A Rainbow of a Different Color

by The 24th Pegasus

Chapter 23: Sculpting in Style

Chapter 23: Sculpting in Style

“Hey, Rainbow, you almost done?”

Rainbow Dash stepped away from the oven and rolled her eyes. “I don’t know what more you want from me, Hawk. Drying fruits and veggies isn’t exactly the fastest thing in the world. At least you’re not suffering a slow death like me.”

Hawk Tail trotted around the corner into the kitchen and dropped the burlap sack in his teeth on the floor. Grinning, he trotted up to Rainbow and nuzzled the mare before the two pecked each other on the lips. “I know, I know, but we’ll need the food for the trip to Mymis. I mean, sure there are some stops along the way, but we’ll have to camp a few nights along the road. If we don’t have dried food, we don’t have any food, really.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Rainbow grumbled, shaking her head and shooting the food drying in the oven a dirty look. “I’d like it if it’d dry faster, though.”

Hawk shrugged his wings. “Not much we can do about that. Just have to leave the oven door open and watch them. If you make it any hotter you’ll just cook them instead of dehydrating them. And you have to rotate and flip them so that everything is evenly dried.”

Rainbow groaned and smacked her forehead against the countertop. “Ugh… I’ve been doing this for five hours now. Who knew that food could be so… boring?”

A teasing grin appeared on Hawk’s muzzle, and he sat down next to Rainbow and wrapped a wing around her back. “Well, if somepony hadn’t have broken her wing, then she could be flying with Lanner and I while we got things set up at the post office before we left.”

“Hawk, if I have to stare at these damn apples anymore, I’m going to kill myself,” Rainbow fumed. “Besides, sitting in front of this oven all day makes me feel like I’m dehydrating myself, too.” She turned to Hawk and poked at her cheeks. “Do I look leathery to you?”

“Never,” Hawk said, gently cupping Rainbow’s cheek with a tender hoof. The two leaned together for another kiss, this one a little more passionate than the previous exchange. When they separated, Hawk gave the drying food another quick look. “Well, they’re getting there. They should be good if you leave them for another hour or two; not much water left to dry out of them.”

Then he stood up and rubbed Rainbow’s back with a wing. “How about we go see what Flurry’s up to? She said she needed my help moving some things to the ground for her before our little trip. I’m sure she’d appreciate the company as well.”

Rainbow was a little unsure about the last bit. Ever since she and Hawk started ‘officially’ dating, she’d noticed Flurry had become increasingly antagonistic toward her. She didn’t know why, but it wasn’t too hard for her to guess. Simple jealousy was driving a wedge between them, and every time the two mares crossed paths, it was like a hammer drove it deeper into the rift.

For her part, Rainbow didn’t want anything to drive her small circle of friends apart, especially when she didn’t have anything to fall back on. Hawk, Lanner, Wrangler, Dawn, and yes, even Flurry, were the only ponies she could call her friends, and the only ponies she could even come close to saying that she knew well. Beyond them were only the confusing shadows of her past, the phantom memories that still bubbled to the surface of ponies that she once called her friends. Twilight, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie, they all resonated within her as a core part of who she was, or rather, who she used to be, but she felt like she hardly knew them compared to her current friends. They may have been close in the past, but for the time being, Rainbow only had the ponies in River’s Reach to rely on.

Which was why she didn’t want her feud with Flurry to spread to the rest of her friends. So instead of voicing her concerns to Hawk, she kept them to herself for now. “Yeah, I guess,” she reluctantly agreed. “Although… maybe it’s best if I just stay down here. I can’t fly, after all, and I don’t think I can make a second miraculous midair recovery if I fall again.”

To her dismay, Hawk only chuckled and waved his wing. “What, you think I mind carrying my mare on my back?” he said, brushing Rainbow’s neck with his wingtip. “Besides, we can keep you inside where you won’t fall. You’re still a pegasus; the clouds will still hold you, if you’ll have them.” A moment later he added the deathblow with a pointed look at the oven. “Or you can dry some more food. I’ve got some squash in the bag here that you can take care of before we go.”

Rainbow Dash was up in a flash. “I never got to see the inside of Flurry’s house when we were there,” she said, choosing the more pleasant of the two horrors. “I was too busy flailing and screaming at the time.”

Hawk smiled and patted her on the back as they began to walk to the patio behind the house. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep a close eye on you. I’ll only let you fall a little before I decide to catch you.”

