helmets!”
“Check!”
“Check!”
“Brace!”
“Check!”
“Check!”
“And, away!”
With that Scootaloo’s wings began to blur and dust billowed behind her and across the other two Cutie Mark Crusaders. She kept pushing for a few seconds but the dust was the only result and the buzzing faded as she gave up and turned to look at her friends, sitting in the wagon attached to her scooter.
“Pteuio!” Sweetie Belle complained.
“That ain’t right,” agreed Apple Bloom. “We ain’t movin’ and we are right dusty.”
Scootaloo hopped off her scooter and looked under the wagon. “Hey! Somepony has put wedged rocks under all four wheels!”
“And somepony has scattered a mite of loose dirt around it,” Apple Bloom added, reaching a hoof down to feel what should be quite hard packed road.
“Oh dear!” tittered Diamond Tiara from a safe distance. “I can’t imagine anypony doing that. Can you Silver Spoon?”
“Of course not,” Silver Spoon agreed, being a toad eater despite also being a herbivore, “though it’s hard to imagine anypony wanting to sit in a wagon either.”
Cheerilee started forward to break up what looked like it was going to be a fight. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon had sniffed and begun to walk away but she knew how fast the Cutie Mark Crusaders could move and the other two had provided ammunition. She doubted any of the Cutie Mark Crusaders would throw the rocks from beneath the wagon but a hoof-full of loose dirt could be quickly formed into a dirtball. Then to her surprise she saw the Cutie Mark Crusaders were showing no interest in retribution. Instead they were just calmly unhitching the scooter from the wagon.
As Cheerilee stopped and watched the Cutie Mark Crusaders used their combined strength to tip the wagon to shake out the dirt and then moved it across to one side away from the loose dirt and the stones. Then they picked up the stones and put them where somepony wouldn’t risk stepping on them and getting them wedged in their hoof. And after re-hitching the scooter to the wagon they just left, and not in the direction Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon had gone. This was very worrying as what scheme they could have that would keep them from revenging that prank neatly boggled her imagination.
==
Rainbow Dash was finally winding down with only the odd giggle escaping her at Joe’s expression and the novelty of prodding him having apparently worn off. Then a few giggles more broke free as Joe rubbed his chest with an exaggerated wince. “Note to self,” he muttered, pretending to be talking to himself, “if there is a danger of making Rainbow Dash laugh then ensure you are wearing a padded vest.”
“That sounds like less fun,” Rainbow Dash protested, swallowing another giggle.
“And if rumour is right I’d need enough padding I’d look as round as I did when I got here,” nodded Joe, puffing out his cheeks.
“That would be a shame.”
Joe released the air from his mouth and looked a moment at Rainbow Dash. He didn’t want to spoil the happy mood but he did want an answer to his question, even if come to think of it he’d simply made a statement that he’d be happy if she went to Canterlot with him rather than actually asking if she would. Seeing his smile fade slightly Rainbow Dash rolled back more onto her front and more onto his lap, and was happy when Joe shifted position to accommodate her and automatically wriggled the fingers of his right hand into her mane, near where her head joined her neck. She squirmed slightly to make herself comfortable and waited for Joe to speak again, or to get on with giving another neck rub.
“I can understand if you’d rather not go to a ‘stuffy’ occasion,” Joe began, disappointing Rainbow Dash that it was not the neck rub. “But Rarity did say she thought it would be fine and that none of us would embarrass ourselves or the others.”
“Who is ‘us’?” asked Rainbow Dash, already knowing the answer.
“Rarity of course, I suggested that she should invite Spike and they should go even if we don’t, and you and I.”
“And you have talked about this with her?”
“I didn’t mention your name, but I did say I would let her know if I would attend once I had asked someone I thought I should. After I had said I thought Spike was the someone rather than me I thought she should.” Joe pinched the brow of his nose with his free left hand. “Not that I have actually asked yet.”
Rainbow Dash nodded, enjoying how that moved the muscles of her neck against Joe’s fingers. “You’ve said you’d be happy if I went for friendship or romance and you’ve said we won’t be embarrassed.”
“Said Rarity thinks we won’t be embarrassed,” Joe corrected, “though I do trust her judgement.”
“Right, so how about it?”
