Chapter 4 - A New Look
There was a tension in the library so thick it could be tasted. Both ponies had remained distant from each other over the last few days; Twilight and Dash had only exchanged a few words since the preening. Rainbow was lost in her own confusion which Twilight mistook for her being angry while Twilight tried to build the courage to ask her pegasus friend to forgive her.
It all came to a head later that evening. The sun had set a while ago and the moon was hovering at the edge of the horizon. There was a hint of rain in the air but the weather had been more than a little unpredictable lately. Rainbow laid on the spare bed preening as Twilight tidied away her latest pile of finished books. The pegasus was grunting every now and then as she tried to reach the more awkward of her feathers.
Twilight stopped sorting books back onto their shelves and steeled herself; it was now or never. Turning to face her friend, the unicorn took a deep breath and blurted out, "I'm sorry I preened your wings without permission I didn't realize pegasus wings were a very personal place I'll never do it again I swear please say we're still friends!"
Rainbow stopped attending to her wings and just stared at Twilight, one eyebrow raised.
"Want to run that by me again?"
The young mare steadied herself, trying and failing to keep herself together.
"I'm sorry I preened your wings. I didn't realize they were such a personal area."
Rainbow blinked, "And that's why you've not been talking to me since last Friday?"
Twilight nodded with her gaze solidly at the floor. The pegasus shook her head before sliding off the bed and walking over to her friend. Twilight flinched as she reached out to her and hugged her.
"You think too much sometimes," Rainbow told her, "There's not many other ponies I'd let get that personal; I've known Fluttershy forever so she's one of them. I suspected you would have read up the subject so you knew what you were doing. I let you get that close to me because I trust you. "
Twilight wasted no time in returning the embrace relieved beyond words that she was still friends with Dash.
When they parted, Twilight was ready to go back to sorting books but Rainbow stopped her.
"While we're on the subject Twi, would you mind?" she asked, unfurling a wing.
"So you don't mind me helping you?" she asked, not wanting to repeat her earlier mistake.
Shaking her head, Rainbow replied, "not at all."
Rainbow returned to her place on the bed and lay down. She spread a wing for Twilight again and the unicorn hopped up next to her friend. Starting work on the feather's closest to Rainbow's shoulder, Twilight continued to speak to Rainbow when her mouth was unoccupied.
"It's nice to have somepony to help you preen, there are parts that are really hard to get to on your own." Rainbow told Twilight.
"I suppose that's reason you go see Fluttershy when you're going to moult."
"But she's always afraid of hurting me. She'd too timid to do anything more than put things back in order. It's always down to me to deal with the broken ones."
"Speaking of broken ones, this is going to sting," Twilight warned Rainbow as she found a broken feather hiding under her friend's shoulder.
The pegasus flinched as Twilight removed the offending feather, taking some relief that that was probably the last one she'd have to deal with for a while. Most of her old broken feathers were gone now but there were enough left to keep her looking presentable to a casual glance.
Twilight gave Rainbow a nudge to tell her she'd finished that wing. The pegasus took the hint and shifted position on the bed.
"So has it always been Fluttershy that you've turned to for preening?"
Rainbow shook her head, fluffing her feathers as she did.
"My mother used to preen my wings all the time. Every night before bed she'd come into my room and she'd insist on tidying my feathers before tucking me in."
I've only ever told Fluttershy that. What's gotten into me? Rainbow thought as she went scarlet.
"I'm not being too rough am I?"
"Nah, you're doing fine. Actually, the way you preen my feathers is just like she used to."
Twilight was too focused on her duties to notice the sleepy tone of Rainbow's voice. By the time Twilight finished Rainbow's other wing, Dash was asleep. The unicorn was about the leave her friend to sleep when she realized she was stuck. When Rainbow had turned to give Twilight access to her other wing, without realizing it she'd laid down on Twilight's tail. She had a quick mental debate about how to get out of the situation, considering everything from levitating her friend off her tail to just teleporting away, but she didn't want to risk waking her. The debate soon collapsed into warring ideas and Twilight realized she was too tied to try anything of real effort so she lay down next to her friend. Summoning a blanked and pillow from the other side of the room, Twilight covered herself and Rainbow then closed her eyes.
