Fifteen Dinners

by Quill Scratch

Chapter 5: Lasagne al Forno

Dinner that evening was going to be a surprise.

Twilight had told her earlier that morning that Spike wanted to prepare the three of them something special, and that he was refusing to tell her what it would be. Rainbow wasn’t entirely sure that Twilight was telling the truth about that last part, but was more than willing to accept a mystery meal from Spike (who was notoriously skilled in a kitchen).

She’d head up when she felt a bit better, anyway.

It was just a headache. Rainbow could feel the throbbing behind her temples, the dull, echoing pain in her skull. It would pass—headaches always did. Rainbow was sure that this one would be no exception. And as soon as she had convinced herself of that, she’d head upstairs.

The basement of the library was an eclectic space, and one could never quite be sure what one would find there. Sometimes Twilight would set up huge pieces of machinery and strange, whirring devices that she assumed were for some experiment or other; she remembered the time when she used to ask Twilight about her experiments, and how she would listen for hours and try to understand the crazy, impossible things Twilight described. Her marefriend’s research was exciting, cutting-edge stuff that Rainbow couldn’t make head nor tail of but certainly enjoyed the funny-sounding egghead words.

Tonight the basement was bare, just shelves of books and empty darkness. Rainbow liked that; she didn’t feel so cramped when there was all that noise down here. There was even a Rainbow-sized nook in the old wooden shelves that she could curl up in and just wait for her headache to pass.

Her wings were still fidgeting on her back. They had been all day, for almost as long as she could recall, now. It had been so long since she had been flying—and the dull movement she went through each day to get to work and back did not count at all—and her body was itching with the need to go out, to spread her wings and just fly, feel the air on her coat and the wind on her face.

To her credit, she tried. Each day, Rainbow Dash stepped outside the library, an hour before she needed to leave for work, as she would any other day. She spread her wings out wide, feeling the wind flowing past them, ruffling her feathers gently in the breeze. But as she tried to kick off, her vision would fill with those wide, purple eyes and her legs would lock up, her wings frozen in place. Her breathing would quicken and she would stand there in the open, just as Ponyville began to wake up and go about its day, too frightened to move.

Rainbow Dash, Equestria’s fastest pegasus—grounded.

She didn’t need to fly. After all, she was in-shape and got plenty of practice whilst at work. She made sure to do the occasional loop or roll whilst clearing the clouds, or practice her turns as she flew in unnecessary detours. Perhaps it made her day longer than it needed to be, but Rainbow Dash knew she couldn’t face coming home a minute sooner than she did each evening.

Hoofsteps on the stairs. Rainbow froze up at the sound, squeezing her eyes shut and suppressing a groan as the room was lit up, her head pounding.

“Rainbow?” Twilight’s voice. How long had she been down here? It couldn’t be dinner-time yet, could it? “Are you down here?”

Rainbow grunted in affirmation and she could hear the small sigh of relief Twilight gave in response. Hooves clacked down the polished wooden stairs, each sharp impact loud and painful, almost as if Twilight were walking across her skull. Soon enough, her marefriend stepped into view, looking around the room in bewilderment. She opened her mouth, about to call out—Rainbow coughed.

Their eyes locked and a wide smile grew across Twilight’s muzzle, becoming a wide, toothy grin; Rainbow couldn’t help but smile weakly back. Twilight began to walk across the room to her, then stopped, frowning, before her eyes shot wide open. Rainbow smiled wider at that. Twilight was always beautiful, but she was mesmerising when she was thinking.

Her hoofsteps sounded muffled as she walked towards Rainbow, and though the pegasus was not entirely sure why the noise was so much quieter now she was too lost in Twilight’s eyes to care. The unicorn’s eyes were the two most beautiful gemstones Rainbow had ever seen, sparkling as they did with excitement whenever her marefriend realised anything, no matter how insignificant. Rainbow could lose herself in those stones, just staring at the intricate beauty of the lavender irises (how they were really made of shards of all kinds of shades, separated by sharp, dark lines that made Rainbow think of the spokes of a wheel, and how all those shards came together in perfect formation to surround her pupils, dark, pitch-black wells of infinite calm.)

Before she knew it, Twilight’s face was directly in front of hers, and Rainbow found herself having to blink as her eyes strained from focusing too close to her muzzle. The pounding in her head rose back again, a timpani crescendo.