“How ab… oh,” Joe nodded and cleared his throat. “Miss Rainbow Dash, would you do me the privilege of accompanying me to an exhibit of new and rare artworks and where we may also listen to classical music and take our ease and refreshments in the gallery’s sculpture gardens?”
“Oooh, I can see why she thinks your manners will be fine,” chuckled Rainbow Dash, “let’s see now, how would Rarity put it… It would be my pleasure to attend such an event, though I feel I must ask what your intentions towards my person might be, sir?”
“My intentions are purely honourable…” Joe began, trying to match the tone he’d set.
“Shame,” interrupted Rainbow Dash, “though you’re saying that after what you did to my wing? I mean I admit I hinted for the neck rub but the wing was all your idea.”
“I… er… ah,” Joe blushed before saying the only thing that came to mind. “It’s a lovely wing.”
“But you’d rather it was attached to a human?”
“It’s not that, Dash. There’s… erm…” Joe floundered some more and gave the brow of his nose a harder squeeze, as if applying pressure to his sinuses could also squeeze some thought out. “There are things I can do where it is still my mind and my emotions being happy that I am making you happy, and under different circumstances they could become foreplay. But I…” He sighed and shook his head. “But I am not feeling the… urge… and though those things and this snuggling feel right I think doing something… ah… sexual rather than just pleasurable…”
“Joe, I get the picture,” interrupted Rainbow Dash again, sounding irritated. But it was not so much with Joe as that it seemed Applejack had been right to think a human needed a combination of mental and physical. Or at least that Joe did. “Your ‘parts’ aren’t convinced.”
“And the rest of me is confused,” Joe said apologetically, hearing the irritation, “but happy in your company.”
“So if I went as a friend you be happy, and if I went as a date you’d be happy. Which would you prefer?”
“I… don’t know. I am a little scared if I can be what you need and friends is safer,” Joe admitted, risking anger now rather than dishonesty and perhaps greater anger later. “But I am thinking of this as a double date with us and Rarity and Spike. The sort of date though where you see how things go rather than enter it with passionate expectations. Allow yourself to explore your feelings and find out what they actually are.”
“So you’d be open to romance?”
“I think so,” Joe nodded, “but I don’t know how open, and it would have to be mutual, and you’ve not said which you’d prefer.”
“No, I haven’t,” replied Rainbow Dash, turning her head enough to give Joe a wink, “have I?”
Joe smiled and shrugged to this. If he was so uncertain and unable to give a definite answer then it seemed fair that she couldn’t either. So far he had not cocked things up, though as he thought that he realised that was the problem, he couldn’t cock things up and thinking that gave a tingle of unease rather than one of anticipation. Though at least it was only unease rather than the near nausea he expected he’d have felt months ago and still felt when even vaguely thinking about actual bestiality, with something that could not think, or talk, or give true consent.
The quiet of the scene was broken by an ever increasing buzzing and recognising this Rainbow Dash sat up and moved herself out of Joe’s lap and away from his idly stroking fingers. He looked a little puzzled but then tilted his head and quickly picked up his narrow shaping saw and the rectangle of wood that had been waiting ever since he’d finished the previous one and dusted the shavings off Rainbow Dash’s mane. Joe had managed to get a few pieces cut away and the rectangle slightly towards being an aerofoil shape by the time a scooter towing a wagon turned, the wagon temporarily emulating the scooter in being on only two wheels, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders skidded to a stop.
“Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo greeted, bounding off her scooter and giving her hero a dusty hug.
“Hey, watch it squirt,” protested Rainbow Dash mildly, “Careful of the helmet… besides I don’t want Sweetie Belle’s sister to have to drag me back to the Spa that soon!”
“Sorry.”
“You three are looking a bit dusty,” Joe agreed, dropping saw and wood into his lap, “roads needing a touch of rain to settle them?”
“Would get you wet as well Joe, but if you want?” winked Rainbow Dash, crouching as if to spring for the sky and the nearest cloud.
“I’ll pass on the offer, thanks.”
“Ah, was Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon,” Applejack said, putting her helmet in the wagon to join Sweetie Belle’s. “They dumped some dirt around th’ wagon and scooter and wedged rocks around th’ wagon wheels so we weren’t going nowhere.”
