5: Brave Face
“So that’s the word I was trying to use.” Rainbow Dash chuckled. “No wonder I misspelled it.”
Night Rain nodded, setting down the dictionary. “And no wonder I couldn’t figure it out from the context. "Prodigious" doesn’t mean what you thought it meant.”
Rainbow winced. “Yeah… maybe I should just rewrite that sentence.” Rainbow peered over Night’s shoulder as he read, looking at the margins of the page. “But I don’t think there’s enough room here to write out a new sentence…”
“Most drafts are double-spaced for that reason. Hmm…” Night Rain looked back and upwards at Rainbow as she literally hovered over his shoulder. “Do you have any spare paper?”
“I should.” She zipped over to her bedroom where she’d stored her draft, and in another moment had brought a thin clump of pages back to Night Rain. “Here!”
Night Rain nodded, set the paper on the table with his magic, then took a single sheet and laid it next to the draft. “We can use this to write out whatever you want the new sentence to be, and put that between this page and the next.” He looked up to her. “You want to come down here and write a replacement sentence?”
“Sure!” Rainbow landed next to Night on the couch and reached out to slide the paper over to her. Night passed the pen to her, and as she took it in her mouth she mulled over what words to write for a moment before jotting down a replacement sentence - one that didn't interpret "prodigy" to mean "really awesome." Well, being really great at something from a young age was awesome, but still. When she was done, she dropped the pen in the inkwell. “That should do it.”
Night looked it over. “Better. The famed writer Ore Well had as a rule, 'never write a long word when a short one will do.' Sometimes it's better to be simple.”
"Really?" Rainbow raised an eyebrow at him.
Night tilted his head in response. "That surprises you?"
"Well..." Rainbow frowned. "...I sort of figured that writing meant you used big words.”
"Sometimes." Night chuckled. “I mean, I use big words a lot, but that’s just me. Usually it's more..." he waved his hoof in a small circle as he struggled for words. "...It's more about using the right word. Sometimes it's a long one. But the most important thing is that it sounds right. Like, if it’s the kind of thing a narration or character would say, use a long word. If you need a very specific word, use it. Otherwise, just use something simple.”
Rainbow just stared at him. After a moment, the previously-eloquent stallion blushed. “...You won’t have to worry too much about that with Daring Do. A.K. Yearling’s good at describing what’s going on while keeping things simple, as far as words go. Since your style is pretty close to hers, it shouldn’t be a problem.”
Now it was Rainbow’s turn to blush. “You really think so?”
“Well, so far.” Night smiled faintly. “I mean, I’m not that great at judging what an individual writer’s style is, and I haven’t read that much, but there definitely are similarities.”
Rainbow felt a little like she was glowing inside. She really liked the idea of her writing being close to that of her favorite author. Now that she thought about it, Twilight had mentioned that too… but Rainbow hadn’t been receptive to much praise at the time.
“Of course, we do need to clean things up first.” Night looked back to the pages while Rainbow snapped herself back to reality. “Hey, what time is it?” he asked.
“Time to get a watch,” Rainbow quipped, causing Night to snort. “Seriously though, I’m not sure.”
“Maybe you should take your own advice,” Night replied.
Rainbow snickered. “Maybe. Let me check my bedroom clock…” She sped out of the living room, as usual, and quickly returned, not bothering to land. “Six-forty.”
“Wow, time sure went by. We’ve spent a couple of hours on this...” Suddenly he jolted and stood up from the couch. “I still need to check in to the hotel!”
Rainbow waved a hoof dismissively. “Relax, the Golden Horseshoe Hotel lets you check in pretty late. But, I wouldn’t mind a break.” She grinned at him. “Want me to drop you off?”
“That’d be wonderful, thanks.” Night smiled, levitating his saddlebags onto his back.
“Oh, before you go!” Rainbow once again flew to her bedroom, before grabbing a certain Daring Do book and returning to the living room. “My personal copy of Daring Do and the Ring of Destiny! I got it a week before anypony else, autographed!” She turned the book around to look at the cover, featuring Daring Do and a likeness of herself. She couldn’t help but give her widest grin she’d given him yet, and it took a bit of willpower to keep herself from audibly squeeing her delight - or from telling him then and there that Daring Do was real and that she, Rainbow Dash, had gone on an adventure with her. I mean, she thought, I guess he might figure it out from seeing me on the cover. I’ll just tell him that I met her and she liked me so she based a character off me. It’s totally true, too!
To her extreme disappointment, however, Night Rain looked over the cover without any comment on the fact that she was on it. Instead he just smiled and said, “Thanks for lending me this, Rainbow. I’ll try and take care of it, and I’ll be sure to read some tonight!”
