Winter is Stupid
“SHIT” A rainbow haired girl shouted, as her foot slipped out from under her she took a bite of a snowcone that was actually just a block of ice that was actually a lake.
A pink haired girl in the distance laughed as she watched the feat of spectacular finesse and poise. “Dashie, at this rate you’ll never be able to impress ‘em. It’s easy, see?” She made a point of easily sliding across the ice and doing spins and figures.
“Oh well when you put it like that…” Rainbow Dash picked up a ball of snow and hurled it at the moving ball of pink. The contact made a pleasant thwack as it landed right on the forehead of Pinkie Pie.
Rainbow promptly shoved her hands in her pockets, due to the fact that it had to have been at least 10 below. “Winter is stupid. So is Ice Skating. Who even considers this a sport? Who wants to watch a bunch of prissy people dance on ice? Now, Watching people throw a ball around and hit it with sticks? That’s a sport!”
“It’s all about perspective Dashie,” Pinkie said, appearing out of nowhere, as usual. “And the apple of your eye has a different perspective than you, I’m just your wing-girl. Not your psychiatrist, although I could probably do that too…”
“PInkie, what even... It’s getting a little late anyway, I’m going to hit the bricks. I’ll see you around, Pinks.” Dash waved a hand over her head as she headed on the walk to her home. She could swear she heard something about ‘What did the bricks do to you’ but ignored it and tried to keep herself warm.
The couples’ skate was coming up in less than a week, and of course she had to pick the one thing she couldn’t do to attempt and woo her crush. She was getting impatient. Waiting around for her crush to ask her out was getting tedious, she had to act.
She also had to pay attention where she was going, as she fell into a puddle of slushy snow, covering her hair in cold, wet, physical annoyance. She stuck her hands into the snow and pushed herself up, wiping off what she could of the gunk that now coated her hair.
“Winter Sucks”
She was now soaked, freezing and dirty and she had barely made any progress on her way home. All she asked for was a little snow, not a freaking blizzard. Just enough to throw balls of snow at her friends, not the entire reserve.
Her shoes made annoying crunching noises in the snow and she was growing irritated, “How do people enjoy this nightmare of a season?” She thought to herself. The only good thing about it was that it was her crush’s favorite time of year. So she had to make the best of it. Even though “the best of it” was apparently freezing her ass off and getting covered in filth.
Although she was being as mopey as possible, the sight of her apartment made her feel just a little warmer inside. Because home is where the heater is. And the hot cocoa. And the cozy fuzzy socks. And the comfy ‘jammies.
The quaint little neighbourhood was dead silent, with only the lights and steam to tell of any residents lounging about and enjoying Winter Break.
She reached the doorstep of the quaint little building and reached for her keys, only to find that they weren't there. “I hate winter. So bad.” She got prepared to go find her keys -where she had fallen earlier- when the door creaked open. Revealing an angel.
An unwavering flame in a leather jacket looked at Rainbow and raised an eyebrow. “Whatcha doin, Dash?”
Rainbow nearly fell over, she fumbled to look like she was doing anything other than looking for her keys, and ended up falling anyway. Taking another gracious slip into the solid water. This time with her nose.
Rainbow murmured into the ice, “Hey Sunset. Just enjoying the snow.” She reached out an arm in a vain attempt to get upright, immediately regretting leaving the cozy safety of her jacket pocket. She could get up on her own, sure, but then she wouldn’t be able to touch Sunset. That’s not creepy or anything. It’s romantic.
Her hand was filled with a warmth only someone who had been inside for hours could give her and she righted herself so she could see her saviour.
“Shit, Dash, your hands are freezing! How long have you been out?” Sunset said, rubbing her hands together, wondering how such a cold feeling could give her such a warm one at the same time.
“Oh, only like, I don't know 14 hours? I’ve been busy. With stuff!” She said, super smoothly. No chance Sunset didn’t believe that one.
“You’ve been out since…” She did some math in her head. “4 in the morning? Doing stuff?” She repeated deadpan.
“That’s the gist of it, yeah.” Dash said, super cool. Cool like ice, babe.
“Alright, well I’m going to the store, need anything while I’m out?”
“Oh, actually can I come with? I’ve got something I wanna show you and now’s as good a time as any.” Dash said, super not sketch. The not sketchiest.
“Aren’t you cold?” Sunset prompted with a look of concern in her eyes.
“Pshh, nah. A little cold isn’t gonna keep THE Rainbow Dash down.” She said. Although in her mind she was thinking, “I can’t feel my legs.”
“Whatever you say, man. Anyway I was thinking. You want like a gift or something for Christmas? I got some extra cash and, like you’re my best friend and stuff.” Sunset said nervously, being extra careful because Dash rarely took anything from anyone.
“What? You don’t have to get me anything, I don’t really care, you’ve never given me something before, why start now?”
Sunset chuckled nervously and wiped her neck, “I guess you’re right.” She gave another short chuckle before pointing out, “Hey I think you broke your nose, it's bleeding a lot and it looks a little out of place.”
Rainbow poked her nose with a finger and, according to the pain, decided that it was thoroughly broken. She just laughed lightly, and kept laughing until it evolved into laughing so hard that she was barely able to stand.