“Room for one more in there?” Twilight giggled as Rainbow hurriedly squeezed into the small hole in the wall she had found, pressing her body up tightly against the edge to let her marefriend worm her way in beside her. She was pressed up so tightly against her that she could feel Twilight’s chest rise and fall with her breathing, hear—no, feel her heartbeat through her coat. She wriggled a wing free from between them and draped it across Twilight, squeezing gently. Twilight rested her head on Rainbow’s shoulder.

“This is a cool hidey-hole you found,” she said, her eyes closed and a small, contented smile playing on her lips. “I remember a similar place I used to curl up in as a filly in the Royal Canterlot Archives, between two sets of shelves that somepony hadn’t quite aligned right. It was the perfect place to go and curl up with a book at night. Nopony could ever find you.”

“That sounds nice,” Rainbow said, wincing as Twilight prodded her side. “Hey, what was that for?”

“For implying you’d rather I hadn’t come and found you,” Twilight said huffily. “I was rather enjoying being all snuggly and cosy with you.” Rainbow laughed and pulled Twilight towards her with her wing, and though it didn’t really accomplish anything she saw Twilight smile a little in response.

“I dunno,” she said playfully, “I was quite enjoying being curled up, alone in the dark. I’m not sure you showing up has really improved it—it’s all gotten a bit more cramped, you see, and—”

Twilight’s lips cut her off, pressing against hers. She tilted her head sideways, letting out a small moan of surprise, returning Twilight’s hungry kiss with as much passion as she could muster. After a moment the two broke apart, panting, their forelegs wrapped around each other’s necks.

“Okay,” Rainbow whispered. “Maybe I am just a teensy, tiny bit glad you came down here.” Even though she couldn’t see Twilight’s face, she knew that the mare was almost grinning with smug pleasure. One day, just one day, she would prove Twilight wrong about something.

After a little while of just lying there, curled up against each other and enjoying being together, Twilight spoke up. “We should probably head upstairs,” she said, her tone more than a little sad. “Spike’s probably wondering where we’ve gotten to, and why we’re letting his food go cold.” Rainbow nodded and stretched herself out, pushing against the side of the small space to let her marefriend wiggle out. Twilight squeezed herself out of the gap, coyly waving her tail in Rainbow’s face as she stood up and laughing at the shell shocked expression and stammering incoherency Rainbow was left with.

As Twilight made her way upstairs, Rainbow took one more look around the basement, the thudding in her head drastically reduced and the weight on her heart feeling just a fraction lighter. She smiled as she climbed the stairs behind Twilight, trying and failing not to stare at the unicorn’s swaying hips and swishing tail. It was only when she missed a step that Rainbow considered maybe looking at where she was going in the dark, instead.

Blinking as she emerged into the main room of the library, the cavernous space riddled with stairs and shelves that truly felt much larger than it could have been thanks to its open architecture and many windows (and why there were windows in a tree Rainbow had never quite figured out. She’d asked Twilight once, but the librarian had been just as confused as she was.) As she passed through the doorway the mouth-watering smell of Spike’s cooking wafted past her.

“Is Spike roasting chestnuts?” she asked, her jaw dropping at the very thought of such a meal. Why she’d never thought of roasting the delectable nuts—hell, why nopony had ever seemed to have done it before was a mystery to her.

“It certainly smells like it,” Twilight said warily. Just as she finished speaking her stomach gave a loud rumble, and Rainbow Dash burst out laughing as she blushed a deep red. Shaking her head firmly, Twilight made her way to the kitchen, leaving Rainbow almost sprinting to catch up.

“Evening, ladies,” Spike said as the two mares entered. Rainbow’s eyes stretched wide at the unbelievable change that Spike had undertaken, dressing the table in a white cloth and placing a single tealight in the middle, the flame flickering and casting swirling patterns of light and shadow across the walls of the kitchen. The curtains were drawn to block out what little sunlight remained as the sun began to set below the horizon outside, lighting the back of the flimsy material with an orange glow. One sideways glance told Rainbow that Twilight was just as surprised as she was—perhaps her marefriend had been telling the truth about this being a surprise for both of them.

The biggest surprise in the room, however, was Spike, who was dressed in an adorable little suit underneath his usual apron. It wasn’t quite the right shape from him, the outfit being based on formal stallionswear that simply didn’t suit Spike’s body-shape at all, the overall effect bulky and misshapen. Despite all that and the frilly apron he wore over it, Spike had somehow managed to achieve an air of class in the way he held himself, his confident, warm smile sending all humourous thoughts about his outfit packing.

“Dinner is almost ready,” he said. “Take a seat. I’ll be with you in a moment.” Despite his scratchy, high tone and childlike face, Spike was somehow managing to pass as a fashionable host. Rainbow and Twilight were so stunned that they took their seats in silence, exchanging shocked glances all the while.

