• Published 27th Oct 2014
  • 4,422 Views, 58 Comments

Beautiful: Rainbow Dash - Nom_deCheval



A bad day and a rainy night. It’s enough to drive a mare to drink. Winding up in a dark bar on the streets of Canterlot, Rainbow Dash finds herself meeting up with a mare who is elegant, graceful, and totally gorgeous. All the qualities that Da

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Part One by Nom_deCheval

“Darling, I must say, you look absolutely marvelous!” I knew she was gonna say that. Everypony knew she was gonna say that. And as soon as she said it, she batted her eyelashes in the same way she always does. Rarity is a great gal, but wow is she predictable.

“I dunno.” The dress is tight. Really, really tight. “Isn’t it a little, y’know, restricting?”

“But of course! It has to fit rather snug or else it won’t properly display your… fundamentals!” She half giggled that last line. I try not to roll my eyes, but… I mean, seriously, how can you not at such a bad joke?

I take a small step. A difficult, small step. “How the heck am I supposed to move in this thing?” A quick twist of my body confirms what I already know. “This thing is gonna slow me down.”

“Rainbow Dash!” Uh-oh, here comes the speech. “A lady does not always feel the need to rush things, and this is one of those times. Remember what we’ve gone over. You are to be polite, charming, and above all, demure!”

“What the heck does that even mean?” This stupid dress itches. And suddenly Rarity’s eyes get huge when I scratch myself.

“That! That is exactly what I mean!” I see her horn light up and feel her magic slap my hoof off my rump. “A lady does NOT do such things!”

“Then how they heck do they scratch themselves?” I rub my hoof because the stupid magic actually stung when she slapped me.

She huffs at me for some reason. “That’s not the point. Come over here, Darling.”

I see her heading to the mirror on the other side of the room. She has a head start on me… but I beat her there. “Yeah? What?”

Eventually—it seems like forever—she makes it to the mirror and stands there beside me. She nods towards the glass, so I take a look. There was Rarity, looking as gorgeous as ever. Pristine white coat, beautiful purple mane that she spent waaaaay too much time making look that way, and, well, Rarity. “Yeah? So?”

“Not me, Darling.”

Her magic moves my head very gently, shifting it over just enough so that I wasn’t looking at her, but at some strange mare next to her. She has soft yellow eye shadow and a slick mane tracing down the side of her neck. Her coat is a pretty blue, though—and those look like a great pair of wings!

“I want you to look at yourself.”

Oh yeah. That’s me. “Okay, I see me. So?”

“So?!” Rarity jumps back like I tried to hit her or something. “Rainbow Dash, do not presume that you cannot see the results of my efforts here tonight! I have carefully—I dare say majestically—transformed you from your normal self into the vision you see staring back at you!”

A couple of those words hang around in my head for a second, and then I turn to look at her. “What’s wrong with the way I normally look?”

“Nothing!” she answers me instantly, and then backtracks. “Well, nothing if you are working on the weather. Or playing games. Or even enjoying time with the girls and I, but this isn’t one of those times. Tonight you are going to spend time with...” I swear her eyes glisten when she says, “...Copious Assets.”

As usual, the sound of his name forces out a snort of a laugh. The feeling of Rarity staring at me hits me way before I actually turn to see her. “We’ve covered this, Dash. You are not to laugh at his name! He is the heir to the fortune of Hefty Assets and is very sensitive about his family name!”

I try to hold back another laugh. Well, kinda. After I do it, I feel a little sorry about it, anyway. And I notice she’s still staring at me. “What? How am I not gonna laugh at a name like that? It would be like a mare having the name Checkout Da’Flanks or something!”

She clears her throat. Rarity always clears her throat when she’s trying not to laugh. “Well, all of that aside, I have gone to great lengths to set this rendezvous up for you, and I would appreciate it if you did not embarrass me.”

Aw, dang it. She had to go there. “Don’t worry, Rarity. I won’t.” My hoof scrapes along the wood of the floor before I realize that the Princess might not like me treating her castle that way. “Why do we have to do this in Canterlot, anyway? Why can’t I just go out on a date with somepony back in Ponyville?”

“Because everypony in Ponyville knows you, Darling.” She smiles at me as she says that.

“Exactly! They already understand my awesomeness, so doing stuff to impress them isn’t needed! They’re pre-impressed!” I feel like we’re getting somewhere, finally.

“Yes, well, that’s not exactly how I would have phrased it, but think of it this way: this is your chance to show someone new exactly how… awesome… you can be.”

I think about what Rarity is saying, and it kinda makes sense. Except for one little problem. “Yeah, but how can I do that wearing this?”