“I… Ha. I Br.. I broke my nose haha, because I couldn’t… Find my ha… keys!” The laughter quickly spread to Sunset who didn’t laugh nearly as hard but joined in anyway. Because pain is funny.
“Wait, you lost your keys? What do I need to get you a keychain or something? Maybe just a bunch of house keys so you can lose one a day. I swear, Dash that’s gotta be at least the third one in the two years we’ve lived together.” She nudged Rainbow’s shoulder and giggled as the athlete stumbled to stay upright.
“Probably, I don’t keep track. Sorry?”
“It’s fine I guess, but soon you’re gonna have to start paying for them. And being a security system, because you don’t exactly lose them in privacy, if you catch my drift. You’d probably just scream and they’d be scared that a dog was in the apartment, huh?” She teased as she kicked along a ball of ice.
“Hey! I do not sound like a dog when I scream!”
Sunset replied with a hard shove to the girl’s shoulder, causing her to fall for not the second, but the 48th time that day.
“YIPE!”
“You totally sound like a dog. It’s cute.” Sunset merely hoped that it went unnoticed that she had just called Dash cute.
In her blind rage, Rainbow dash missed the quirk and got up to shove Sunset but got a better idea. She reached her arm out and grabbed a sleeve of Sunset’s jacket, tugging briskly to get the sleeve off of her arm. She then routed around her back and pulled the other sleeve off in a surprisingly deft movement for the clumsy athlete. Leaving Sunset jacketless, and Rainbow thoroughly... Jacketed.
Sunset was going to take her jacket back, but noticed how much Rainbow was enjoying her victory and let it slide. She had a long sleeve shirt on anyway, so she was warm enough. Not leather jacket warm, but still. Cool people don’t get cold.
The store they were initially headed for was approaching quickly and Sunset was getting increasingly chillier. Rainbow was complaining about being too hot, but refused to return Sunset’s jacket, because, “Fair is fair”.
Upon the magical opening of sliding doors a heat wave overtook both of them and Rainbow had to rid herself of her layers of jackets, setting them on the top basket of the cart. Sunset just rolled her eyes and began going through her mental list of items she needed.
Some time passed before RD got bored. 8 minutes to be precise. “Who goes to the store this late anyway? I know it’s open all night, but why not just go tomorrow?” Rainbow said, interrupting the mental checklist check.
“Uh, me? I hate lines, for one. And I dunno, I forgot? What do you care, you decided to come along.” Sunset snarked, checking eggs off of her list as she grabbed the cheapest container and shoved it in the cart. Gently though, cause they’re eggs.
“Oh, I guess all of those points make sense. Ooh, Sunny, can we get a tiny tree? Look how cute it is!” Rainbow, presented a tiny little plastic tree, the size of a table lamp with little flecks of gold sparkles in it's silver “pines”.
“Ey, I got stuff to get. Put it on your christmas list.” Sunset said, wondering if this was what it was like to be a parent. “It’s actually kinda fun”, she thought with a small smile. “But also hella annoying”, she added as she watched Rainbow flicker with christmas light displays. “I think this is what it’s like to own a dog, too.” She laughed at her mental antics and Rainbow seemed to think it was at her.
“What? It’s cool!” She said, flickering the lights and smiling stupidly at Sunset.
Flick. Flick. Flick Flick. Flick. Flickity Flick. She made a rhythm out of the flicking, and it was so stupid it was funny.
Sunset abandoned her dog and went to find the item next on her list.
“Hey, you see any chocolate chips?” Sunset asked to the now present Rainbow Dash as she scanned for the requested item.
“Uh… Yeah!” Rainbow grabbed a bag of the semi sweet morsels and tossed it into the cart. “She shoots. She scores!” She chanted, loud enough for the family near to them to question whether or not Dash was right in the head.
Sunset rolled her eyes again, but couldn’t help the smile spreading across her face. Dash was annoying, but hey, she sure was good at finding things.
“Hey, Dash? Do you think you could find a thing of pure vanilla?” Sunset asked, as if she thought that her friend couldn’t. That’s the easy way to get things from a competitive person, make them think that you think they can’t do it.
“Easy. Give me a minute. Actually, no, 30 seconds.” Dash said, before running off and nearly slipping as she turned at the edge of the aisle.
The man nearby said, “I wish I could get my wife to do that.” and received a glare from each of the women nearby.
Sunset rolled her eyes but smiled at the man. “Eh, just takes practice, I guess.” And with a final wave she left the family to find the rest of her list items.
Rainbow appeared as a blur just as Sunset left the aisle.
“Bam… Thirty… seconds… flat.” She managed between breaths. A wave of pride washed over her as Sunset gave her a nod of approval.
“I don’t know how you do it, Dash.”
“It’s easy, be the best at everything and it’s no problem at all.” She remarked, not so wittily.
“Yeah, right.” Sunset mocked. “Anyway, I think that’s about everything. You need anything?”
“A tiny tree strikes my mind.” Dash said hopefully.
“Yeah, no” Sunset replied and made her way to an open aisle. Starting to set things on the conveyor belt majig.
“How are you?” The clerk said as she scanned things and shoved them into bags at random, not one of the lucky clerks who actually organizes the damn things.
“Fine.” Sunset answered politely as she pulled out her wallet.