Joe considered correcting the double-negative, but that would be rude rather than instructive and nearly as patronising as saying ‘charmingly rustic’. “Then we can make them your ground crew,” he said instead, “make them hold ropes attached to wooden chocks and pull them away from the wheels once your preflight tests are complete.”
Sweetie Belle giggled at the image of those two taking their orders but Scootaloo frowned. “Wouldn’t we have brakes on our wheels?”
“Probably,” Joe nodded, “and as this will be tricycle undercarriage there’d not be the problem tail-sitters have. If they brake too hard on their main wheels then they can have their tail come up and their nose come down and sometimes it comes down far enough they end up being nose-sitters. Even so you wouldn’t be stopping as suddenly as your scooter and wagon.”
“Why not?” asked Apple Bloom.
“To stop that suddenly with wheel brakes would need big wheels with big brakes, which would be heavy. Might be possible to add a braking parachute and that would probably be lighter, but you’d have to be careful about stressing the airframe…”
“What about just puttin’ th’ engine in reverse?”
“Two problems. First I don’t think aeroplane propellers work well in reverse, their thrust is due a lot to their blades being aerofoil shaped…”
“You can switch a fan on backwards,” Scootaloo argued, her helmet now hanging from her scooter’s crossbar.
“And a ship propeller,” nodded Joe, “but they move air or water more through being like sections of a screw, which is true of an aeroplane propeller… can call them airscrews… as well, but they are more like wings…”
“I remember when Tank’s rotor went wrong,” Rainbow Dash commented, “and it was spinning in reverse, gave some breeze but not as much as it should be when it was working properly.”
“Which confirms the first problem and answers the second,” smiled Joe. “Which was that the sort of engines I was thinking of don’t go in reverse, you have to use gears to reverse the power coming out of them, but I did wonder if the magic could be reversed.”
“Which it can,” Apple Bloom nodded.
“Hmm,” said Joe, “I was also thinking of a carved wooden propeller, all one piece like those on earlier planes, as that would work well enough. But more modern propellers do have links at the base of the blades so you can vary their pitch… the angle they are set at…”
“Turn them right around?” Scootaloo asked. “So you’ve reversed them as well as the engine?”
Joe nodded. “But honestly, I think just finding a big enough field to slow more gradually would be simpler.”
“For this one!” Scootaloo said.
“She really does wish I was an aeronautical engineer,” sighed Joe, turning a woebegone look on the others. “Or one of the scientists or engineers in a story who could design and build something super-advanced in their basement workshop, probably while cackling the whole time.”
“You mean you aren’t?” Sweetie Belle giggled.
“He can cackle,” agreed Rainbow Dash, remembering the fingers along her ribs.
“Fortunately though ah don’t cackle ah am one of them,” Apple Bloom nodded, “with th’ aid of the other Crusaders at least. Y’all remember how lickety split we built ahselves a new parade float after mah cousin broke th’ one we’d built…”
“What a…” Joe began to comment.
“Before you finish that ah’d say we forgave her when we knew she was only acting up because she’d been bullied,” interrupted Apple Bloom diplomatically.
“And after we’d rigged the new float to go out of control with her at the wheel,” Scootaloo added.
“Scootaloo!”
“What? I was sorry we’d done it when we found out she’d been being bullied, but doing it did make it easier to forgive her.”
“Your cousin had been nasty,” Sweetie Belle added, “even if we forgave her enough to make her a Cutie Mark Crusader.”
Joe shook his head in some disbelief. Unless Apple Bloom’s cousin was a lot older than them, but still hadn’t got her Cutie Mark, not only were these fillies building floats they were driving them and being able to sabotage whatever lorry they’d built the float onto. Though… he hadn’t seen any lorries. But surely they didn’t mean they’d built a self-propelled vehicle? Within the space of a visit by a cousin and before the parade the first one was going to be used for?
“Model first, Microlight later, advanced vertical-take-off supersonic…” Joe stopped and nodded to Rainbow Dash. “I was going to say never, but I think I should say sitting over there.” She nodded back, while wondering if Joe had underestimated her by saying supersonic rather than hypersonic.
“Why are you sitting over there?” Scootaloo asked, belatedly wondering about this.