“I’m getting the feeling you don’t like my dress.” Rarity stuck her lips out like a duck—if ducks had lips. Come to think of it, why do they call that duck lips? Ducks have bills, not lips. If anything they should call that duck billed. Unless they are saying that it is the person’s lips who are looking like a duck bill, in which case it makes sense. Wait… is Rarity still talking? “...learned from all my efforts. I am doing this for you, after all.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Geez, what did she say? “It’s not the dress, honest. You make pretty dresses.”

“And you look absolutely lovely in them, Darling.” That got her smiling. Good. “Which is perfect, because you are already running late. Now, hurry off! And I simply cannot wait to hear all the sordid little details of your date!” She squeals like a filly. Who does that?

Okay, besides when I met Daring Do. That was different. It was DARING DO! I mean, c’mon! Or with the Wonderbolts. So, okay, sometimes I do it, too. I guess she gets a pass there.

“Now, hurry along.” I feel Rarity’s magic pushing me from behind. “But don’t go too fast. I had very little seam allowance, so any stress is going to result in absolute disaster.”

“What does that mean?” I have to look over my shoulder to see her as she’s pushing me out the door.

“Never you mind, Darling. Just go and have fun. But not too much fun! A lady must never… do that on her first date.” She stops pushing me and I look back at her, just in time to see her slowly closing the door and almost singing her final words. “Good luh-uck!”

The door closes and I’m alone. I guess I’m gonna go do this, then. Let’s see how it works out. I turn and head off to find—snicker—Copious Assets. Heh. What a name.


I hate this city.

No, that’s too strong. I just hate all the ponies in this city—except the princesses, of course. They’re cool. And I should know better. Heck, I do know better, I just forgot to remember that I know better, and I went ahead and listened to Rarity. Now look where it’s gotten me. I’m gliding down the middle of… some street. Um, okay. I think I’m lost.

Ah, what difference does it make? I’m staying at the castle, and that’s the easiest place to find in the whole city. Maybe in all of Equestria, actually. So lost is kind of a relative term. I’ll just say that I don’t know where I’m at—and I really don’t care.

A shiver runs over my coat and I recognize it immediately. All I have to do is glance up at the sky for a second, and I see that the local weather ponies have arranged a bit of a shower. Perfect ending to a perfect day, I guess.

Still, I don’t feel much like getting soaked right now, and I really don’t want to go back and deal with Rarity at the moment, so…

I circle back around. I remember seeing three ponies walking out of some club or something and climbing up a small set of stairs. They were staggering a little, so they were obviously drinking, and another pony held the door open for them, which meant it wasn’t a house. Translation: it’s a bar. Good. I could use a stiff drink right now.

After landing, I trot down the stairs to the door. The pony opens it for me—I mean, hey, it’s his job—and gives me a standard welcome to the club spiel. Some place called Tablet of Pasta or something. I dunno. Sounds weird.

And once I get inside, I realize it is. Everything in this place is dark. The walls are dark. The bar is dark. Even the lights are dark. I would say that it was designed by a bunch of goth ponies with a thing for Nightmare Moon, but the vibe isn’t quite so pretentious—it’s worse, actually. This is what rich ponies think a dive bar is supposed to look like.

The only thing that I see in this place that isn’t dark is the bartender. He’s a well-built unicorn stallion with a pure white coat. Not bad, actually. I saddle up to the bar and grab a seat, giving him a quick smile. Not a flirty one, just one to get him to come over.

“Good evening. How are you?” He starts in with the polite conversation right away.

“About as well as you think I’m doing.” I give him a smartass answer for some reason. “Can I get a hard cider?”

From the expression on his face I know the answer before the words come out. “Sorry. We don’t get much call for that in the area. I don’t have any right now.”

No cider. Of course there is no cider. On a night like this why would there be cider. I push my hoof between my eyes, squinting. “Well, have you got anything that kinda tastes like cider?”

“I’ll… see what I can find.” He walks off and I feel a little worse. I could have been nice to the guy. It’s not his fault. There’s one of those huge mirrors on the back of the bar, and I instantly see who should be blamed for all of this. That mare staring back at me with the rainbow colored mane.

The bartender shows up with a tall bottle and, guess what, it’s dark. “This is a very fruity marelot with a strong hint of apples to it.” He pours a little bit in a glass and pushes it my way. “Give it a try.”

I grab the glass and toss it back. It tastes like wine. I never have understood all of that mumbo-jumbo about oak and spice and whatnot. It tastes like red wine. I don’t taste any apples at all. “Yeah, that’s fine.” I have no idea why I said that.

He gives me a smile of accomplishment and pours half a glass for me, and then sets the bottle down next to it. I grab the glass and take another deep drink, disappointed that it isn’t cider I taste, but still appreciating the slight burn as the alcohol hits the back of my throat. I put the glass down and give it a good stare.

What the heck is wrong with me? I mean, with the me that I am?