“Pff, how heroic,” she teased, opening the door and stepping outside. “My knight in shining armor.”

“A knight in shining armor hasn’t seen much fighting,” Hawk said, following her outside. “I’d fight for you if you’d have me, m’lady.”

Rainbow giggled as Hawk walked to the middle of the courtyard and stooped down so she could climb onto his back. “You know, I always used to imagine myself as the knight instead of the damsel in distress,” Rainbow said, tightening her forelegs around his shoulders.

Her words were enough to stall Hawk for a moment. “Did you remember something?”

“Nah. But I figure that’s something little me would have done.” Then, pointing a hoof to the sky, the mare bellowed, “Onward, my valiant steed! There’s a princess that needs saving from an ice dragon!”

“Slavery has been outlawed in Nymera for the last six hundred years,” Hawk joked, spreading his wings and carrying the two of them off the ground. “I’ve half a mind to turn you in for that.”

“Please, I can already tell that you like being ridden,” Rainbow teased. “Do you go for any night rides?” she asked, her voice suddenly dropping into a sultry whisper, and teeth nibbling at Hawk’s ear.

Hawk’s wings faltered for a moment, causing the two to drop a few yards until he remembered to flap them. When he spoke again, Rainbow could tell he was straining to seem unfazed by the dirty suggestion. “Somepony needs to get her mind out of the gutter.”

Rainbow smirked and rubbed her cheek against the back of Hawk’s neck as they gained altitude and began to set off for the clouds. “Or what, you’re gonna spank me? I might not remember who my daddy is, but I know it’s not you.”

Hawk faltered again. “Gods, what am I going to do with you?” he muttered, shaking his head and fighting down an embarrassed blush while Rainbow guffawed on his back.

“Beats me, but you better figure that out fast,” Rainbow said, shifting positions slightly to find a more comfortable place on Hawk’s back. “I’m just getting started.”

A solution presented itself to Hawk when the two pegasi broke through the cloud cover around Flurry’s house, ending their banter before it could devolve any more. Flaring his wings, Hawk settled down outside of Flurry’s understated four story house and let Rainbow roll off of his back. Once more, Rainbow felt the chill of high altitude, and the cushiony feeling of clouds beneath her hooves. It excited her and soothed her, all at the same time. Even though she was out of her sling, she still couldn’t fly, and therefore she’d take all she could get to remind herself that she was a pegasus, not an earth pony. She was already counting down the days until she could fly under her own power again.

Hawk raised a hoof to block the morning sun from hitting his eyes, as there wasn’t much in the way of cloud cover to protect them this high up, and spotted a figure flying down from the highest clouds. “Flurry!” he shouted, waving a wing to get her attention. By his side, Rainbow cowed a bit as the white mare approached, holding a cloud between her snowy hooves. Maybe it wasn’t too late for Rainbow to ask Hawk to take her back to the ground before she had to interact with the other mare.

With a flourish of her wings, Flurry redirected the thin cirrus cloud into the large metallic opening on the top of her house and landed on top of it, packing the vapors down beneath her hooves and wings as it was fed into the condenser. “Hey, Hawk,” the white mare said, smiling back at the stallion in question, before fixing her piercing blue eyes on Rainbow Dash. The mare kicked off of the cloud with a little more force than Rainbow thought was necessary before gliding down between them. “Rainbow.”

Rainbow did her best to put on a smile and act friendly. “Hey, Flurry. Making some more sculptures?”

Flurry fixed Rainbow with a harsh glare for a moment before she gave a stiff nod. “Yeah. I have to get a rough sculpture worked up before we get going. I’m not going to have the tools to do the bulk of the shaping once we get to Mymis, only the detail work. That’s why I do the roughs here and pack their crates with ice so they’ll survive the journey until they’re needed.” Without any further elaboration, she abruptly spun in place and threw open the door to her house. “Come in, I’ve got some things you guys can help me with.”

She led the way into her house, and the other two followed. Like the outside of the house, Rainbow noted the interior was similarly bare and modest, despite being owned by an artist like Flurry. Rainbow found the lack of embellishments or decoration surprising, given its owner. All there was were white walls and smooth floors, broken up every so often by columns. A quiet humming filled the building, likely the work of the condenser above, making the ice that Flurry needed to practice her craft.