“She’s been helping me with the model making,” said Joe, deciding that was a better answer than ‘because she isn’t in my lap’.
Rainbow Dash snorted. “Right.”
“You did,” disagreed Joe. “We talked through the designs and then…”
“Then I took a nap while you, mere male and minion to these Fillies, got to work.”
“Is this as much as you’ve done?” Apple Bloom asked, trying to not sound unappreciative. “Ah mean, no offence, but ah was expecting a few more.”
“I did spend quite a lot of time on the drawings,” replied Joe, trying to not sound defensive even as he remembered how much time he had spent on the wing massage and neck rub and just chatting, “although those are for a full size Microlight rather than the model.”
“And we are very grateful,” Sweetie Belle said, smoothing things over.
Joe shrugged. “Apple Bloom is right though,” he admitted, guilt over if they were too grateful unlocking that admission, “I could have worked a little faster but Dash needs her sleep to be quite so awesome, and when she started making a noise a little like my saw…”
“Hey!”
“I tried to work quietly enough to not disturb her,” Joe concluded.
“What about her disturbing you?” asked Apple Bloom.
“Er… ah… yeah… what?” Joe asked, wondering what Apple Bloom meant.
“Ah’ve been on a camping trip with her and ah recall being a mite glad ah was sharing a tent with mah sister.”
“Rainbow Dash doesn’t snore that badly!” Scootaloo said, springing to her defence.
“No I don’t!” agreed Rainbow Dash. Then she looked at Joe. “Do I?”
“Er…” Joe said, still glad that Apple Bloom had only meant disturb by snoring.
“Careful with your answer Joe,” added Rainbow Dash, her eyes narrowing at the lack of instant reassurances from him. “Or you’ll have to go to Canterlot with just Spike and Rarity.”
“Eeeeeeeeee!” Sweetie Belle squealed, hitting a note that would make dogs howl and which Joe wasn’t sure Ponies could hear. Not even younger Ponies if, like humans, they could hear higher frequencies than adults. “It’s you! It’s you!”
“What… is?” asked Rainbow Dash.
“My sister said Joe’s new suit might be getting some use, if he decided to go to that! And that’s why he hadn’t been able to tell her, he needed to ask Rainbow Dash to go!”
“Why would he do that?” Scootaloo asked, getting a bit of a frown from Rainbow Dash.
“Can you think of a more awesome person to ask?” said Joe.
“No,” Scootaloo admitted, clearing her hero’s frown.
“So, are you two going on a date? Or what?” asked Apple Bloom, getting to the nub of the matter.
“We don’t have to be,” Joe temporised, “are Spike and Rarity going on a date?”
“Maybe,” nodded Apple Bloom, turning the question around, “are you saying you like Rainbow Dash as much as Spike likes Rarity?”
Three pairs of Filly eyes fixed on him along with a pair of Mare eyes that Joe was relieved to see were amused at his predicament rather than anxious for his answer. “Maybe,” Joe nodded, repeating Apple Bloom’s word and gesture, “that is one reason to go to an occasion together, to relax and have fun in a social setting and see how you feel.”
“So, is it a date?” asked Apple Bloom again.
“If I was applying as much pressure to you as you are trying to apply to me,” Joe commented, “then we would have to call you Ciderbloom. But yes, I am thinking of it as a date, of a getting to know each other sort. Dash though hasn’t said if she wants it to be a date, or what.” He looked to the Blue Pegasus. “So, how about it?”
“You said you wanted to figure things out at the time,” replied Rainbow Dash, springing into the air and hovering level with the treehouse, “so I’ll be kind and let you figure everything out then.”
With that parting shot and in a blur of colour Rainbow Dash streaked away, leaving Joe still with his own questions and to face those of the Cutie Mark Crusaders. He looked at the Fillies, who looked at him. After a few moments of this mutual contemplation Joe shook his head.
“Let that be a lesson to you girls,” Joe said, “Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle… if you get someone who can fly then you need to train them to not do that. Scootaloo… if you get someone who can’t fly then there’s a good chance you’ll always get the last word.”
The three Fillies laughed at this, but then Apple Bloom gave Joe a serious look. “You think you can train Rainbow Dash to not do that?”