After a few moments of awed silence, Spike walked up to the table and smiled nervously at Twilight. “Would you mind helping with the dishes?” he asked, and Rainbow relaxed as she saw the Spike she knew was still there beneath the aura of confidence and poise. Spike held up his palms to Twilight, showing what looked like burn marks on them. “They’re rather hot.”

Her eyes flying wide, Twilight’s horn lit immediately and the kitchen sprang to life. Plates and dishes hovered slowly from the oven to the table, laying themselves neatly out across the surface as cutlery flew from the drawers to join them. Behind her, Rainbow could hear the tap running and, soon enough, a large dish of cold water (ice cubes included) was placed on a small stool that had flown in from the library itself to sit by Spike’s side.

“Put your claws in there,” Twilight said gently, her horn still lit as sauces and condiments were pulled from cupboards and placed neatly in the middle of the table. Within seconds the spread was laid out, quicker than Rainbow could even process what kinds of food had been made.

There was a salad, of course, with daisies and daffodils and a bunch of leaves Rainbow had never really cared too much for the difference between, but Spike had also rustled up some creamy mushroom soup and, of course, a tray full of roasted chestnuts, still steaming, glazed and warm and mouth-watering. But the centrepiece of the dinner was a deep tray, filled to the brim with… something and coated with breadcrumbs, lightly toasted.

“It’s called lasagne,” Spike proclaimed, gesturing to the dish. “I found the recipe in an old book last week and have been dying to try it. It’s alternate layers of flat pasta slices and warm, steamed spinach and tomato filling.” Rainbow and Twilight shared a shocked look; they’d both known Spike could cook well, but this was beyond anything they’d ever seen.

“Spike, it looks amazing!” Twilight exclaimed. “How did you manage to do this? It looks like far too much work for one cook.”

Spike waved a hand dismissively, blushing a light rose. “It was nothing, really,” he said modestly, pulling his apron over his head, drying his claws on it and laying it on the stool beside him. “Like I said, I wanted to give this recipe a try, and you gave me the perfect excuse to.”

Twilight shot Spike a warning glance that worried Rainbow. Clearly this was more than just a pleasant, surprise dinner.

“So…” she began. Twilight bit her lip nervously and Spike frowned, not quite sure what he had said that he wasn’t meant to. “What is this excuse?”

“Can we save this for after dinner?” Twilight asked softly. “It’s really nothing important, but I thought you might feel better if you’d had something nice to eat first.”

Suspicious but too hungry to complain, Rainbow nodded slowly, reaching forward to pile roasted chestnuts onto her plate. Her stomach rumbled as the hard shells clinked against the porcelain of the plate, little halos of condensation forming around them as the landed and spreading out across the plate. Rainbow wasn’t entirely sure she could wait to serve up a portion of everything else before she tucked in, and only refrained from starting when she recalled the hopeful expression on Spike’s face as he described his central dish.

Twilight had carefully divided the rectangular meal into four pieces and was slowly lifting three out of the tray they were wedged into. Moments later, a large, rectangular pile of green, red and yellow layering stood in the middle of Rainbow’s plate, steaming and smelling of ripe tomatoes left out in the sun to dry.

Able to wait no longer, Rainbow picked up her knife and fork and dove into the meal with enthusiasm. As the first mouthful passed her lips, Rainbow Dash found herself pleasantly surprised by the warm, earthy flavour of the dish, the slight hint of tanginess and the sharp, crisp slices of onion that had found their way into the tomato sauce. She swallowed.

“This is good,” she remarked, before looking up to see Spike and Twilight not yet cutting their first forkful. Grimacing awkwardly, Rainbow Dash coughed and nodded. “I like it?” It wasn’t so much the uncertainty in her opinion that made it sound like a question—Celestia herself would not be able to find fault in it—but rather her uncertainty in how to respond. She didn’t quite know if she could salvage her manners from her rushed start; table manners were not something she’d had to use regularly for quite some time now.

As good as the food was, and as pleasant as the company and conversation were, Rainbow couldn’t quite relax throughout the meal. In the back of her head, she couldn’t quite shake the nagging feeling that something bad was going to happen. Twilight wanted to talk to her after the meal. Rainbow chewed on a chestnut, rolling the flavour around her mouth with her tongue as she pondered what Twilight could want to talk about. She’d seemed particularly eager in their kiss downstairs, and now she watched the unicorn closely she could see that her marefriend was nervous. She was biting her lip more often than she usually would (Rainbow could see it beginning to swell and darken in colour) and she couldn’t maintain eye contact for more than a few seconds at a time.