There was also very little in the form of furniture and other practical decorations. The three pegasi entered what Rainbow assumed to be the living room… and kitchen… and bedroom, all in one large, open room. A door tucked in one corner betrayed the presence of a bathroom, and a trapdoor in the ceiling had been opened to reveal a narrow set of stairs going up. It was likely Flurry had them installed simply for moving things that were too cumbersome to fly, or in case she ever found herself unable to simply fly vertically through the gaps in the ceiling separating floors. As it was a pegasus house, Rainbow understood why the stairs were basically an afterthought; why bother when you have wings?

Rainbow decided to attempt to break the awkward silence smothering them with a gentle clearing of her throat. “This is a pretty nice place you’ve got. I, uh, take it you don’t get much company.”

Flurry smirked and, for a moment, Rainbow felt the tension between them evaporate. “Heh, I think Dawn gets more company than I do. To be honest, Lanner helped me clean the other day when she was here. This place was a mess before.” She turned to face the pair behind her, eyes shining, until she saw Rainbow and Hawk brushing shoulders. In an instant, the enthusiasm vanished, replaced by a cold mask of neutrality. “I’ve got almost everything I need organized. Hawk, if you can help get things loaded into the cart I have outside?”

“Sure…” Hawk said, and his intonation made it clear that he too noticed the stark change in Flurry’s attitude. “Where are you keeping your things?”

“Upstairs,” Flurry said with a tilt of her chin in the appropriate direction. “I’ve only got a few boxes full of tools and other things I’ll need while we’re at the capital. They’re pretty much packed already.”

As Hawk departed, flying through the passage in the ceiling to look for the aforementioned boxes, Rainbow raised an eyebrow at Flurry. “What should I do?” she asked, stopping the artist before she could fly up to join Hawk.

Flurry’s eyes narrowed at Rainbow. “Help out with whatever. Just don’t break anything.” Then, spreading her wings, she darted to the next floor up.

Rainbow shivered. It must’ve been the high altitude air making the room so cold.

She climbed the stairs join Hawk and Flurry and swiftly set to work. Flurry didn’t have a lot that she needed to have moved, but the boxes of tools and other things Rainbow couldn’t identify were certainly heavy. Eventually, she and Hawk worked out a system where she would drag the boxes over to Hawk, who was hovering near the hole in the floor and would take them down to the lower floor that way. It only took them ten or fifteen minutes to get everything moved to the lower floor, and Hawk flew up one last time to ensure that the room was finally empty.

“Alright,” he said, wiping sweat off his forehead and panting lightly, “I’ll go get things loaded into the cart. See if Flurry needs help with anything, will you?”

“Yeah, sure,” Rainbow grumbled as Hawk disappeared down the hole. “I’ll just hope she doesn’t bite my head off,” she muttered to herself, searching out the stairs that would take her to Flurry’s studio.

The studio, which made up the entirety of the third floor of the house, was much more cluttered than the other two floors. A few tables fashioned from solid cloud were attached to the walls of the house, and on them rested a plethora of the tools of Flurry’s trade. In the far corner of the room was a large metal box that reached from floor to ceiling; Rainbow figured it was where Flurry got her ice blocks from the condenser. In the middle of the room stood Flurry and a block of ice not much smaller than herself. The white mare was hard at work with a thick-bladed ice saw and an assortment of razor-sharp chisels arrayed around her. Upon hearing Rainbow trot up the stairs, the mare took a quick break from hacking off a section of ice to turn and face her with an irritated glance.

Rainbow suddenly began to doubt the logic in approaching Flurry alone when the mare had a collection of potentially deadly tools within reach.

Thankfully, Flurry just turned away and went back to her work. “Get everything loaded?” she asked before biting down on the handle of her saw and hewing off a corner of ice. The frosted block tumbled off the pedestal upon which the ice block rested and came to a rest among several other similarly sized chunks. The sculptor had accomplished a lot in the short time Rainbow and Hawk had spent moving her things.

“We’ve moved everything down to the first floor. Hawk’s getting it in the cart. He asked me to go see if there’s anything you need help with.” Rainbow walked a few steps closer and began to circle around Flurry’s sculpture, carefully giving the mare a wide but not impolite berth. Now that she was on the other side of the ice, she could start to see what it was Flurry was sculpting. “That’s neat. I don’t think I’ve seen one of your sculptures before.”