“Fffft… No,” Joe replied. “No chance. But I’m assuming you three will end up liking Colts and Stallions, and it seems universal between humans and Ponies that the female trains the male to not do something, like you and Sweetie Belle would, while the female gets to do it, like Scootaloo would.”
“So…” asked Scootaloo. “What has Rainbow Dash trained you to not do?”
“To not make too much noise when making models,” Joe replied. He picked up a rib and pointed at the diagram for the model. “As you can see there will be holes added here and here, and the spars coming thorough should fix these together sturdily enough…”
“But, what about Rainbow Dash?” said Sweetie Belle. “How did you decide she was your special somepony?”
“I think the ribs will be spaced far enough apart for the wing to not be too heavy,” Joe continued, “but closely enough for the fabric skin to not be extending too far unsupported…”
“Are you going ta get her a present?” asked Apple Bloom. “Scootaloo said she thought you should when ah asked if you were fixing to do that.”
“Oh!” Scootaloo said. “We still haven’t gone and see what’s left of Joe’s archery target!”
“Struts for supporting the wing and for the rear wheels will form a bent Y,” Joe said, ignoring the questions, “be three sections of wood in the model and probably in the full size Microlight, but if we have suitable materials I’d want to make them single piece…”
“Awww,” whined Sweetie Belle. Aeroplanes were boring compared with romance.
“There’s fabric on the wings and tail,” Scootaloo commented, romance was boring compared with aeroplanes so she was glad Joe was staying focussed, “but what about on the fuselage?”
“There I was thinking of using thin metal, it won’t be much protection but more than fabric…”
==
The Carousel Boutique had its second unusual visitor of the day as Rainbow Dash tried to mix creeping in so nopony could see her with simply darting into the building before anyone noticed. Fortunately for her this combination resulted in her entering fairly normally and that drew far less attention than had she chosen one or other of her methods to avoid it. Inside Rarity was humming and working on a small jacket. She glanced over her shoulder and smiled as she saw her nervous friend looking around as if she was scared of ambush by hordes of ravening dress patterns.
“Rainbow, darling!”
“Rarity,” Rainbow Dash replied, then she squinted.
“Don’t do that, dear, you’ll get lines,” chided Rarity. “It’s bad enough you have to squint flying in all weathers without you making a habit of it.”
“Is that Spike’s jacket?” Rainbow Dash asked suspiciously.
“Of course it is, you know I was going to ask him anyway,” replied Rarity, not mentioning that she’d had the extra warning from Applejack. “And even if Dragons don’t mature fast it’s been long enough since he had to wear it that it need some minor adjustments.”
“What about Joe’s new suit?”
“However do you know about that?”
“Your sister mentioned it,” Rainbow Dash said, “when she started screaming about how I was the reason Joe hadn’t been able to tell you if he was going to go to Canterlot or not.”
“Oh dear, my sympathies. Sweetie Belle had helped with the measurements and some of the design and tailoring, so when she admired that I said it might get some use if he went to the event in Canterlot. But that was all I said.”
“So what does it look like?”
“It looks good,” Rarity smiled, “and even better on him, so I’d ask you to wait and see it when we get ready to go to Canterlot.”
“How do you know I’m going to Canterlot?”
“You are here for a dress, aren’t you? And if Sweetie Belle started screaming it sounds like Joe must have asked you, though I thought he had more discretion than to ask you in front of her.”
“He does,” Rainbow Dash admitted, “but the Cutie Mark Crusaders were there when I teased Joe that if he wasn’t careful he’d have to go to Canterlot with just you and Spike.”
“Oh my, and you have left Joe to face them alone?”
“Er.”
“Though if you were threatening that then, unless Joe hasn’t been careful, it does seem you are coming to Canterlot?”
“Yes, and I do need a dress. Something not to froo-froo though.”
“Come over here Rainbow, darling,” Rarity instructed, crossing to one of her drawing boards. Rainbow Dash followed and obediently looked as Rarity flipped through some sheets until with an ‘aha’ she showed the design to her. “What do you think?”
“I like it, though the colour is a little dark,” admitted Rainbow Dash, reluctant to say more the fashion show debacle felt as if it had been two days rather than two years ago. “But although it seems like me it does seem a little simple. Not as simple as the dress Twilight wore to that Garden Party…” Rainbow Dash stopped as she reminded herself of the question she had for Rarity.