Was Twilight going to… no, she wasn’t, was she? Rainbow felt her heart stop for a second, the sudden break in the natural rhythm of her body throwing her. Her breath caught in her throat, her mouth stuck half-open in a dazed stare. She couldn’t take her eyes off Twilight.

Slowly, oh so slowly, Rainbow swallowed. She tried to control her breathing which was shallow and uneven and shaky. She was frightened and now Twilight was looking at her, her brows furrowed in a look of confusion and pity and oh Celestia Twilight was going to break up with her wasn’t she?

“Rainbow?” Spike called out. “Are you okay? You look… well, you look kinda sick.”

Spike probably had a point: Rainbow’s coat felt clammy and cold and damp from sweat, her face felt drained and lifeless. She felt nauseous, like her stomach was somehow unstable and liable to decide to empty itself at any moment.

With lightning reflexes, Rainbow sprinted from the kitchen, up the winding stairs to the bathroom. Her face laid against the cold, white lid, Rainbow retched, hot liquid pouring uncontrollably from her throat, the sweat on her face clinging to the porcelain. Time seemed to freeze as she sucked in air in gulping breaths, her heart beating slowly but violently in her chest. By the time she threw up again, Rainbow was aware of the light pressure of a hoof on her shoulder, the calming sensation of another running through her mane, keeping the most forward strands tucked around to the side. She moaned and shivered and retched one final time, her body cold and almost shivering, her mouth filled with a the most disgusting, biting aftertaste.

After a few minutes of kneeling there, Rainbow realised she was crying.

Deciding that she was, at the very least, not likely to need to stay where she was any more, Rainbow rose slowly to her hooves, her legs shaking, unsteady, beneath her. Twilight was by her side, levitating a glass of water which she tried to grab with shaking hooves, but Twilight hovered the glass to her lips. She gulped greedily at the drink, feeling the cleansing, cold water wash away the bitter aftertaste. Behind her, she heard the toilet flush.

“Here,” Twilight said gently, holding a cold, damp flannel to her forehead, “this should help.”

The cold water held against Rainbow’s forehead was surprisingly calming; she felt warmer at once, her legs slowing in their shaking and her thoughts becoming all the more clear. As they did so, she recalled what had brought her here in the first place and she recoiled from Twilight’s touch, even from the flannel her marefriend had grasped in her magic.

“Rainbow?” Twilight asked, confused. “What’s the matter, Dash? Are you okay?”

Rainbow closed her eyes tight and took two slow, deliberate breaths before opening them and looking directly into Twilight’s gorgeous lavender eyes. She opened her mouth, but it felt dry and empty so she closed it and swallowed.

“Please don’t break up with me,” she whispered, her eyes dropping to the floor as her vision began to swim with moisture. She heard Twilight’s breath catch with a little gasp, and felt the unicorn wrap her forelegs around her neck; Rainbow returned the hug with her wings, pulling her marefriend close.

“Rainbow,” Twilight whispered, tilting her head downwards so that she was facing the pegasus directly, “I’m not breaking up with you. Not tonight, not tomorrow, not this month, not ever. I can’t believe I let you think I would do that.” She caught Rainbow’s lips with hers, kissing her marefriend fiercely. Rainbow kissed her back, desperate and hopeful. She needed Twilight.

“I was just getting worried about you, silly filly,” Twilight said, her voice light as air, as she leant her head against Rainbow’s, her breath warm against Rainbow’s coat. “You’ve spent so much time in the library lately—and it’s not that I don’t want you around, because I love having you around, but… you’ve been acting different. Morose. Lifeless. You’re not my Rainbow Dash, and I think it’s because you’ve isolated yourself in here. It almost reminds me of how I used to avoid everypony when I was a filly and I don’t want to see you do that to yourself.

“It’s hurting you, Rainbow. You’re missing out on opportunities to spend time with our friends…” She pulled back from their embrace, looking Rainbow in the eye. Rainbow couldn’t look away, and was ashamed to think that she would want to. “It’s not like I haven’t seen those envelopes with the Wonderbolts’ logo on them. The Rainbow Dash I know would never casually throw away an invitation to anything the Wonderbolts were at—the Rainbow Dash I know would risk her job keeping the weather nice for me just to go to a party she knew she wouldn’t like simply because the Wonderbolts were there.”