Rainbow impatiently tapped her foot and waited for the slow cashier to finish slowly putting the items into the rotating thingy with the bags. After each bag was “filled” to the cashiers delight, Rainbow shoved the bags in the cart and waited for the next one.
After the painstaking two bags were filled Rainbow stood on the bottom rack of the cart and used the cart as a vehicle, skating her way to the entrance/exit. She “patiently” waited for Sunset to show up for like a whole minute.
“Jeez, what took you so long?” She said to the slowpoke.
“Um, I had to pay for the items you just about stole.” Sunset scolded, swearing that this was what it was like to have a child/dog. Same thing really.
“Heh, whoops. Anyway, I don’t shop, this is your fault, I win. Let’s go!” She pointed an arm toward the exit, grabbed the bags and left.
Sunset grabbed their jackets and followed, putting both jackets on and giggling at how she would be able to torture Dash. “Fair is fair.”
Sunset took her time to catch up to her friend, knowing full well that soon enough Dash would notice that she forgot her jacket. She was surprised to see that Rainbow had actually waited for her not too far along.
“I forgot my jacket…” Dash said as she looked at the ground.
“I know. Anyway, you said something about you wanting to show me something?” Sunset said, tossing her leather jacket to Rainbow. Sure she couldn't make fun of her, but she didn’t want to see her sad-ish.
Rainbow tossed the jacket on haphazardly and regarded Sunset, “Oh! Yeah, c’mon!” Rainbow picked up the bags and started to run toward some goal unknown to Sunset.
They ran, Sunset got exhausted, and Dash eventually came to a stop.
“Alright, close your eyes!” Rainbow said with enthusiasm. But her mind said, “This is the stupidest thing you’ve ever done, and I’ve seen you do some stupid things.”
“What…” Sunset was interrupted by a hand covering her eyes.
Sunset heard a thump that had to be the groceries and worried about her eggs. Her mind was taken away from this as she was suddenly grabbed by the hand and pulled briskly a few feet away.
Rainbow removed her hand from Sunset’s eyes and displayed a poster with a “Ta-Da!” and a flourish of her hands.
Sunset took a moment to read the poster. Unimpressed, she bluntly proposed, “So?”
“The couples’ skate. I was wondering if you wanted to go with me?” Rainbow said with a hand on her neck and a blush on her face.
Sunset just laughed. A lot. I mean, like, a lot.
“You can’t even skate!” She blurted before falling on the snow and laughing even harder.
“Hey, shut up! I’m trying to ask you out, you’re not supposed to shoot me down! Especially not like that!” She was screwed. She got rejected and had to live with the person she got rejected by. She was totally boned. And not in the fun way, either.
Sunset took a moment to analyze her friends words, stopping her fit of laughter. “Oh. You’re serious,” she said nervously. “Oops. uh. Not really sure how to come back from that. Sorry.” She stood up and brushed the snow off of her.
“You should be! And I hope those eggs broke!” Rainbow yelled more hurt than ever. She wasted no time storming off.
Sunset watched her go. Just stared. “You done FUCKED up.” She thought to herself.
[br]
Rainbow walked as angrily as she could, the crunch of the snow only making her angrier. “Oh, just ask her out, it’s easy, I’m sure she’ll say yes…” She mumbled to herself. “Girls are dumb, boys are dumb, skating is dumb.”
“I guess I should probably try to beat her home so I can lock myself in my… Right, no keys. Ugh.” She thought. “At least her jacket’s warm. And it smells like her. Wait, is that creepy? Nah. It’s not creepy as long as I keep it to myself.”
She wandered around, looking for things to do when a lonely little lake caught her eye. It was stupid too, so she walked away from it.
[br]
Sunset sat in her home, cozily warming her feet by the radiator. Well, almost cozily. The thoughts of Rainbow running off kept pinging around in her head and they wouldn’t go away, no matter how hard she tried.
“Oh, I am such an idiot.” She said to herself.
Just then there was a knock on the door. A slow three taps.
Sunset went to the door, unlocked the deadbolt and opened the door to the anticipated arrival of Rainbow Dash. She perked up and began, “Rainbow! I…” She was silenced by a finger to her lips.
Rainbow walked in, and went straight to her room. No words, no obnoxious wiping of her feet, no yelling. Just a silent shuffle of feet. She didn’t even give Sunset her jacket back.
The lack of Rainbow being a nuisance began to worry Sunset more than she thought it would.
Sunset returned to her comfy spot on the carpet next to the radiator, and shoved her feet as close as she dared to the heat source. Sure she could go to her room and be under blankets in her bed, but that would mean she had to get up. That’s just more effort than anyone is willing to put in.
Sunset had made it a point of her life act like the “cool chick”, so that’s who she became. She never truly wanted a life of berating herself because she thought if she didn’t act this way or that that people wouldn’t let her into their social groups, but that’s what she had brought upon herself.
So, naturally when her thoughts turned to uncool things, like crushes, she had a hard time. Any thought that she figured to be “uncool” was immediately ripped from her mind and she would think about cool things like motorcycles or something. But there was one constant twinge in her head she couldn’t get rid of. Like a fly that you kept trying to kill but it continued to make you slap yourself like an idiot while it flew off to do it again. “I think I like Rainbow,” the fly would buzz, over and over again, slap after slap.