“Oh, I know, but take a look at this one,” said Rarity, not noticing her friend had broken off in the middle of a sentence. With an air of pride she flipped the next sheet over and on top of the fairly simple dress.
“That looks… that looks more fancy and more like what you and the other Ponies were wearing to that Garden Party,” Rainbow Dash said, giving Rarity a sideways look. “Funny how the dress you were wearing to look after a sick cat just happened to fit in so well there.”
“I don’t… I… fine,” sighed Rarity, “that was why I didn’t come back to Ponyville. I was packed and leaving when the invitation arrived.”
“So you decided to go to that instead?”
“You are my friends and nothing will change that, so there would be another party with you, there would be chances to work off the guilt I felt, the guilt which made me give an excuse rather than the truth. But this was the premier social occasion of the Canterlot Calendar and I thought it would be my only chance to attend one of those.”
Rainbow Dash nodded. She didn’t understand why that had been so important to Rarity but she could imagine how she’d feel if she’d a chance at something as important to her. It had been selfish but Rainbow Dash knew that the way she’d treated her friends while she was in hospital was just as bad. If anything it seemed worse as attending the Canterlot Garden Party couldn’t be delayed but she could have delayed going back to her book and taken the time to appreciate the visits rather than hurrying them away.
“What… what made you think about what I was wearing then?” Rarity asked as Rainbow Dash remained silent.
“When I told Joe about what happened in Canterlot that time he thought ‘charmingly rustic’ sounded patronising,” replied Rainbow Dash, “especially since he thought we must all have been dressed fancy if what you were wearing had worked for both parties.”
“Oh. Well I hope you did not tell him too many horror stories and managed to persuade him of Fancy Pants’ good intentions?”
“Not sure about the good intentions,” Rainbow Dash admitted, “and he didn’t seem too horrified at the story of the other party.”
“Or he’d not have asked you to this one.”
“And I’d not need a dress,” Rainbow Dash nodded, looking back at the sketch. “Hmm, I don’t know Rarity. That does look more froo-froo enough but it does look rather fiddly to move about in.”
“Fortunately for you, darling, I not only anticipated your need I anticipated your reaction.”
“Huh?”
Rarity’s horn glowed and a matching blue surrounded the two sheets of paper. These detached from the others at the table and Rainbow Dash followed curiously as her friend walked with these to near a window. “Now you see this,” Rarity said, holding one sheet up so the light came through it. “Now you see that,” she added, holding up the second behind it so the light came through both and you could see both drawings. “And now you see my idea,” she concluded, sliding the sheets against each other so the two drawings coincided.
“They…” asked Rainbow Dash, a little uncertain, “they are the same dress?”
“It’s a dreadful way of putting it,” Rarity smiled, sliding the sheets apart and turning them so the light was coming onto rather than through them, “but a lot of the ‘froo-froo’ you object to is decoration and trim and layers. So if you look here…” A pencil floated across to point at the places on the two drawings. “This skirt is attractive enough to wear as it is and short and light enough to be practical, but if I add this extra layer of drape then it also forms a fine underskirt…”
Rainbow Dash nodded as Rarity went through the rest of the designs and how the simpler dress could be built up with extra layers and strands of trim or jewellery. What Rarity did not say was where some small part of her inspiration had come from. If she mentioned Joe’s suit where shirt and trousers was practical, adding the waistcoat made it still practical but more formal, and adding the jacket made it more formal still then Rainbow Dash might demand to see this. If she mentioned that the dress Twilight Sparkle had liked was just the very simplest base layer of what Rarity had designed then she’d have to admit both that she’d done so little work on that dress and that she had misjudged her friend so badly as to think she’d have wanted all the extra ornateness.
“So,” Rarity concluded, “most of this will still be visible and where it is partially covered it will act as a backdrop for jewellery or another colour combining with that of the thin fabrics on top of it, either through the gaps or because some will be a little translucent. That’s why, as you put it, it is a little dark as it would have the brighter decor on top.”
“I’m not sure about how much you’re putting on top,” frowned Rainbow Dash, “does it really need all that?”