Rainbow tried her best to not roll her eyes. Perhaps once he read it, he’d figure it out. Clearing her throat, she said, “All right, hold on tight to it!” before flying over to him and picking him up.
“Hey, I can at least walk to the front door! I th-” But in the time it took for him to say that, Rainbow had already flown him to her foyer and out the front door, and he gasped and trembled in her grip at the sight of the open sky and the distant ground.
“Keep your eyes open, Night! You’ve gotta get used to this if you’re gonna hang out with me!” She smirked at him, even though he was not looking in her direction at all. But as far as she could tell, his eyes were open, so at least she was getting through to him.
A few short moments later (long moments for him, no doubt) and she had brought him to the front door of the Golden Horseshoe Hotel. The “hotel” wasn’t fancy by the standards of Canterlot or even Cloudsdale - more like a roadside bed-and-breakfast - but it was pleasant and cozy - or so Rainbow had heard. Night looked over the rustic building, and the outdoor tables near a small open hut that would serve breakfast in the morning, before Rainbow brought his attention back to her. “So, how long are you staying, again?”
“About a week, give or take, depending on what there is to do and how much I like the place.” He blushed a little, glancing down. “...It’s looking pretty interesting so far, though.”
“Oh yeah, Ponyville’s a great place! I’ll have to show you around when we’re not working on-” She glanced around for anypony listening, before looking back at Night Rain. “-you-know-what.”
Night chuckled. “I’d like that. For now, though, I need to get checked in-” A rumble from his stomach interrupted him. “...And find somewhere to eat. Got any recommendations?”
Rainbow shrugged. “I don’t eat out a lot, and when I do, I usually just go for hay burgers… not that there’s a whole lot of fancy places in Ponyville. If you don’t mind that, though, there’s a pretty good joint over there-” She gestured with a hoof, “-To the right, around the corner of the street. It’s a lot better than the ‘fast food’ you can find in Manehatten, if you’ve been there.” She frowned suddenly. “Hey, where’d you say you from, again?”
“Canterlot.”
Rainbow grinned. “Twilight’s from Canterlot! You two should hang out sometime, talk about the place, or magic stuff, or whatever. Almost nopony from Canterlot comes here unless it’s official business…” She chuckled. “Which is actually why Twilight first came here, but still! She barely gets any word from her hometown, so you should hang out with her, let her know what’s up.”
Night blushed and shook his head frantically. “Oh, n-no, I… I’m just an ordinary pony, and she’s a princess, I wouldn’t be able to just… ‘hang out.’”
Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on. She’s the Princess of Friendship. She likes making friends. She wouldn’t be very good at friendship if she let silly things like being a princess get in the way of talking to ponies!”
“Maybe, but…” Night glanced off in the general direction of Twilight’s library, frowning, before shaking his head. “I’ll think about it. Right now, I just want to get settled in. This day has… gone a lot different than I thought it would.”
“Yeah, just think of how boring your day would have been if you hadn’t met me.” Rainbow smirked. “It’s okay if you’re tired, spending a day with me can be exhausting for ponies unprepared for my awesomeness.”
Night laughed at that, while shaking his head. “You sure are confident, huh?” He smiled at her. “Just bring some of that confidence to our… ‘work’ tomorrow, okay?”
“Yeah, sure.” She waved him off. “Hurry up and get settled in.”
“All right.” Night nodded. “See you tomorrow, then?” He smiled and turned to the hotel, trotting towards the door.
After he’d gone through the door and vanished from sight, Rainbow sighed, before flying back to her cloud villa. It had been a tough day for her too… She’d drunk a little to get her mind off things, ran into Night Rain, recruited him to help her edit, and they’d worked. She felt it was a pretty productive day.
But as she returned to her living room, and saw the thin pile of reviewed pages, next to the much larger stack that was still untouched… it occurred to her that it would take a lot of productive days to make her story great.
Rainbow had managed to get up and perform her morning stretches without thinking of her fanfiction, or of Night Rain, and it was only when she looked at Tank - resting in his own bed next to hers - did she realize, Oh yeah, I should go meet Night Rain at the hotel or something… she glanced at her clock, saw that it was 7:15, and thought, ...Would he be a morning pony, or not? ...Judging by his name, I’m going to guess no.
Chuckling to herself, she proceeded to set out Tank’s food in the kitchen and prepare his bath (important for a tortoise!). She’d finish her weather control duties, she reasoned, and then find where Night Rain was. Fortunately, today was scheduled to be a partly cloudy day… a trivial task to handle for a pegasus of her talents…
It was 11 AM, and Night Rain was nowhere to be found.