What do you do to get rid of a fly? You confront it with words and it goes away! Wait…
Sunset pushed herself off of the ground and brushed some dust off of her pajamas. She faced her roommate's door and marched in the direction to confront the fly.
Or… That’s how it started at least. After a few steps the door seemed to become a light at the end of a very long tunnel, and her footsteps became heavy with the pull of anchors submerged in sand.
And then she ran into the door. It was only like 15 feet away anyway. The door, and her body, swung into the room with a graceful thud. The floor tasted just about as good as a length of rope.
A surprised gasp met Sunset’s ears, due to the fact that Rainbow had apparently forgotten to lock her door. Their eyes met for a moment before Sunset’s face was covered by a shirt that Rainbow tossed to avert her roommate’s eyes.
Sunset accepted the fate of the shirt, due to the fact that she had no intention of seeing Rainbow in only underwear when she unintentionally barged into the room. So she waited patiently on the floor until she was acknowledged otherwise.
A light kick separated Sunset from her shirt prison. “Dude, I told you to knock first!”
“Sorry! I tripped! It was an accident, I swear!” Sunset responded to the now pajama wearing Rainbow.
“Whatever, man. Knock next time.” Rainbow said, with a blush on her face.
Sunset took in her friend’s appearance. She looked unkempt. Her pajamas were wrinkled and obviously briskly put on. There were heavy bags stained with tears under her eyes. It was utterly surreal to see this… bastion of coolness and strength as… this.
“OUT!” Rainbow yelled. It hurt Sunset immensely to hear her best friend with such venom in her voice.
Sunset left, as per Rainbow’s wishes. But on the way out, she could hear the tears, as loud as a ringing bell, fall to the ground. She would make it up to her whether she liked it or not.
Sunset rushed to get her keys and Rainbow’s jacket. The way Rainbow acted after she made fun of her, she knew she made a mistake. She was eager to fix what she broke. But how does one fix a relationship? Why, material things of course!
[br]
Rainbow sat in her bed. The open and close of the door didn’t affect her other than the fact that she knew the devil was gone. She stood up and left her room and headed for the bathroom. If she was going to lock herself in her room she should at least actually be ready for bed.
The door to the bathroom creaked annoyingly as she stepped in, and creaked just as annoyingly as it swung closed. The mirror must have been broken. Because what looked back at her wasn’t The Rainbow Dash. It was a poser. A joke of the girl who should have been in the mirror.
It wasn’t worth it. She would just go to bed and forget about the poser. Forget about the mess of someone that stole her identity and crushed it to dust, leaving only the uncool parts in it’s wake. So she left the restroom and made her way back to her room. On the way, she noticed the radiator lacked a certain heat to it. It just wasn’t the same without her pilot light.
She made her way back to her room and pouted to herself. She wasn’t good enough. She had to try harder. She had to do better. She had to BE better. But for now, a little crying would suffice.
Some hour later, there was another open and close of the door. That wasn’t her problem. Her problem was sleep.
[br]
Mornings were dumb, they meant waking up and doing things. Rainbow wasn’t up for it. But the smell of cocoa was too enticing to pass up. With not much more than a shuffle out of bed, Rainbow opened the door to a very bright livingroom. Luckily it was natural light rather than blinding luminescents and her eyes adjusted easily.
Sunset sat cross legged in front of the radiator, enjoying her cocoa silently with a smile. Rainbow grunted in her direction and moved over to the kitchen counter to retrieve her cocoa, if of course Sunset was considerate enough to spare her some.
Not only was there a cup of steaming cocoa, there was a plate of cookies and a tiny tree with adorable tiny decorations. Rainbow had a hard time taking it all in at once and needed to lean on something to restore her coolness.
Sunset stood behind her, taking in the reaction.
There was a tiny note near the tree folded neatly with a fancy scribble writing on the front. It read simply, “I’m so sorry”.
Rainbow Turned around to see an apologetic Sunset in adorable sleepwear, consisting of tiny shorts, a hoodie, and a long tee. She was smiling smally and scanning Rainbow’s eyes for any hint of… anything other than hate, mistrust, disappointment, or adorable sad eyes. She didn’t get her wish of course.
Rainbow, on the verge of tears, engulfed Sunset in the biggest hug she could. There were sobs of… not quite joy and not quite sadness, but of… relief. Choked back feelings that… Wait… no. That was just Rainbow scarfing down cookies behind Sunset’s back. Close enough.
Sunset hugged back of course, trying to hold onto any semblance of warmth she could get from the affection. She couldn’t hold back her laughs at the fact that Rainbow was dropping crumbs all over her hoodie and the carpet, but she didn’t care. She was happy. Rainbow made her happy.
Sunset pulled herself out of the hug and looked Rainbow in her dazzling eyes. “So, is that… uh… date, still up for grabs?”
“Sorry, no, it’s taken. I decided I would go with despair and self loathing.” Rainbow joked.
Sunset made a hissing noise through her teeth, almost as if she were in pain. “Ouch, I think I cut myself on all that edge, Dash.” She gave her friend a gentle shove and smiled.
Sunset grabbed a cookie and stuffed it in her mouth, accompanying it with a swig of cocoa. “Sho, like, doesh thish mean we’re a thing now?” She spoke -rudely- through her food.