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It was long past midnight when Rainbow was awoken by the call of an owl from outside the library. She couldn't be sure but Rainbow was almost certain that it was Owlowiscious making the racket. Midway through planning to park a raincloud over the bird's nest, Rainbow suddenly realized something warm and soft was lying next to her in bed. With moonlight streaming through the curtains, Rainbow could easily recognise the shape of Twilight sharing her bed. She wasn't sure how Twilight came to be sharing her bed but she wasn't about to wake her friend to ask. Rainbow was reluctantly coming to the conclusion that she was developing feelings for Twilight beyond friendship. She'd known Twilight only a fraction as long as she had Fluttershy but Rainbow felt the same closeness developing between herself and Twilight. It wasn't the same as the one that she felt with her pegasus friend though. Her experiences with Twilight over the past two weeks may have aggravated these feelings or maybe she was just feeling vulnerable because of her moult. She pushed the thoughts to the back of her mind, determined to get her feelings sorted out before talking to Twilight about them.
Rainbow was about to pull the blanket higher up when Twilight rolled over in her sleep and wrapped her forelegs around Rainbow. The pegasus went rigid, unsure where to put her own forelegs as Twilight's head came to rest against her own chest. Regaining her ability to move, Rainbow returned the hug.
"Night Twi," Rainbow said as she drifted off to sleep again.
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Celestia's sun was creeping over the horizon when Twilight woke. She was about to roll out of bed and set to writing her schedule for the day when she felt something tighten around her. Her mind raced, thinking some evil creature had infiltrated the library until she heard the creature snore. The memories of the previous night resurfaced though she had no idea how she'd become so entangled within Rainbow's legs. She tried to separate herself from her friend but Rainbow was reluctant to let go. Twilight nudged Rainbow in the ribs in an attempt to wake her.
"Rainbow, it's morning."
Dash snorted and buried her head further into the pillow.
"Tell Celestia to put the sun away."
Twilight nudged Rainbow again but harder this time.
"Rainbow, I've got duties to attend to."
"Then attend to them just let me go back to sleep."
"You'll have to roll over and let me get up," Twilight replied.
Rainbow obliged but being half asleep she rolled towards Twilight. Somehow she managed to wrap both herself and Twilight up in a bundle of covers before the bundle tumbled out of bed. Cries of surprise and pain filled the blanket tangle before Twilight managed to find an edge of the blanket. Her horn flared and Twilight whisked the covers away, making the pair of ponies tumble across the floor. Dizzy from the second tumble, it took Twilight a few seconds to realize Rainbow had landed on top of her. Nose to nose with each other the pair were frozen in place still trying to figure out what happened. Rainbow's cheeks took on a scarlet tinge and here wings were on the verge of going stiff but she managed to keep them under control.
"Morning Twi," Rainbow said more than a little awkwardly.
"Morning Rainbow," the unicorn replied, "would you mind letting me up?"
Rainbow stepped back, letting Twilight get back to her hooves. She tried to calm herself down before Twilight noticed but her cheeks refused to return to their normal colour. Before she could make up an excuse, the world went dark again as Twilight dropped the blanket on her head.
"You can go back to bed now," Twilight smiled as she trotted down the stairs to start her daily routine.
Rainbow clambered back onto her bed but after the struggle in the blankets she was wide awake now, making going back to sleep out of the question. Resigned to the fact that she wasn't going to get a lie-in this morning, she picked up a book from the table next to her bed and started reading.
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Four days later there was a crisis.
Rainbow was sick of scrambled eggs and for that matter so was Twilight. The fact that they had run out of eggs was welcome but that wasn't the source of their disagreement. Twilight had read through her books again and had made a list of alternatives but they hadn't had much success.
The first alternative had been seeds and nuts. Upon being presented with a bowl of mixed nuts and seeds as a snack, Rainbow had given her a look that said 'just because I can fly doesn't mean I'm a bird' clearer than words did.
Abandoning the direct approach with seeds and nuts, Twilight attempted to use cunning to get Rainbow Dash to increase her protein intake. But the peanut butter and daisy sandwich had also been a dismal failure. Trying to get the remaining butter from the corners of her mouth had driven Rainbow as crazy as her itchy wings.
Twilight moved on to the next item on the list without much further ado, eager to forget that escapade. She had been to see Applejack and borrowed one of Granny Smith's recipe books. Flicking through the pages, Twilight had settled on trying to make a vegetarian chilli. Everything was going fine until a certain grey pegasus on temporary weather duty misplaced a small hurricane. In the ensuing chaos of a storm getting loose in the library, nopony noticed the Tabasco sauce upending its entire contents into the bowl. However it was noticed later when it came to tasting the recipe. The screams were heard as far away as Sweet Apple Acres.
Twilight had finally resorted to tofu; not an idea she relished but it was a last resort. She had fried it with broccoli and cashew nuts as a stir fry and offered it to Rainbow as lunch one day. The rainbow pegasus had prodded the plateful with the tip of her hoof, in a similar manner to when she'd first encountered scrambled eggs, before refusing to eat it. Point-blank. Even ketchup wasn't going to budge her.