Rarity opened her mouth to assure her friend that of course it did and then she thought again. “Hmm,” she replied instead, returning to her drawing board and followed again by Rainbow Dash. She thought a moment as she looked at the hovering sketches and then began a new one. “It was quite a challenge figuring out how to fasten things on without needing to damage the lower dress with pins,” she admitted, “or making it obvious the lower dress was designed to have things fastened to it, and risk you looking as if you’d not finished dressing.”
“Right, which for the party I hadn’t.”
“But for… shall we say casual-formal rather than formal-formal, you had.”
“I gotcha.”
“So,” Rarity said with a final flourish of her pencil, “I fear, darling, that I got interested in the challenge. Whether I could add something more rather than whether I should. So to answer you, no I don’t think it needed ‘all that’. Not for you at least.”
Rainbow Dash looked at the new sketch and smiled, Rarity had not removed much but it looked less cluttered to her. “I like it,” she said, “I don’t just like it more… I like it!”
“Excellent,” said Rarity. Then she added with a wink. “Though if you still want to wear less I suppose we could try securing things so you can wear only the ‘extra’ layers and the jewellery, leave the lower dress off and use yourself as a backdrop.”
“I…” Rainbow Dash blushed.
“And that might work on Joe,” added Rarity, deepening her friend’s blush, “I did quiz him on human fashions and he mentioned that simple nudity could be less erotic than hints and sheer fabrics. Something I have to agree with, especially since we don’t normally wear clothes so wearing nothing is decent but wearing just enough to tantalise with…”
“All right!” Rainbow Dash interrupted. “I think I’ll wear the lower dress. Thank you!”
“Of course, darling, certainly in public,” winked Rarity, achieving an extra layer of blush from Rainbow Dash. “You are just fortunate I trapped Joe inside the privacy screens and didn’t give him his new shirt and trousers until after he’d answered enough questions, and that he didn’t want to walk out of here in just his boots and socks and shorts.”
“I’m not feeling very fortunate,” Rainbow Dash muttered.
“No, you are feeling embarrassed. But quizzing Joe on human fashions means I do know how their females dress, and what to emphasise about you.”
“I don’t know, I mean, he… I don’t look anything like them.”
“You might be surprised, after all he does like something about you,” Rarity reassured her, “though with humans there is a strange fixation by their males on breasts, apparently human females retain large ones on their upper chests all the time…”
“Weird,” agreed Rainbow Dash, wondering if she did whether that ‘lack’ was one reason for Joe’s ‘problem’.
Rarity shrugged. “Maybe they just need a less subtle clue to tell each other apart, since they do wear so many clothes,” she suggested, “though Joe did admit that wasn’t always the case and still isn’t in hotter parts of his world. In any case he does seem able to recognise our clues and appreciate you, so we can emphasise your grace of motion, the line of your neck, your lovely eyes and smile. We can’t make you look human but…”
The blush that had begun to fade had returned to Rainbow Dash with a vengeance and seeing this Rarity stopped talking. As fun as it was to tease her friend and appreciate her having a problem that couldn’t be solved by flying fast she did not want to upset her. Then a suspicion grew about if it had been the compliments that had cause the blush or the last thing she’d said, especially since Rainbow Dash had spoken first to another of their friends about this situation.
“Rainbow Dash,” Rarity demanded, “was that why you talked to Twilight Sparkle?”
“Was what?”
“Making you look human.”
“Er… yes?” Rainbow Dash admitted, adding in a rush. “But we agreed it would be a bad idea, or at least not yet and not until Joe’s feelings were clear…”
“And that was before you knew he might be a Bonobo and how they resolve things,” smiled Rarity. Rainbow Dash squeaked a little, almost emulating Fluttershy, as she remembered how Joe had resolved explaining human aeroplane wings and then resolved the crick in her neck. “But he did invite you,” Rarity added, noting the squeak, “so are his feelings more clear?”
“He’s… clear that he knows he wants to explore his feelings, and going on this date is a good way to do this…”
“He called it a date? How wonderful.”
“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash said, not sounding as convinced, “but he’s not sure what he will find when he does explore his feelings.”
Rarity nodded in decision. “Then let’s make a dress to help him find something marvellous!”