Taking Back Canterlot

by Coyote de La Mancha

Intermission 3. Rainbooms: True Colors.

“Eighteen.. nineteen... c’mon, Twi, one more sit-up.”

“Mmmmmph...!”

“It’s just one sit-up! You can do one sit-up, can’t’cha?”

“Urrrrrrrgh...!”

“C’mon, Twi, don’t wuss out on me now!”

With a wordless scream, Twilight gave a final surge of effort, connecting her elbows to her bent knees before collapsing.

In a microsecond of blurring speed, Rainbow Dash caught Twilight before her head hit the floor, cradling her in her arms even as she offered her yet another bottle of noxious green solution.

“Are you okay?” Rainbow asked anxiously. “Are you okay, did you tear anything...?”

“Hm-mm,” Twilight shook her head as she drank greedily.

Rainbow Dash watched uneasily as the liquid quickly vanished. It was almost gone when Twilight put it aside, gasping, “No... I’m good... and even if... I wasn’t... it would heal up... pretty quick...”

“Uh-huh,” said Rainbow, giving her a doubtful look. “You keep saying that. All about how you need to half kill yourself. Me, though, I need to take it easy.”

“You... ugh... gimme a minute,” Twilight managed between gulps of air, rolling unevenly onto her side. Rainbow Dash could almost hear her heart hammering in her chest. She nodded and sat back in what she hoped was an encouraging position.

“Sure, take your time. Not like you’re giving fitness nuts a bad name or anything.”

Just then, the basement door flew open, sock feet quickly padding down the concrete steps. Apple Bloom paused at their base, staring at Twilight.

“Y’know, y’could jus’ shoot a body, ‘steada scarin’ her t’death!”

Rainbow Dash turned back to Twilight, pointing at their friend.

“See?” she demanded. “Even Bloomers thinks you’re pushing too hard!”

With effort, Twilight glanced over to where Apple Bloom stood.

“Well, I did ‘bout think you was dyin’,” the younger girl allowed a little uncomfortably. “That, or in labor. Either way, glad t’see yer okay.”

Twilight gave her a weak smile. “So far.”

Rainbow Dash winced, but said nothing.

Apple Bloom looked around herself. The unfinished basement had been empty when they’d first moved in, of course. But Twilight had fixed that as soon as Pinkie’d left.

First, of course, there was the impromptu gym that Twilight’d had Dash set up. Kettle bells, free weights, a treadmill, floor mats... plus sparring pads, weighted batons, and a couple a’ kick pads. Apparently Dash had called her wife up, gotten advice about the sparrin’ gear. All told, about half the space was taken up by exercise equipment.

But then there was the other half, where the lab was. Tables, bottles, glass and plastic coils and whatnot... some of it familiar, some not. Twilight had sent Dash off with a list, a long one, of different chemicals and stuff, and it all played into the mix somehow.

Apple Bloom had always been a little proud of her tutelage under Zecora. She’d learned more from her in a year than she’d learned in a lifetime of regular schoolin’, and that was a fact. But what Twilight had put together, well, that was well beyond her.

Twi had tried to explain it to her and Dash, and Apple Bloom had thought it mighta been something like synthetic steroids, maybe? But she’d never heard of steroids working like this.

Because, god damn.

Four days.

Four days of injections, weird drinks, and eating enough for three people – plus sleeping up to twenty hours a day, anytime she wasn’t working out – and here Twilight was. Pushups, situps, squats (with Rainbow spotting), walking on the treadmill (hanging onto the bars for dear life, with Rainbow Dash half supporting her weight), you name it.

No sparring, though. Not yet. But any fool knew that was coming.

Of course, it wasn’t all inspiring. There were the muscle cramps, for instance. Sometimes Twilight would wake up screaming from them. And the first day, it seemed like she was throwin’ up more than she was keeping down.

But most of all there was that one time, looked like maybe a seizure? It had only happened once that she knew of, while Twilight was on the treadmill. Rainbow Dash had caught her, and she and Apple Bloom had exchanged terrified looks over the gal for nigh onto twenty minutes while she’d writhed and bucked, both of them just trying to keep her from smacking her head into anything.