"Absolutely not."
"Unless you want to try the peanut butter again, we're out of options," Twilight countered.
Rainbow pulled a face as she folded her forelegs across her chest. She'd been crabby for the past few days and Twilight was beginning to lose patients with her. An argument was narrowly avoided by somepony knocking on the library door. Twilight left the table and trotted to the library door, composing herself before she had to meet whoever was at the door. Twilight had tried to keep Rainbow occupied but her friend's confinement was wearing her nerves thin. She was an athlete and her forced inactivity was akin to torture. Even the Daring Do books could only keep Dash's attention away from the outside world for so long.
Twilight reached the Library's door and pulled it open to find Rarity waiting.
"Good morning Twilight,
"Hello Rarity," Twilight replied, "what brings you here this early?"
"Actually I wanted to see Rainbow, I've got a something that should make perk her up a bit."
Both unicorns turned as a bolt of cyan with a rainbow tail shot up the library stairs, appearing back downstairs seconds later wrapped in what looked like Twilight's quilt.
"Did you have to pull my bed to pieces?" Twilight sighed.
Rainbow muttered something unintelligible as she sat in the middle of the library, huddling under the quilt.
"Ah, there you are darling," Rarity called as she saw the quilt wrapped Rainbow, "I've got a little surprise for you."
Opening her saddlebags with magic Rarity lifted out a light blue coat. At first Twilight thought it was a simple coat like the ones worn during the Winter Wrap Up but it seemed to be a lighter material than the one used for the Wrap Up. Rarity let the jacket turn in the air and Twilight saw the rainbow stripe running along the back and Rainbow's cutie mark stitched into the sides.
"This may seem like a common or garden piece of high end fashion, but notice the material," Rarity opened the jacket and let the two other ponies have a closer look. "this is Saddle Arabian cotton. It breathes wonderfully and it's as light as a cloud. There's plenty of space for wings but it's not going to slip off or chafe. It'll let your wings get some fresh air but still keep your dignity intact. And after a long talk with Fluttershy, she's convinced it's perfect for your delicate skin."
Rarity didn't wait for Rainbow to reply as she whisked away her quilt. Dash managed a brief squeak of protest and folded her wings behind her back to keep them out of sight. Rarity didn't bat an eyelid as she replaced the discarded quilt with the coat.
"Et Voilá," Rarity said closed the coat with a flicker of magic.
Rainbow was shocked at first but as her friend zipped the coat closed she got her brain working again. Her first reaction was to ruffle her feathers under the coat and to her surprise the cotton stretched to let her fluff up. As the coat settled again, Rainbow felt the material resting against her wings but even against her sensitive pin feathers it wasn't making them itch.
"I can go outside again?" she asked, not sure of her situation anymore.
"If you're feeling up to it," Twilight replied, "but nothing to strenuous."
Rarity was lifted off her hooves as Rainbow wrapped her forelegs around her friend and about crushed the life out of her.
"Thank you Rarity," Dash cried, "you're a genius!"
"One tries one's best," Rarity replied once Rainbow had put her down, inspecting a perfectly manicured hoof.
Rainbow was already stretching her legs and back as she got ready for a run around outside. After being confined for almost three weeks, even mid moult, Dash had energy to spare.
"Alright! A quick sprint to Fluttershy's cottage then a run to Sweet Apple Acres."
Dash's jogging plans were interrupted by another knock on the door. Twilight went to the door again and this time found Applejack.
"Howdy Twi, is Rainbow well enough for guests?"
Twilight nodded and beckoned Applejack into the Library.
"Goodness, you're popular today," Rarity said.
"I'm always popular," Rainbow replied, "because I'm awesome."
"Well from the sound of it yer back to yer ol' self again. And that's good because I need yer help. This random weather messin' up mah orchards somethin' fierce and there's a thundercloud stuck in my prize apple tree."
"I'm still on sick-leave from weather patrol. Derpy should be able to handle things."
"Well she tried, but all that she managed was getting stuck in the tree too. How she managed that ah have no idea."
Rainbow rolled her eyes, "why am I not surprised? Alright let's go get this mess sorted out. See you later Twilight."
Without another word, both Applejack and Rainbow left the library and sped off in the direction of Sweet Apple Acres. Twilight was left at a loose end as the two ponies galloped away. Rarity however wasn't.
"Twilight, shall we do elevenses? I hear Pinkie's trying out a new recipe for angel cakes at Sugar Cube Corner."
"Why not. Come on Spike, we're going out for food."
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