Whitewashed

by ScottTrek

Part 5

“Wait hang on.” Applejack said raising an eyebrow as she leaned out of her house’s window at the group outside. “Dusk has invited us all to a house warming party?”

“Yes.” Twilight replied as Sweetie Belle and Rarity nodded confirmation. Standing next Sweetie was Pinkie Pie, who was vibrating slightly on the spot. Sweetie Belle had her eyes locked on the baker’s currently flat mane while Twilight continued; “And you’re wondering why he’s doing four months after he moved here, Right?”

“...yeah that pretty much sums it up.”

“Apparently all of their possessions were in transit when the ‘event’ happened and went missing. Dusk’s spent all this time trying to track their stuff down. They’d actually not bought the house so the two of them have been in a tent this whole time.”

“Oh so that’s where that tent next to the school came from...” Applejack said, peering into the distance. “Ah was actually wondering…”

“PARTY!” Pinkie Pie suddenly whooped cutting across the conversation, jumping more feet into the air than should be technically possible for a non-Pegasus. Sweetie Belle giggled as Pinkies mane explosively sprang back into candyfloss mode and before anyone could say anything else Pinkie babbled something about cake and zoomed off into the distance in a pink haze.

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The next day seemed to roll around very quickly which made a nice change, Sweetie Belle had bugger all to do these days since Cherrilee’s nervous breakdown, so the days seemed to drag on and on. She’d been round to see the teacher a few times and they’d chatted amicably about this and that, but it was a matter of time before something set the older mare off and she was hit by wave of crippling depression.

Sweetie Belle sighed as she pottered about her bedroom getting ready, trying to push thoughts of Cherrilee’s mental condition from her mind. Sweetie began to hear slightly raised voiced coming from Carousel Boutiques main parlour, Rainbow Dash had arrived a quarter of an hour ago at Rarity’s insistence for a “Slight brushing up.” With one final sweep of her bedroom Sweetie Belle determined there was nothing more she could do to procrastinate and that she was going to have to go downstairs and face what she knew was going to be a highly disgruntled Rainbow.

As Sweetie belle descended she could hear the Rainbow in heated debate with Rarity, Sweetie Belle had been afraid of this. Just as she was opening the door Rainbow suddenly bellowed “NO! DAMN IT!” Sweetie Belle yelped and slammed the door shut milliseconds before the bottle of hair dye hit it with a wet slap.

Sweetie Belle waited for a few seconds before peeping her head round the door again. Rainbow Dash had her head buried in a pile of pillows, breathing heavily and trying desperately not to cry. Rarity was wiping gloop off herself with her magic whilst patting Rainbow Dash’s back.

“You ok Sweetie Belle?” Rainbow Dash asked forlornly, voice muffled and strained.

“Is anyone ok these days?” Sweetie Belle replied, hopping over the pooling red dye around the door.

“Good point.” Rainbow Dash chuckled pulling her head out from the pillows. The Pegasus let at a sheepish sigh, turning to Rarity “Don’t know why I’m getting so worked up, I mean I know I look awesome 24/7 no matter what…but still…maybe you could do something with my hair.”

“No dye?” Rarity said apprehensively. “Not your style?”

Rainbow looked in the mirror and ran a hoof over her rainbow mane, and the multitude stress induced of grey streaks shot through it. “Yeah…not my style.”

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The late afternoon air was crisp and still, the sun just starting it’s descend towards the horizon. The three from Rarity’s house had picked up Twilight and Pinkie Pie and preceded leisurely up to the far north-east corner of town. Sweetie Belle hadn’t been up that way often, there were few shops and the north area of the town was home to Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoons grand houses so she had avoided the area on principle.

“Nice weather.” Twilight commented, breathing in as a warm breeze, gently blew down the road. “Good job Rainbow.”

“Ehh,” Rainbow shrugged, “Clouds floating down from the Cloudsdale production lines are behaving themselves a bit more now.” Switching to in a mock conspiratorial tone, Rainbow leaned in and said. “I helped the managers replace all of the outdated equipment without that ancient fossil of a CEO noticing. Old Zephyr was in too much off a huff to notice what he was signing since he was already being forced to implement the machines needed for Midnight’s chem-clouds. I tell you he is one scary colt when he gets going, you always get the impression he’s going to beat you up with his cane if you do the slightest thing to upset his old-fashioned sensibilities.
“Anyway” rainbow continued, “He was all ‘blah-blah new-fangled blah-blah upstart blah-blah-blah if I had my way.’ Then he went on and on about how he couldn’t believe that the Princesses had allowed a matter of national security was being influenced by a ‘mere child’ and that it was ‘madness of a highest order’.”

Rainbow Dash jumped into the air and began leisurely flying backwards. “Well I wasn’t having any of that, so I told him that not only could I personally vouch for Midnight’s intelligence, the Princesses shared my opinion that just because an individual may not be an adult it does not mean you should treat their thoughts and ideas with any less respect. After that he gave up and signed all the papers, including the ones for the Las Pegasus weather tech he’s been staunchly vetoing from Cloudsdale for the past umpteen years. What an old fart bag.”

“Thanks for sticking up for Midnight!” Sweetie Belle grinned, jumping up to hoof bump Rainbow while the rest of the group giggled at Rainbows story.

“Don’t mention it.” Rainbow said smugly. “It was a royal order so he would have had to do the chem-clouds anyway. But I’m the Element of Loyalty, so I stick up for my friends, and by extension my friend’s sister’s looney boyfriend.”

“Midnight isn’t my ……….” Sweetie Belle started before sighing with resignation, “Ohh never mind.”

The directions given by Dusk veered off to the east and the fancy houses fell away until they reached the absolute outskirts of town. Tucked away from the rest of the town was a strange house that looked like it had started out as a small bungalow that had been subjected to various extensions over the past two hundred years, all of which had been carried out by ponies whom had all had wildly different architectural preferences and styles that the one preceding him. In other words:

“Suites them down to the letter doesn’t it?” Rarity said gazing in awe and the bizarre amalgamation in front of them.

“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash said flying around it a few times. “Pretty big as well.”

“It needs to be big to store all the artefacts that I have.” Dusk said, having emerged unnoticed from the front door while everyone was taking in the house. “Welcome! Welcome!” He cried excitedly gesturing to the doorway. “Do come in and make yourself at home”

The group peered inside only to be met by boxes piled all around the hallway and stretching back into the house. “Err…yeah…I am afraid the House somewhat looks like the last scene of ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ at the moment.” Dusk said blushing heavily, which had the unfortunate side effect of making his disfigured side look rather demonic. “See I did have a timetable sorted out… but I had a bit of a schizophrenic attack earlier, which among other things included throwing a table through the lounge window.”

“Plus there was this looney Unicorn harassing us non-stop yesterday.” Midnight said, popping out randomly from one of the boxes. “Think her name was Trixie? She was spouting all kinds of doomsday gobbledegook. Oh Dusk, I finally found the cutlery.”

“Yeah, so it was either sort out the boxes or fix the plumbing this morning.” Dusk continued leading them through. “Hopefully I can clear a few more seats before everyone else arrives, though I’m sure…” Dusk was suddenly cut off when a sudden ‘whoosh’ emanated from somewhere within. Midnight was suddenly next to Sweetie projecting a shield around the two of them.

“That’ll be the boiler again.” Dusk said, eyebrow twitching slightly with exasperation. “Could everyone wait outside for a minute?”

“Err Midnight?” Sweetie Belle said, gently tapping Midnight’s shoulder. “Is the shield really necessary?”

“You haven’t tried using the toilet in this place.” He replied carefully backing the two of them, still shielded, back into the garden.