The saw momentarily stopped grinding through the ice as Flurry regarded Rainbow with a careful look. Shrugging, she let go of the handle, leaving the blade embedded in the ice for the moment. “Thanks. To be honest, I haven’t been able to work until now. Been a little hard to concentrate,” she added, tapping the side of her skull. Rainbow winced, thinking back to the concussion Flurry had suffered in saving her from her death at the airshow. That thought only pained her all the more; the mare who had saved her life now resented her, and the distance between them couldn’t have been greater.

Guilt guided Rainbow’s next words. “Yeah, I’m… I’m really sorry about that,” she said, speaking down at her hooves. “I was an idiot, and you broke your sculpture and hurt yourself trying to save me. I just…” She decided to kill her words with a remorseful sigh. “Never mind.”

Flurry’s features softened slightly, and she fixed Rainbow with a sympathetic look from the other side of the ice. “It’s… don’t worry about it,” she said, with a cool warmth to it that struck something within Rainbow. After a moment’s pause, she nodded to the sculpture she was roughing into shape. “Your show inspired this commission, though. And the pony who’s paying for it—well, I think they have more money than they know what to do with. So some good came out of it,” she teased, before biting down on the saw again and slicing off more of the ice.

It made Rainbow feel a little better to share a moment with Flurry. Maybe they could yet resolve the differences between them before things got much worse. For the time being, however, Rainbow didn’t want to press it any further. There was no point in possibly ruining the fragile peace they’d established between them with a poorly chosen word.

Instead, Rainbow was content to watch Flurry work on her sculpture as the rough gradually took shape. It took a few minutes of work, but Rainbow began to see the shape of a pegasus emerge, wings spread in flight and one hoof held out in front of it, pointing to the sky. Even in something as crude as a rough, before Flurry would put the time in to add the details once they arrived in Mymis, the mare’s skill was evident. She moved with a gentle yet precise touch, and Rainbow knew that there could hardly be a pony her equal in craft.

It almost reminded Rainbow of—

“Stand still, Rainbow Dash.”

Despite the unicorn’s frustrated pleading, Rainbow simply couldn’t stand still. The outfit she was wearing, if it could even be called that, was tight and uncomfortable, not to mention excessively girly and frilly. Pink fabric clung to her coat, trying to suffocate her very skin, and her hooves felt unnatural with the blocky gold horseshoes clinging to them. But even worse than the awful pink clothes or the frills attached to the outfit’s saddle and bodice was the… thing that Rainbow had to wear on her head. To describe it as a wig simply didn’t do. The thing was like ten, no, twenty wigs all stacked atop each other, suffocating her awesome rainbow mane underneath rolls and rolls of white hair. It was heavy, it was unpleasant, and it was almost as tall as Dash was from hoof to shoulder, if not taller.

“Ugh, I can’t!” Rainbow whined, stomping her hooves. In frustration, she attempted to take wing, but the unicorn placed a surprisingly strong hoof on her tail and kept her anchored in place before she could flee the pedestal she was all but trapped on. “I need to fly! This is way too boring for me!”

The unicorn spit out a set of pins she’d had clamped between her teeth and pointed a hoof at Rainbow after she’d landed. “Do you want to look nice for Princess Celestia or not?” she growled, her irritation evident in her voice.

When it was clear that her desperate pleas weren’t going to get her anywhere, Rainbow scowled and sat down on the pedestal while the unicorn continued her work. There simply was no escaping the white mare’s clutches; despite how sophisticated and uppity she could be, there was a resolute firmness to her when she made up her mind that rivaled even Rainbow’s own stubbornness. In the clash of two such personalities, Rainbow had no choice but to concede defeat, as escape was impossible.

Just then, another unicorn entered the scene. Twilight gave the studio a cursory glance, and her eyes widened in awe at the numerous dresses lining it. “Wow, Rarity, these outfits are gorgeous.”

The unicorn, Rarity, turned and smiled at Twilight. “Mmhmm. Thank you, Twilight. Nice to know that someone appreciates my talents…”

When Rainbow came to, she found herself lying on her back with Flurry standing over her, worry on her face. “Rainbow?” she asked, helping the blue pegasus sit up. “Are you alright? What happened?”