Rainbow sat and listened, letting Twilight’s words sink in. She didn’t want to admit it, but Twilight was right (as she so often was). Worse, though, was that Rainbow knew she had been thinking these exact same things for weeks. She realised, now, that those thoughts she had stopped herself from having, those things she had cut herself off before she could say, that unbearable feeling of emptiness and lethargy that filled her days and evenings… they were all because she was avoiding the world, hiding away in fear and in shame.

“I don’t want to see you hurting like this any more, Dash.” Twilight’s eyes were wide and framed by a shared pain, and Rainbow dimly wondered how much her apathy and isolation were hurting her marefriend. Images of their five-month anniversary dinner flooded her mind and Rainbow gave a quick, involuntary shudder. “But there’s nothing I can do to stop it. I can’t make you go out and see your friends… our friends.

“But I can tell you that they all miss you, that they always ask after you when I see them and that they would be so happy to see you again. They’re almost as worried as I am, I think.” Twilight sighed and pulled herself closer to Rainbow again, and Rainbow could hear her sharp, short, controlled breaths.

“Rarity suggested you go to hers tomorrow night,” Twilight said, slightly too loud and slightly too firmly. Rainbow got the distinct impression that Twilight felt this was the most important thing she had to say. “She and Applejack are treating the Crusaders to tea and—”

“You want me to see Scootaloo?” Rainbow asked, her voice dry and low. She felt Twilight stiffen in response and realised she sounded almost angry, so she tilted her head and kissed Twilight softly on the neck.

“I think it would be good for you,” Twilight said quietly, her voice nervous and almost embarrassed, the way she spoke if she felt that somepony thought her suggestion was stupid. “And I think it would be good for Scootaloo.”

“Scoots doesn’t want to see me,” Rainbow rasped, her voice catching in her throat, her tone bitter and final. There was no room for debate on this issue: Scootaloo hated her, now, and that was that.

“I don’t think that’s quite right,” Twilight whispered, almost shaking and if Rainbow didn’t know better she’d have thought that her marefriend was actually afraid of her reaction. “And I think you know it. Both of you are hurting right now, Rainbow. Just… try?”

There was a long pause. For a minute, almost everything seemed to stop as Rainbow tried to convince herself that Twilight was right, that she had a duty to Scootaloo, a promise to keep. It was hard to think with a headache, though, and hers was growing stronger and stronger the more she thought.

The first question, and by far the easiest to answer, was whether she wanted to see Scootaloo again. She knew the answer before she could even finish the question—yes, yes and a thousand times yes. She needed to see Scootaloo; she needed to apologise, to make things right again.

The second question was more challenging: Did Scootaloo want to see her? Every part of her wanted to say no, that her surrogate sister wanted her gone after she had screwed up so badly, that she had no right to even think that Scoots might want to give her another chance. But years of experience had taught Rainbow that Twilight Sparkle was very rarely wrong, and in recent months was by far the one pony in Ponyville who could be trusted to understand friendship more than anypony else. Rainbow clung to that fact, ashamed that she could do so, because she knew she needed hope. And so her answer was yes.

It was the final question that threw Rainbow, that made her question herself and pause, uncertain and confused: Was she ready? To this, Rainbow had no easy answer, nopony whose advice she could take for granted and no clue how to even tell if she was ready or not. How did anypony know that sort of thing? Did they just wake up one morning and think ‘today is the day I shall conquer my long-standing fears’?

Rainbow bit her lip, the throbbing in her head becoming too much to bear. She couldn’t think about this right now. It was too soon.

“Please, Rainbow,” Twilight whispered. “Just consider it, for me… for Scootaloo.” Her head was pounding all the harder and some small, strangely familiar voice in the back of her head was telling her that it was Twilight’s fault, that if she were to shout and kick and push the unicorn away this agonising pain would be over and she would be okay again. She would be okay and could go flying, could be just awesome as she should be and not be stuck here with this egghead—

No. Twilight was her marefriend, not just some uncool egghead. She may be mushy and uncool at times, but Dash knew that it was just because she cared about her, right? She thought so, at least, although this pain made it so hard to think and she just needed it to go away and

“Alright,” she whispered, the pain subsiding slowly, like waves on the beach as the tide went down and Rainbow was sure that, eventually, the pain would be back. “I-I’ll try,” she added, her voice cracking. She coughed, her throat burning. Twilight pulled back and smiled at her, proud.

"Thank you."

Comments

[IndexOutOfBounds]

I love the reverse chron order.

[PresentPerfect]

Gahh, what was the special occasion? D:

[The Blacksmith]

“Please don’t break up with me,”

You hear that? Yeah, that’s my heart breaking