Whatever that stuff was that Twi kept takin’, it got results, no lie. Apple Bloom just wasn’t sure they were the kind of results a body wanted.

“C’mon, Twilight,” Rainbow Dash said gently as she started to gather her up. “Back to bed, I think.”

“I can walk.”

Rainbow Dash shook her head. “Nuh-uh. I’m using my Trainer’s Veto. You hurt yourself, you get carried. You don’t like it, stop hurting yourself.”

“Fascist bitch,” Twilight smiled, her head lolling slightly as Rainbow ascended the stairs with her.

Rainbow Dash gave her a grin. “And you.”

Twilight’s bedroom was the one the women had first shared after their harried arrival. The only difference was a small pile of water bottles by the bed – all empty – a big ol’ box half-full of protein bars, and cardboard taped over the window blinds, keeping out even the smallest amount of daylight.

By the time Rainbow Dash was lowering her back into her bed, Twilight was already asleep. Rainbow and Apple Bloom gently tucked her in, refilled the empty bottles, and then closed the door behind them.

Rainbow Dash sighed, ran a sky-coloured hand through her hair.

“You okay?” Apple Bloom asked.

“Yeah, peachy,” Rainbow said with another sigh, and the two of them headed downstairs to the kitchen.

“Yeah, that sure was the ‘everythin’s fine’ kinda sigh I was hopin’ for,” Apple Bloom nodded sagely. “Yes, ma’am. Sure took a load offa my mind.”

Rainbow Dash tried to give her an angry look and failed, her expression fading into one of pure misery.

“Yeah, okay,” she said. “It’s just... that stuff she’s taking.”

“Do ya know what it is?” Apple Bloom asked softly.

“Not really,” Rainbow Dash said, “Twilight had me burn the list. Zecora might recognize the stuff that was on it, or she might not. I don’t know how much chemistry you gotta know to be a pharmacist. But Twi didn’t have me just burgle a pharmacy. She had me hit a couple of compounding places and a chemical plant, so... I dunno.”

She shrugged and continued, “Anyway, I asked Twi about it, when she first started dosing. I figured, y’know, if it was helping her it might help me.”

Apple Bloom could well imagine the scene. Twilight, happily geeking out while she mixed different compounds together... meanwhile, unseen by her, Rainbow Dash’s head slowly rising up from behind the counter almost cartoonishly, eyes locked on the glass beaker everything was getting dumped into...

But outwardly, Apple Bloom nodded. “Well, sure. You were kept in a, what, ten by ten?”

Rainbow Dash stopped, looking away.

“Maybe smaller,” she said. “I don’t know. I mean, sure, I still exercised. But there are limits. So, when Twi isn’t working out, I am.”

Then she was walking again, opening the door to the kitchen.

“But when I said that, Twilight got on my ass like... fuck, I don’t even know,” she said, shaking her head. “I mean, she was pissed. Or maybe just scared, or maybe both. I hadn’t seen her like that since... you know what, never mind,” she concluded. “The point is, she made me promise that I would never, ever get into the stuff, no matter what.”

“How come?” Apple Bloom asked, fetching down plates and glasses.

Rainbow Dash opened the freezer, contemplated the possibilities. She grabbed two bags of microwavable chicken nuggets, closed the door... then just dropped them with a sigh, turning away from her friend, leaning her hands on the wall and the fridge, her head hanging low.

Apple Bloom frowned and took a step towards her, her voice uncertain.

“Rainbow Dash?”

“I don’t know what it is or how it works, but Twilight says it’s taking years off her life. Like, a decade or more.”

“What?!?”

“Yeah,” Rainbow said miserably. “Something about ‘systemic cellular strain’ on her organs and stuff.”

Then, facing Apple Bloom for a moment, she added, “And that’s assuming she doesn’t just die of a heart attack or a stroke right there on the basement floor.”

Then she turned away completely, her voice the barest whisper.

“And then... then it’ll be my fault.”

“But... but we gotta stop her! We...” Apple Bloom’s voice fell away as Rainbow Dash slowly turned to face her again, eyes filled with pain.

“We could,” Rainbow Dash said. “It’d be easy. We could refuse to help her with it, keep her out of the basement. Keep her from plotting out her own recovery. Make her physical therapy last the years that it should, instead of weeks or less.