“If you want it to. Honestly, I won’t press it. I didn’t even think I’d get this far, so…” Rainbow swiped a cookie, but nibbled at it rather than engulfed it.
Sunset gulped down the rest of her cookie and smacked her lips a few times. “I’m gonna have to vacuum now… Anyway, I guess we’ll just see how the implied date goes. Then I’ll make a final decision. For now, I don’t have any plans other than sitting by the heater and stuffing my face with cookies.” She nabbed the plate of cookies and went to sit by the heater, but was interrupted by an arm. Stupid arms, always getting in the way.
“Look, maybe you want to do something… I dunno, together? It doesn’t have to be anything big…” Rainbow droned off into a mumble and Sunset tried to listen, she really did.
“Uh-huh, sure. I think they’re having a snow war over at that important place at that time. We could do that.” Sunset shoved half a cookie into her mouth.
“Oh, right by that other place? That time works for me, I had no plans today either so this should work out for both of us. Unless your date with the heater is more important. I’d understand.” Rainbow teased.
“You wouldn’t understand, sitting by the heater is great.” Sunset pouted. It was adorable.
“Enlighten me.” Rainbow challenged. What she didn’t anticipate was the abrupt grab of her hand and the weight of being pulled away. Before she knew it, she was seated by a heater with a plate of cookies in her lap.
Sunset sat happily, hiding the majority of her face in her hoodie and cutely chewing on a cookie as she basked in the warmth of the heaty-thingy-majig.
Rainbow looked numbly at the wall and contemplated if it was worth it. She threw what she knew was right at said wall and took in a big whiff of cookie scented air. “Y’know, Sunset, I once caught a fish thii-” she began to spread her arms out to signify the size of the fish, “-iis big.” She finished with an arm over Sunset’s shoulder. There was no fish. Sad.
“Oh, you think you’re cool.” Sunset snarked, thoroughly enjoying the warmth that came with the coziness of an arm. Arms are okay sometimes, I guess.
They sat like that for a while, just enjoying each other’s company. Sitting together and sitting on the now cookie crumb coated carpet and loving every moment that the heater was on. Then the time came for them to go to the place for the war.
Rainbow was the first to get up, leaving Sunset without the coziness of affectionate cuddling.
When Sunset was able to come to terms, she too stood up and followed the rainbow.
What she saw when she approached wasn’t her girlfriend. It was a soldier.
Rainbow stood tall as she could, showing off her… Her. She had two thick coats on, a tall hat, two or three colorful scarves, three pairs of stretchy gloves, and a smug grin.
“See, the strategy is to look tough. Nobody wants to mess with The Big Dog.” She tapped her hat/helmet, pointing out a callsign of a mean looking mutt.
Sunset tossed on a light jacket and a pair of gloves. “Maneuverability.” Simply that and a tap on the shoulder was all that was exchanged before she walked out the door.
Rainbow hobbled after her.
[br]
The small park that somebody decided to assemble a crap ton of people in was beautiful. Emphasis on was. There were forts anywhere from 4 to 8 feet tall, all with a nice supply of snow behind them.
There was a literal militariesque base on one side. It had frickin windows. On top stood Pinkie Pie with a glorious flag depicting a peppermint candy.
On the other side, their shameful hodgepodge of what might be called a base, was a wall about 20 feet long and 5 feet high with silly looking gaps that could maybe be seen out of littering it haphazardly. But the warriors behind that wall were a force to be reckoned with. The biggest brutes in town from bouncers to bodyguards stood menacingly in a line, with Big Macintosh at the head and his tiny sister by his side. Their flag was a solitary apple with a crude helmet drawn on it.
Sunset turned to Dash and quirked an eyebrow. “Ready to lose to a girl?”
Dash sneered playfully. “Why are you talking to yourself out loud?”
With a nod of competitiveness, they went to either side, Rainbow with the brutes and Sunset with the… other ones.
Pinkie hopped off of the base and began to walk into no-mans land, as did Big Mac. They met in the middle, shook hands, and returned to their respective bases.
Then a bang roared out across the field. And another. And another. With each roar of the bell, people got more and more prepared to throw down. Pinkie stood valiantly atop the central base, not phased in the slightest.
Then Sunset realized something. There was nobody of her team in sight. It was just her and Pinkie.
Then it wasn’t.
At the ninth ring of the bell, war cries filled the air, and various people wearing snow white apparel, erupted from the ground. The other team didn’t stand a chance. It was a massacre.
Sunset could hear Pinkie talking into a radio made of snow, “What are the numbers for stage one?” the commander asked.
“We’re seein’ green arrows miss! 36 of their 50 are down while only 19 of ours need graves. Congratulations, Commander, the war is in our hands.” A person on the other end responded.
The surreality of it struck Sunset all at once.
“What the hell?” She asked simply, spotting a bright reflection far off in a tree, the spotter she presumed.
“Welcome to the war, Maggot! Our soldiers are on their way back as we speak, we have to get them ready. The other team has medics and that 14 is going to turn into 30 soon enough. Our nineteen are stuck in no-mans land, but we still have the upperhand. Get ready for stage two!” Pinkie turned around and removed a white sheet from an unknown object.