Rainbow swished her tail impatiently as she flew about the town, eyes peeled for her designated editor, but continuing to not see him. Where could he be? I’ve checked the library in case he decided to visit Twilight, I’ve checked all the bars and restaurants… I’ve even checked out the lake in case he decided to go for a swim. Where under Celestia’s sun could he be? ...He’s at the hotel, isn’t he? She came to a stop in the air, frowning as her mind considered the only remaining possibility, absurd as it was. Is he still sleeping? She didn’t consider it hypocritical at all to roll her eyes at his sleeping habits - she may have been fond of napping, but at least she could get up in the morning at a decent hour.
As she flew down to the hotel grounds, she saw Night Rain exiting out the front door. She quickly landed and trotted over to him. “Finally up, huh?”
Night looked aside. “I, uh… I’m kind of a late pony. Didn’t mean to wake up this late though…”
Rainbow smirked. “Yeah, looks like you missed breakfast.” She glanced over at the food serving hut that served as an outdoor cafeteria. “Maybe I’ll have to get you up earlier next time.”
“That might be best.” Night blushed. “I… sometimes have trouble with that on my own.”
Rainbow looked back at Night. “Did you get some reading done, at least?” She grinned.
“Oh yeah! I didn’t read all night, but I did get about halfway through. I’m sure I’ll be done long before I have to go back.” He smiled.
“Good, because you’re going to need to be caught up before we get too far in our ‘work.’” She gave her wings a slow stretch. “Speaking of which, are you ready?”
“Yes-” He was interrupted as Rainbow flew over to him and picked him up without waiting for his answer. He squirmed uncomfortably, but didn’t complain otherwise.
“Get ready, Night, we’ve got a long day ahead of us!” She smiled, but the expression faded a little at the realization that she was not really looking forward to a whole day of writing…
Fortunately for her, it wasn’t very long before the two were interrupted by something very pressing - hunger.
Rainbow chuckled as Night’s stomach rumbled loudly. “You really did miss breakfast, huh?”
Night blushed. “Yeah… I’m sorry to ask this, but could we take a break so I can get something to eat?”
Rainbow grinned. “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t mind a break either.”
Night nodded, standing up from his spot on the couch. “Well, as the host, would you care to show me somewhere to eat? You’d know the local eateries better than me.”
“All right,” Rainbow smirked. “But don’t expect anything like what they have in Canterlot!”
Soon, the pair were seated next to each other at a rectangular table at the edge of a spacious and cozy burger joint, facing out the window as they ate their food. Rainbow was chowing down with her usual speed and intensity, but Night was a little slower, despite supposedly being the hungrier one. He also spent a lot of time staring out the window, looking around the area and watching ponies go by.
Since Rainbow had finished both her hay burgers, her fries and her drink, while Night was still nibbling away at his burger - which he had specifically ordered without lettuce, tomatoes, or most other typical burger dressings. Rainbow found herself squirming a little… she didn’t have anything to do, and it would be a little while before Night finished his food. Finally, Rainbow decided to do something that neither of them had done since they began eating - talk.
“So, how long have you been reading the Daring Do books?” She glanced around at the other patrons, a tic of hers when talking about Daring Do in public, something she had yet to totally shake.
Night swallowed his mouthful of food and turned to her before replying as though this was the middle of a conversation they’d been having the whole time. “Well, it was just after the fourth book came out, when I was younger… I’d heard of the series a couple times before, but one day I decided to check it out, and fell in love. By the time I was done with the fourth, the fifth had come out, so I started on it. I’ve been reading the series ever since, although I’ve been a little… lax lately, like I said.” He frowned a little before dipping a couple fries in ketchup before levitating them into his mouth. He quickly chewed them before continuing: “What about you? How’d you get into the series?”
Rainbow glanced away for a quick moment - but she could tell from the slight frown on his face that he’d noticed the motion. “Well… Twilight introduced me to them. She’s the next-biggest fan of Daring Do other than me. A year back I’d actually gotten injured and she gave me the first book to read while I recovered. I finished it in two days, and started reading the rest!” She smirked.
Night was silent, having taken a large bite of burger while she talked. He swallowed his food, and frowned. “Did… something happen at that time? I mean… Daring Do’s obviously your type, but you seem to be a little…” He looked over at the nearest patrons, a pair of mares chatting animatedly with each other and not paying attention to the two Daring Do fans at all. “...Secretive about it.”