“Of course, then she’d be our prisoner, not our friend,” she said, looking down. “And when the cops – or anybody else – found her, and had her dead to rights, it would be our fault. Ours, and ours alone.

“And so would whatever followed.”

She raised her eyes again to meet Apple Bloom’s stricken ones.

“Or, we can recognize that it’s better to die years from now than tomorrow, and more than that, that it’s her choice.”

Suddenly, Apple Bloom had crossed the room and was holding Rainbow Dash in a fierce embrace. After the briefest of surprised pauses, Rainbow was hugging her back.

“An’ you’ve been jus’ sittin’ on this?” Apple Bloom demanded. “Fer days? Watchin’ her, helpin’ her train, knowin’...”

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess.”

“An’ it ain’t your fault!” Apple Bloom insisted, squeezing her harder. “Y’all just said it yourself, it’s her choice! What’re you supposed t’do, tie her down?”

Rainbow Dash gave a long, jagged sigh.

“I don’t know,” she said miserably. “There’s no good answer, just lots of bad ones. And I do want to help her, she’s my fucking friend, but...”

“But it ain’t fair,” Apple Bloom supplied. “She ain’t just askin’ you to watch, she’s askin’ you to help her maybe kill herself. An’ it ain’t fair.”

“But she can’t do it alone,” Rainbow whispered.

“An’ she’s gotta do it.”

“Yeah. And I have to help her.”

For several minutes, the two women simply stood there, holding each other. Eventually, Apple Bloom spoke.

“You shouldn’t a’ had to carry that yourself,” she said into Rainbow Dash’s hair. Somehow, her voice was both tender and stern. “You didn’t have to. An’ you don’t. Cuz you ain’t alone, now, Rainbow Dash. Not no more. An’ you need to remember that.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Cuz I’m gonna be in this with you, from now on. Every step of the way. You hear me?”

“Yeah, I hear you. I guess... I guess I was still kinda thinking of you as a kid.”

Pulling back, Rainbow Dash gently smoothed the younger woman’s hair out of her eyes. “And that wasn’t right. Sorry about that.”

For a what seemed like a long time, their eyes met. The words hovered on the edge of Apple Bloom’s mind as the long moment stretched between them, Please don’t think of me as a kid, Rainbow, please...

Then, Rainbow Dash turned her eyes away, beautiful shades of amaranth and vermillion, and Apple Bloom did likewise.

“Sorry about that,” Rainbow Dash said again.

“Don’t sweat it,” Apple Bloom said, picking up the bags. “High stress, folks gettin’ close, stuff is gonna happen.”

She walked over to the plates, opened the bags, dumped their contents. Arranged the nuggets on the plates, giving her hands something to do.

“An’ I do love you,” she sighed, opening the microwave. “I love all a’you. An’ I can’t speak for you, but me... it’d be dead easy, lettin’ bad times rush me into a bad decision.”

Rainbow Dash watched the younger woman as she cooked, arms crossed, leaning on the far wall.

“So, we just had a moment, and that’s it,” she said. “You’re cool with that?”

The first plate went into the microwave to be zapped.

“Yup. Long as you are.”

Rainbow Dash gave a wry grin. “You know, maturity’s pretty attractive. You’re not exactly killing the mood, here.”

Apple Bloom turned back to her, gave her a smile that was full of mischief.

“Not tryin’ to.”

She laughed while Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes.

“But seriously,” Apple Bloom went on, “I figger, once everythin’s said an’ done, an’ we’re not runnin’ a revolution an’ whatnot, maybe the three of us kin sit down an’ talk about it then. But only if you an’ me still feel the same, an’ only if Rarity’s agreeable.”

She held out a fist, adding, “Till then, whaddaya say? Best buds?”

Still grinning, Rainbow Dash pushed herself off the wall and bumped Apple Bloom’s fist with her own.

“Best Buds.”

Author's Note:

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Ending Credits: True Colors, by Cindi Lauper.

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

It's a rough time for everyone involved, even the ones who aren't pushing their bodies past their physical and biochemical limits. Hopefuly that strain will prove worth it in the end.

[TwinAttorney864]

Welcome back! I quite enjoyed this small update, away from constant violence. Can't wait to see it continue!