There was patter of feet on the roof, and soon a different pole in four places appeared, popping out a section of the roof. There were three enormous snow built weapons. How that was possible, she wasn’t sure but her eyes beheld three mighty howitzers, and there were shells made of snow. Racks and racks of shells.
This was war.
[br]
Applejack roared orders to medics of who was worth saving and who wasn’t. Rainbow sat leaned against the wall next to a dead man. She pulled a red roll of tape off of her bandolier and made a cross on him. He gave her a nod, a smile, and a thanks, before heading off to fetch ammunition for others.
Big Mac hurled a snowball at a tree and a low hanging branch deposited a body. He nodded his head in acknowledgement and moved on to any survivors he could find crawling through the snow.
Rainbow made her way over to AJ and spoke some horrifying words, “I think we’re screwed AJ.”
Applejack took her hat off and put it over her chest. “You think I don’t know that? Pinkie has the best damn war strategy in… anywhere. But I’m not letting my men go down without a fighting chance.”
“You’re a good leader, AJ.” And with that, Rainbow left to do some stuff.
[br]
“Pinkie, what the hell?” Sunset sputtered in exasperation. The 7 people manning the howitzer were talking some nonsense numbers and the eighth was getting ammo and piling it nearby.
“Don’t worry we’ll give them a chance to surrender. If they don’t, they get Shelly, Cartridge, and Bewm Boom. And guess who gets to be the messenger?” Pinkie poked Sunset on the forehead and disappeared to find some other way of murdering her friends.
[br]
A figure in a light blue jacket appeared from the base with her hands up. She was shouting something and AJ told everyone to hold their fire.
“We’re giving you one chance to surrender. Don’t shoot the messenger… just… don’t.” She shouted.
“Over my destroyed snow base!” Applejack shouted as she chucked a snowball right into Sunset’s face.
“NO!” Rainbow dived into Applejack and pinned her to the ground. But nothing would bring back her girlfriend. The settled fate of her demise was tragic, Rainbow punched AJ lightly, knowing it was all she could do to mourn.
“A’hm truly sorry Dashie, it was the only thing I could do…” AJ pat Rainbow on the head a few times.
“I… I know…” Rainbow sobbed into the cold air. Her mourning was interrupted by screams.
Holes filled no-mans land. Mountainous geysers of snow erupted back and forth, getting slowly closer and closer to the base. With each earth shuddering explosion snow fell from the sky.
AJ got down on her knees and shouted, “It’s been a mighty honor to serve with y’all.” As the flakes of snow fell around her, people started to join in her surrender. The shelling didn’t stop and the booms turned to gentle thuds in Rainbow’s ears.
Most everybody got down as well, but Rainbow wasn’t going to take it. If she could just get inside their range…
A shell shattered her focus, she blinked a few times to get rid of the shell shock and shed her heavy armor. She was going to save her girlfriend and win a war.
[br]
Sunset lay in the snow. It was a little chilly, but she didn’t mind. Then the bombing started. Then she got a little worried.
But soon enough, she was being taped up and carried off. It was Rainbow, carrying her off towards the Candy Force’s base. Although they were technically on different sides, no-one would mind a small little war crime. It was for their relationship or something.
They stood at the blast doors to the base. Rainbow didn’t say a word, she just nodded and kicked a hole in the door. Sunset had her blind side and held a snowball up to cover her.
Two Candymen lost their lives. And the Rogues moved on.
The artillery room was approaching quickly, room clear after room clear they got closer. People were still getting hit hard out there, and they had to stop it.
The door erupted into mist as it was punched through. The howitzer team manning Shelly turned, only to get a scatter shot of snow in the faces. The other two teams were ready to take on the assault.
But they didn’t need to. Pinkie smacked the Rogues with a melee snowball.
The Brutes lost the war, but all's well that ends well. Both teams joined each other for ice cream, which was weird, considering it was winter.
Everybody said their farewells and a very happy Ice cream man appreciated the 100 customers. They all went their separate ways and enjoyed the, not too chilly but just cold enough for coats, weather.
Rainbow and Sunset were on their merry way home. Being in a war is somewhat tiring after all.
“Well, today did not go nearly as I had expected it to.” Sunset said with laugh. Piercing the silence with her voice.
“Yeah, no. I never would have expected to have to shut down an artillery placement today.” Rainbow responded. They shared a good laugh over that and an awkward silence followed.
Sunset felt a weird creeping feeling along her wrist, when she inspected the cause all she found was a small-ish hand with it’s fingers outstretched. With a goofy smile, she interlaced her fingers with Rainbow’s and swung her arm a few times.
Rainbow was shocked that it actually worked, but she wasn’t going to waste her time with thinking, she would occupy herself with her girlfriend.
It was a strange and foreign feeling to Sunset, the feeling of being liked back just as much as she liked Rainbow. It was also very strange to be able to get all these feelings of care and mushy stuff, just by being able to feel the warmth between their hands.
Every twinge, every shiver, every breath, every heartbeat, she could feel it all through her hand.
She never wanted to let go.
They walked home together in silence. But it wasn’t quite that they didn’t have a conversation, it was a weird sort of “talking” that they just did naturally. Sunset would lean against Rainbow every now and then and Rainbow would do the same. It was… bliss.