Somepony sits down next to me and I glance over out of reflex. What I see… Wow. I mean, seriously, wow. It’s a unicorn, but not just a unicorn. This mare could redefine what a unicorn is supposed to look like. I haven’t seen a body like hers since, well, I guess Princess Luna. She’s hot. Totally hot.

I give her a quick nod and smile. And of course, she has no clue that I’m even there. C’mon! I was sitting here first! How can you walk in and sit down next to somepony and not even pay attention to them? All she’s doing is staring at the mirror.

Giving it a try, I look in the mirror, thinking she might see me and give me a glance. What was I thinking? All she’s doing is messing with her mane, trying to make it perfect even though it already looks great. I mean, this mare could be a model, easy. I feel my wings rustle slight as she primps in the mirror, and immediately want to smack myself. It’s just another Canterlot pony with Canterlot ideals and… ugh!

I go back to my wine just as the bartender comes up to take her order. She gives him some long, complex name with a number behind it. Yep, Canterlot all right. Though she has a great voice, too. Deep and dark, kinda like this place. It fits, really. I wouldn’t mind listening to this pony talk some more with that kinda voice.

When I get back to the room, I’m gonna have to listen to Rarity, who will do nothing but try to cheer me up. Heck, she’ll probably want to go find that dickbag stallion I had to deal with and give him a talk. She can make anypony feel about an inch tall with just her words. I might just encourage her to do that to the jerk, too.

Suddenly my glass and bottle are rising up in a unicorn’s magic. “What the hay?!” I know who it is, but I still can’t believe it. The hot unicorn has grabbed my stuff and I watch as she dumps both the bottle and the glass down the sink. “I was drinking that!”

She shakes the glass slightly, tossing my bottle into the trash. As the glass sits back down in front of me she pours some wine from her bottle into the glass with a bit of a smug smile on her face. “Then you should be thanking me from saving you from that swill. If you do not find this far superior vintage more to your liking, I will buy you two bottles to replace that one.”

“Look, lady, I did not come here to sample wines, I came here to get trashed.”

“Yes, I gathered as much.”

Oh, she’s asking for it. I don’t care how gorgeous you are, you do not stare at me that way and not get payback.

“Whatever.” I grab the glass and toss it back. It’s...really good, actually. After drinking that other wine and then this one, I can actually tell why some of those fancy terms are used. There is no way I’m telling her that, though! I look up at the ceiling and move my tongue around, kinda like the way I’ve seen fancy ponies do before. I give her a little shrug just to poke a little harder. “It’s alright, but I don’t see what’s so much better about it.”

“Better?” Perfect. She’s about to have a foal. “What’s better is fifty years of age and a far superior grape! You may as well compare filtered water to drinking from a muddy stream!”

She’s giving me a stare that would probably melt most ponies, but when have I ever been most ponies? “What’s wrong with drinking from a stream?” Let’s see if that makes her blow up.

Oh yeah, that did it. Her face bubbles. I mean, it actually seems to bubble. Her eyes, ears, lips, cheeks, and everything just moves around trying to find a place that makes sense to her. Bullseye!

She taps on the bar to bring the bartender over—a little harder than she intended, I think. “Please provide this mare with two bottles of whatever it was she was drinking and put the last one on my tab as well. Then bring me a bottle of the 954 Pal’mino Noir.”

It’s obvious the bartender is a little ticked, but nods. I give him a nod and a smile as he goes and then turn to the mare with a similar smile. She won’t even look my way. In fact, her nose is so high in the air right now that she might just bump into the weather ponies outside.

“Oh, so now you’re going to give me the cold whither? Fine, whatever.” If she’s gonna play it cold, so can I.

“What are you doing here?” I have no idea why she asks me that. Wasn’t that pretty much the first thing that we talked about?

“I already told you, trying to get wasted,” the bartender shows up just in time, and I grab the bottle and start to pour myself a new glass, “or I would be if some ponies would just leave me alone.”

“No. Why are you here, in Canterlot. You obviously don’t belong. And nopony gets that dressed up just to get ‘wasted.’”

Oh, she did not just… I really hate all these Canterlot ponies. Thanks for reminding me why I came into this place, lady. You prissy little stuck up….

“Why do you care?” I toss back the glass and fill another, and start to think about switching to something a little harder than wine.

“I don’t!” She says that like it’s poison or something and then tosses back her own wine. If she wants to make this a drinking contest, then bring it!

“Then why are you asking?”

“I don’t know!” Wow. Okay, she screamed that a little loud.

The whole place goes quiet and everypony looks our way. Gotta give the lady credit, though, she stares back with enough venom in her eyes to turn them all around. Soon enough the general noise of the bar comes back. I’m guessing some of the talk is about the two of us now, though.