“Well…” Rainbow scrunched her face, then chuckled. “I didn’t like the idea of reading at the time. I thought it was… uncool. So at first I tried to avoid reading the book Twilight gave me, then I tried to read it in secret, then… let’s not go there.” Rainbow waved her hoof dismissively. “As it turned out, Twilight was right. I did like it. After all, Daring Do’s a lot like me.” She flashed him a smirk. “What about you? Do you like brave, adventurous mares, or is it something else?”
“Well, a little.” Night blushed. “But more than that, it’s…” He scrunched his snout, staring into the table. “I really like stories of adventure, of going on journeys to save the world or stop villains or even more minor stuff… I always like reading about strange places, and interesting ponies, and… doing things that matter. Like, having an important mission to accomplish…” He trailed off, glancing back at her.
Rainbow nodded, her expression neutral as she thought about what he’d said. “...Yeah, that makes sense.” Hero of Equestria that she was, she hadn’t really thought about what typical ponies thought of adventure, or what it was like to wish for an epic quest to go on. After all, adventure had a way of finding her and her friends whether they wanted it or not. She wanted it, but she was also the awesome one. More importantly, she was in the position of being able to have adventures if she wanted.
She frowned a bit as she thought about that, looking at Night. He hadn’t responded to her, and was once again eating in silence. “Well…” she began, hoping to cheer him up, “Now you’re helping to work on a tale of adventure, yourself.” She smiled, before quickly frowning and glancing around the restaurant.
Night chuckled, before quickly finishing the last of his burger and washing the food down with his drink. “Let’s head out, get some space between us and other ponies, hmm?”
Rainbow snickered as she stood up from her stool. “Eager for some personal time, huh?”
Her comment earned a blush from him. “Well… doing that kind of work, it’s best to have as few distractions as possible.”
“Mmm, I agree.” Rainbow winked, causing Night to blush some more.
“Seriously though,” he cleared his throat as they left the burger joint. “There’s a lot of work to do, some of which we haven’t even touched on. We’ve just been going over spelling and grammar, and some minor rephrasing. If there are issues with the story, that’s going to be a lot harder.”
As Night finished off his burger, Rainbow nodded. “What happens if something’s wrong with the story?” She asked with some trepidation.
Night frowned. “Well, on a basic level, we have to analyze what’s wrong and how to correct it if possible… and if it’s just unworkable, we’ll have to come up with a replacement. And that’s going to require a lot of work from both of us.”
Rainbow sighed. She’d been dreading this part. So far, their work was fairly mechanical - identify a spelling or grammar error, and correcting it. But actually changing the story… that was something more involved. And given that Twilight had found problems with the plot, Rainbow knew there would be things to fix.
Rainbow frowned. “...Do you see any problems so far with the plot?”
Night shook his head. “Not really. There are a lot of different directions things can go in, and most of those directions could work. Especially if it’s well-written.” He smiled at her. “I’m certainly eager to read more.”
Rainbow smiled. Truth be told, she really needed to hear that he was enjoying the fic so far… not that she would tell him that. She still needed to appear confident, after all… but she was still nervous about how the plot would go. “Hey, I have an idea… what if we hold off on the spelling and grammar correction, and just have you read ahead to see how the story is?”
Night put a hoof to his chin. “Well… maybe you’re right. I’d planned on taking it a piece at a time, but it actually might be best to analyze the story first.” He looked at her, tilting his head. “...Out of curiosity, is there something you’re not sure about that you want me to look at…?”
Rainbow’s instinct was to look away, but she forced herself to return his gaze. “Nah, it’s fine, we can go over some more grammar stuff, I don’t mind.” That was something Rainbow never thought she’d say, but… sometimes she was a slave to appearances. She wasn’t sure about the entire fic. But she had to put on a brave face. Ponies looked up to those who were confident and self-assured… and that was especially true of ponies who weren't very confident themselves.
She could tell Night Rain was one of those. If she couldn’t show confidence, he’d lose heart as well. Or worse… maybe he’d decide it would be too much work to fix her fanfiction. If he felt that way, she would too.
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Didn't this story used to be complete?
8935350
Nope, it's incomplete and has several chapters to go... are you thinking of another fic?
Finally I managed to catch up, really enjoyable chapter
And a real life editing note: checking the plot before grammar and spelling is essential 
9014361
In retrospect, yeah. Not much point in spelling and grammar checking a section that you might have to rewrite entirely...
Hmm... I didn't know Dashie liked flirting with stallions this much!
9318629
Sometimes the opportunity is too good to pass up.
Man, is this just gonna be infinite innuendo?
Shame!