Their door approached far too quickly and Sunset had to take her hand back to be able to unlock the door.
She pulled the door open and set her jacket and gloves in the closet, by set I mean she just threw them in and hoped they landed in an organized heap. She could clean that up later.
Rainbow followed behind doing the same.
The eventful day left them spent. Neither of them wanted to do anything other than chillax and watch a movie or something. They were on break, so who was going to stop them?
Nobody. That’s who.
Without any words exchanged between the two of them, Sunset made her way to the couch, grabbed a little blanket that was on the arm rest and set herself laying across the couch. Her lanky legs took up little of the width but stretched to the point where they were almost uncomfortably resting on the opposite arm rest. She pulled the blanket over her chest and scrunched her nose at the uncomfortable scratchiness of it.
Rainbow wasn’t far behind, but when she saw Sunset engulfing the entirety of the couch, she certainly wasn’t having it.
“Scooch, Sunny,” She announced briefly before taking initiative to move the girl out of the way.
Sunset didn’t go down without a fight, however. No, she squirmed and pouted and tried all of the techniques to make someone give you something, but Dash was resilient and dead set on getting her share of couch.
They compromised with warm cuddles of affection… or rather a gross sweaty conjoinment that they called “cuddling” for some reason. It wasn’t like the movies made it out to be, but there was no place either of them would rather be sweaty and uncomfortable in at that moment, than with each other.
“What’d’ya wanna watch? We got late movies that suck, so try to pick the least sucky one.” Sunset said behind a yawn. She handed the little remote with the buttons that had the ink rubbed off of them to her girlfriend, hoping she didn’t have terrible movie judgement.
Inside Rainbow’s mind, the cogs were turning. They hadn’t been turned in quite some time and they made a horrid screech as each one ground against another, but they turned. “If I choose a horror movie, I can ‘protect’ her and be an awesome savior! Yeah that’s an awesome idea!” Her wonderful “IDEA!” light bulb flickered, it needed maintenance as well.
[br]
“Dash? You don’t even fit under the couch, what are you doing?” Sunset tried to lift the couch off of Rainbow, but a reluctant rainbow haired cat was preventing her from doing so.
Rainbow’s head appeared to have missed the fact that she was scared by scary movies. It was in the name, sure, but nobody said Dash was smart.
Sunset rolled her eyes and started pulling on Rainbow’s ankles in a vain attempt to get her out of her situation under the furniture. When she couldn’t get her out, she gave up. It wasn’t worth it.
Sunset made her way to the heater majig, sat down cross legged, and waited patiently.
It was like watching a meerkat, the way Dash checked her surroundings before darting out of the underside of the couch and rushing to her room. There was a faint click of a lightswitch and a wan glow emanated from the gap between the door and the floor.
“Goodnight, Dash!” Sunset shouted. Rainbow was such a wuss. It was freaking adorable.
The response was a simple, muffled, “YEP!”
[br]
The day of their official date arrived. It snowed. Hard. Like, hella hard. Almost every road in town was closed and every store decided it wasn’t worth it being open. Thus concluding their plans to go ice skating.
Dash looked out the window. “Well, shit.”
Sunset looked out the window. “You got that right.”
“What are we going to do now?” Rainbow exhaled on the window and drew a smiley face with her finger.
“Well, I know what I’m doing.” Sunset left Rainbow at the window and went to sit next to her heaty majiggy. The amount of time she spent in front of that thing had to be unhealthy.
Rainbow walked over to her girlfriend and sat down next to her. She leaned her head on Sunset’s shoulder and stared at her the wall. “Hey thanks for being my girlfriend and stuff. You light up my life so… yeah. Sappiness is stupid.”
Sunset set her chin on the rainbow pillow that rested on her shoulder. Only lifting it to talk. “Sure man. Like thank you too, or something. I wasn’t sure you’d ever ask and stuff. Cool people shouldn’t have to be romantic.”
Rainbow lifted her head to look into Sunset’s eyes.
Sunset, albeit a little confused at the loss of her pillow, looked back. Just that meeting of their eyes lit fires of love in each of them. They didn’t need words of romance or adorable cuddling and stuff, they just needed each other. And they were perfectly content.
Rainbow changed the direction of the moment by locking lips with the girl to her side. Every moment of the kiss separated her from time itself. The world stopped for her to make this happen and she wasn’t going to waste the gift.
Sunset pulled back at first but, finding she enjoyed it thoroughly, eventually kissed back. The meeting of skin shouldn’t have given her so many uncool feelings, but it did. And she didn’t care for a moment.
What felt like an eternity was abruptly stopped by Sunset blowing into Rainbow’s mouth. “Totally uncool, Dash.” She smiled gently and gave Rainbow one last peck on the lips before falling backwards and laying cozily on the floor.
Rainbow followed suit, but didn’t fall nearly as dramatically.
“Hehe, I kissed a girl and I liked it.”
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- mokaevans · 3k words · 18 3 · 1.3k views
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purely adorableness
what movie did they watch
8636794
I dunno.
That was... not terrible. Could use a splash of polish, and it felt more like two or three fics smashed together. But it was cute and the highlight was definitely the snow fort battle. Rainbow felt a bit... un-Rainbow in parts though, but she's a very fluid and multifaceted character and she still worked. And tbh it's a lot better than most fics that get featured.