Shivers wracked Rainbow’s body, but she did her best to fight it down. This wasn’t the first time she’d suddenly found herself overwhelmed by a memory crashing through the wall of her amnesia without warning. After several breaths to slow her heart, she finally felt well enough to speak. “You… Seeing you work, I remembered. I remembered a friend. Rarity…” Rainbow swallowed hard. “She’s an artist, too. But she makes clothes. You make sculptures, and she makes clothes. Heh… and they were always real pretty, even if I never told her that. I really wish I’d told her that I loved her dresses, especially the gala dress she made for me, but I was too busy trying to be cool to ever admit it to her face…”

The fluttering of wings heralded Hawk’s arrival, and seeing Rainbow on the floor, he darted over to the two mares. “Rainbow? What happened?” When Rainbow was too slow to respond for his liking, he instead focused on Flurry. “What happened?”

“She was watching me work, and then she just fell over and started shivering,” Flurry said, biting her lip. “I thought she was having a seizure.”

“It’s fine, Hawk,” Rainbow said, smoothing out her ruffled feathers, though not without some amount of shaking. “I just had another flashback. You know, like the one at Dawn’s birthday.”

That seemed to relax Hawk some, if only by a little. Nodding, he helped Rainbow stand up. “Are you feeling better? I can take you back down if you want.”

Rainbow waved him off with a hoof. “I’m good. Don’t worry about it. I’m already feeling like my normal, awesome self!” Her voice cracked, betraying her uneasiness, which didn’t go unnoticed by either other pony in the room.

Flurry and Hawk looked at each other, but Hawk soon nodded. “If you say so. Why don’t you go sit down and rest? I’ll help Flurry move her rough downstairs once she’s finished with it. Then we’ll bring the cart down to the surface, and you can ride in the back.”

After a moment, Rainbow ducked her head in agreement. “Sure thing. Say, Flurry, do you happen to have any water? Other than the clouds, of course, but I don’t think you want me eating your house because I’m thirsty.”

Flurry coolly nodded. “Yeah, there should be a pitcher in the larder downstairs. Help yourself.”

Rainbow thanked Flurry and retreated from the studio, managing to make it down to the second floor before the dizziness in her reeling head and the shakiness in her limbs almost toppled her. Though she was loathe to admit it, sitting down on the single sofa in Flurry’s house with a glass of water while she waited for the trauma from the latest flashback to dissipate was exactly what she needed. Still, as she sat there sipping from her glass, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off.

She’d gotten so many precious bits of her memory restored to her, but she still felt a hollowness in her heart. Was there yet somepony else she couldn’t remember?

Comments

[Osiris Grandeur]

Update!!!!!!!
I love this story and I can't wait for more
But when will she remember everything fully?

[Dr Induction]

Woot

[Admiral Q Ponyform]

MOAR!

[RoboRed]

And I was just thinking about Rarity when one of the paragraphs mentioned Twilight, Applejack, and Pinkie...whoa.

[ConsciousHaze196]

Your show inspired this commission, though.

I think that sculpture is made of a few planes of long sharp triangular ice spikes.

[Heavy Weapons Guy]

Glad to see this story update, will wait for more as you supply it.

[That One Brony Dude]

For some reason, I had a felling that Rainbow Dash would remember Fluttershy in this chapter. But, she remembered Rarity instead. It seems she also remembered preparing for the Grand Galloping Gala, too. I wonder if she remembered seeing Celestia there, although seeing as how she and Celestia weren't that close, I would imagine she probably wouldn't remember anything about her. I guess it's only a matter of time before she remembers The Wonderbolts. But first, she'll probably remember Fluttershy's face, presumably having a flashback from Hurricane Fluttershy.

Anyway, this makes another good chapter. Keep writing, and watch out for those cute parasprites! They spit their newborns right into your face!

[Psitally]

YEAHH!!! UPDATE!! So glad to see the story is progressing at a decent rate! please Please PLEASE don't give up on this 24th! I LOVE this story

[Latisha McPeanuts]

Yay update! Can't wait for more to be revealed. In super curious

[Folomo]

7330628
Pretty sure these events are just post discord, so only season 1 is cannon.

[Dr Induction]

[bricks of lean]

pls make another one I'm craving this

[MickJaz97]

FINALLY found this again. Now to try and remember what happened last time I read it.

[Kevin Lee]

Looks like Fluttershy will be last on the list, unless Spike & the princesses decide to make an appearance in her head.

[The Blacksmith]

“Please, I can already tell that you like being ridden,” Rainbow teased. “Do you go for any night rides?” she asked, her voice suddenly dropping into a sultry whisper, and teeth nibbling at Hawk’s ear.

And I OOP-