I look at her. There is something about the way she’s sitting there. The way that she’s holding onto that glass and staring with a blank expression that is… familiar. Aw man, don’t look like that, lady. I didn’t mean anything by what I was saying. I was just having a rough day—and it looks like you are, too.

“Are you okay?”

At first she doesn’t do anything except sort of start wavering in her chair. I’m not sure that she’s used to drinking the way that we’ve been tossing them back.

Finally she looks over at me and I try to give her a soft look back.

"What?" Yeah. Her voice is really flat.

"Are you okay?" I kinda lean towards her, ready to grab her in case she falls off that stool.

And she looks even worse after I lean in. It’s like she’s trying to not answer me, but really wants to or something. All I know is that if she isn’t careful she’s gonna fall off that stool and hit the floor and likely hurt herself. I’d feel like dirt if I let that happen to her.

Her hoof hits the bar a little harder than she intends, and the bartender comes back over with a very forced expression on his face. The dude is barely holding it in.

“Check,” she mumbles to him.

“You got it.” I see him light up his horn and float over a tab. Then he reads it and my jaw drops. “Six hundred and fifty bits, ma’am.”

That can’t be right. Six-fifty for just four bottles of wine? And I know that mine couldn’t cost that much—at least I hope mine didn’t cost that much, I need to ask next time when I order—which means that hers cost at least three-hundred each. Who pays that much to get drunk?

That’s when I notice her hoof feeling around near her flank, looking for something that obviously isn’t there. Uh-oh.

“Do you take credit?” She asks him like she knows the answer.

“No, ma’am.” Yeah, this is gonna turn ugly.

“Do you know who I am?” Okay, now I’m curious. It’ll be good to have a name to attach to a pony who looks like she does. “I’m Fleur de Lis! My husband is Fancy Pants. We are one of the most powerful and… influential couples in Canterlot.”

He shrugs at her.

“Do you have a phone?” What the heck is a phone? “We just had one installed, and I could call my husband and…” Her voice trails off as she sees the blank expression on his face. He’s as lost about that as I am, which I have to admit makes me feel a little better.

At first I think she is crying. Her body lurches a couple of times with her head hung low, but when she throws her head back it is very obvious that she is laughing. Loud, actually. Everypony is staring at her again.

I gotta admit, it even takes me off guard when she stops laughing and jumps down from the stool. Moving way, way faster than I would have thought, she makes a run for the door. Some pony in a fancy outfit gets in her way, but she just runs through him, knocking him to the ground with a good shot from her whither.

“Ha!” I can’t help it. I never expected her to do that. The bartender and the doorman are both heading towards the door when I do something that surprises me. “Hey! Stop!”

Thankfully, they both do. “Don’t worry. I got this.”

Rarity is a great friend, but even more than that, she’s a connected one. She knows sometimes things can get a little out of hoof and you might need a little help. So, I reach into the bag on my hip and pull out the special coin she gave me. It’s got the Canterlot Royal Seal on it, and from what Rarity said, it’s pretty much a free pass wherever you might need it.

I flip it to the bartender, giving him a patented Rainbow Dash smile. “This should cover it! I’m staying at the castle.”

His eyes go wide, and that’s a good enough answer for me. Before he or anyone else can say anything, I’m out the door, flying up to get the position of—what did she call herself?—oh yeah, Fleur.

It only takes a second. She’s obviously not used to running away and hiding, but to her credit she’s pretty darn quick. I guess she has to work out to keep a body like that, and it’s showing. She makes a few turns down streets, sure that somepony is hot on her tail, but not thinking to look up even once.

Finally she finds a spot that she thinks is safe and stops. She looks soaked to the bone, running through this rain and splashing through so many puddles. Yeah, I keep forgetting that not everypony is as waterproof as a pegasus.

I drop down beside her as quiet as possible.

“You’re pretty fast… for a prissy unicorn that is.”

“Wh—”

“And the way you tackled that stallion, I wouldn’t mind having you on my hoofball team.”

“I don’t— You—”

Yeah, she pretty much has nothing to say. Not that I can blame her, she’s not used to someone as awesome as me showing up unexpectedly and saving the day. Still, I need to get her out of this rain and help her walk off some of the alcohol in her system.

“It’s not good to stop like that, you’ll give yourself cramps. Come on, we’ll walk it out until we can find someplace out of the rain.” I get down on my hooves so I can walk with her and throw a wing over her to help keep her dry.

I don’t know if she’s just too tired or what, but she doesn’t put up a fight—or say anything for that matter—she just starts walking down the street with me. A few steps into the walk I feel her press up against me. It feels… good. I wrap my wing around her a little tighter just to make sure she’s okay and keep walking.

We go on for a good bit, just wandering along while I try to find someplace dry that we can hang out at least until the storm has passed. I spy a little covered pavillion thing in a park and steer us that way. I don’t think she’s even aware we are out of the rain until I start to pull my wing off of her.