8935188
Hey, thanks a lot! I appreciate you taking the time to read my story, even if some parts were a bit “ugh.” I appreciate the feedback, I’m always trying to improve and every little bit helps!
8936508
Honestly all you really need is an editor, or even just a pair of eyes to scan it before you publish. The main 'problem' I would say, if any, is that the narrator interjects so much personality that it takes away from Sunset and Rainbow. If you took a shot every time you said "thingamajig" or "majiggy", you'd probably be too drunk to finish. There's no shame in Googling "what's the name of the heat radiator thing in apartments". If any writer says they don't Google a dozen things per thousand words, they're lying. Now, I know that maybe the narration was following what Rainbow and Sunset called it, but that would be an assumption that might not reflect your style. I couldn't tell as it was mostly third person omniscient. There's no problem with giving flavor to your third person omniscient narrator (I do it often because it's fun), but it just took me out of it and reminded me that I was reading words rather than being immersed in the story.
There's also the whole overarcing thing about oneshots that are basically the last chapter of a mutual pining slow burn. This would have a lot more punch if we had seen the development of feelings on both or even just Rainbow's side. We're just plopped down in the middle of the fic and told that Rainbow likes Sunset, we see her execute the plan, and we see a minor communication error balloon out of control and then settle itself, and then we get some fluff. That's not exactly a /problem/, per se, and I think that this is one of those oneshots that works with the formula, and it's got the snow fort battle segment that heavily distinguishes it from other fics like it (as well as being more than just 1.5K words long; I literally only read 3K+ word fics at the barest minimum). This isn't a specifically this fic type of thing but it is a general trend on this site. Still, every oneshot is another step to multi-chaptered fics.
The conflict really isn't that contrived. If I were to criticize something, I'd say the execution was a bit quick and extreme and the blow-up was kind of out of nowhere; stretching it out a tiny bit would help with flow and transition between Rainbow pining after Sunset and the girls cuddling. However, since the main focus of the fic did seem to be the snow fight, that's totally fine. The problem is that it was completely out of nowhere, and wasn't mentioned in the story's description. Something like "featuring gratuitous amounts of Pinkie Pie's snow howitzer cannons" in the description would definitely help to get more unique viewers, especially since a lot of readers on here have the attention span of a squirrel with ADHD compared to people like me who are totally fine with, say, reading 20K chapters. It's just weird to me that the best part of the fic was a complete sucker punch.
As for the polish, the only real cohesive thing that would help is adding more details here and there, just sprinkling more life into this world you created. I had a lot of questions in the back of my mind building up. Why are they living together? When is this in relation to school and canon? What about Twilight, Rarity, and Fluttershy? Why does Rainbow hate the winter so much slash why is she such a klutz in the ice if she's got her body in such great shape from all the sports? What does the apartment look like? How's the neighborhood? How big is the park? Is it an indoor or an outdoor ice skating rink? If people like Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Douglas Adams, Herman Melville, John Steinbeck, Leo Tolstoy, all the big name authors from yesteryear can spend five and a half pages just talking about a house or something, a single paragraph here and there giving some more offhand information and worldbuilding can give so much more immersion and enjoyment into your fics. A lesson I myself have trouble following most of the time. There was also a few snap changes in tone and mood that threw me for a loop, like when Rainbow suddenly yelled at Sunset to get out right after a lighthearted joke.
The fluff was good though, and there was a lot of heart and soul in the story. I can tell this had work put into it, that you as an author really gave a shit. The gradient from the romcom to the surrealism of the [war flashbacks] scenes and then right back into romcom again was really well done. Again, I just can't get over how a surprise military metaphor made me appreciate the warm fuzzies even more, but it totally did. Probably some artistic duality psychology term or something. Point is, I really liked the parts you did really well on. I just think that your dry, droll, sarcastic summary just prepped me to be overly critical from the beginning, and then went in a completely different tonal direction. Maybe cut out the deprecation just a tad, or at least put it in the end-of-fic author's note. And also maybe drop the crossover tag since there didn't seem to be anything it actually crossed over with, unless I missed it? But yeah, I just wanted more, and from a 7K fic, that's not the best feeling, especially from a oneshot. But you should always have your reader wanting more; you don't want a reader to be sick of your stuff, after all. This is a fic that upon further recollection becomes even more enjoyable, so props for that, and it definitely deserves more attention than what it got.
Sorry for the book, ehehe...
8938006
Again, I cannot express my thanks for the feedback. I appreciate someone so talented as yourself giving me some advice. I’ll be sure to take some notes on this and hopefully improve my work in the future. I’m just a sophomore in Highschool so I’ve got a lot to learn
Oofity, she must be even colder now. 😬
Damn, that's longer than I expected.
Now I'm questioning how she has yet gotten chilly or something being out in the cold that long.
Can't argue there.
Yes, yes you did sunset.
Yep, it's a sign that it's gonna be a while til rainbow dash is over what happened earlier.
She must of been crying after she fled off after sunset laughed at her about going to that event.
Looks like sunset went out late and got it for her.
Now that's what I call a surprise attack! 😯
Shouldn't have done it rainbow.
There goes her plan/date rainbow wanted.
And maybe a bit bad too.
At least everything worked out in the end.