• Published 12th Sep 2012
  • 25,080 Views, 589 Comments

Third Time's a Charm - RazedRainbow



After Rainbow Dash saves her life yet again, Rarity lets something out.

  • ...
40
 589
 25,080

Chapter One

Third Time’s A Charm

A RazedRainbow Fic

Chapter One

She danced upon air with the grace of an angel. The clouds, the atmosphere, and every inch of the universe were all at the mercy of her dainty steps and supple wing beats. The sound of a string quartet hummed in her ears, carrying visions of statues, paintings, high-class parties and high-class wine on each delicately strummed note. She let her eyes open, and she stared at the crowd with a half-lidded gaze that said, “Yes. Your eyes do not deceive you. I am real.”

She rose into the sky, higher than the bravest of pegasi dared to dream. The crowd gasped, but her tranquil expression and dazzling wings hushed them. There was no need for them to fear. Goddesses do not die. Goddesses soar through the heavens themselves. Had it been the night rather than the day, she would have reached out and touched the stars. The tiny lights would then fold and transform, molding themselves until even they bowed to the Queen of the Sky.

Looking down at the lowly ponies, she smiled. Their eyes glowed with admiration, and the heat of their love filled her heart with sweltering joy. Sweat seeped from her pores, ran down her face and smeared her makeup. However, she did not cringe or even wipe it away. While a lady did not sweat, a Goddess did not worry.

She grinned and spread her majestic wings. Shafts of polychromatic light rained down on the stadium, and the burning admiration grew. Their love was too much, she had to speak. She wanted them to hear what the voice of beauty sounded like.

So she parted her pristine lips and spoke in a voice that she was sure would be remembered for eons.

“Look upon me Equestria, for I am Rarity!”

Suddenly, a weight fell from her back and pulled her down with it.

Rarity fell into the blue and white depths, legs flailing and lungs burning from her screams. The clouds rushed past, as did the stadium, as did the wide-eyed spectators, as did meter after meter. Each scream snatched another second of life away from her.

Staring up at the sky, hope glimmered in her heart for a brief second. Three small dots appeared against the cerulean backdrop and grow as they neared her. Like three angels, they chased after the falling unicorn, and like a demon knocked them away with her flailing legs, rendering her potential saviors unconscious.

She continued to fall, hope slipping away with each passing meter.

She passed through a strong current, which rolled her over until she was facing the earth. The air rushing past blew her disheveled mane out of her face, giving her a perfect view of the end of her world.

Rarity squinted and could make out individual lines on a single blade of grass.

She opened her mouth for one last scream.

And then something grabbed her from behind, knocking the air out of her. She felt two strong forelegs wrap themselves underneath hers, and the torrent of air ceased briefly before starting up again. However, this time she was soaring parallel to the ground. The grass brushed against her hooves as she zoomed towards the forest. She flinched, and cursed the gods. She had just been rescued from smashing into the ground and now she was about to smash into a tree. Death seemed to be inevitable.

But she was pulled up a second time, jerked away from Death’s grinning maw once more. She looked over her shoulder, desperate to catch a glimpse of her savior. All she could make out was the silhouette. The sun highlighted her rescuer’s form, but did not allow for a clear view of their features. However, she knew that she was in the grasp of a pony—a pegasus to be exact—and that the figure had a somewhat feminine figure: muscular yet still retaining distinctive curves.

And despite this revelation, Rarity, who had always exclusively had a taste for stallions, was utterly lascivious. Something in the back of her head told her to fight the urge. Something in the front of her head told her to pounce.

The latter won out.

She rolled over and wrapped her arms around this faceless creature. With as much grace as possible, she pulled their heads together, lips connecting slightly.

The shadows dissipated...


“Rarity!”

Rarity shot out of bed, landing directly on the carpet. Bristles prodded her cheeks as she gasped for air. She lifted her sleep mask and rapidly glanced at her surroundings. No grass, no dust, no broken bones—just her, her room and her creations. Rarity laid her head down on the comfortable carpet and sighed sighed, rubbing the side of her head with a shaky hoof.

“Rarity!” Sweetie Belle called out again.

“Come on! Get up!” Rarity muttered to herself, placing her quivering hooves on the ground. She slowly lifted herself up, knees shaking and popping as she rose. The clicking joints stung her ears and made her cringe. So barbaric, those dreadful sounds, she thought as she stood still, waiting for her legs to stop wobbling.

The sound of tiny hooves firmly connecting with wooden stairs slid under Rarity’s door. Her brow furrowed. Come on, Rarity. Get it together. You don’t want her to see you like this. The questions, the prodding, she’ll never let you live it down.

Rarity could feel her little sister’s hoofsteps in the floorboards. She glanced at herself in the mirror and groaned. Her mane was a floppy, stray strand covered mess. The rest of her face was equally unladylike. She had yet to apply any makeup and her false eyelashes still sat snugly in their case on her vanity.

The door swung open, hitting the wall with a dull thud. A ball of yarn fell off a nearby shelf and rolled along the floor, stopping when it lightly tapped Sweetie Belle’s hoof. The younger of the white unicorns looked at the other with a furious expression.

“Come on, Rarity! You promised you were going to teach me levitation today!”

Rarity tried to force a grin. She caught sight of herself in the mirror out of the corner of her eye. Her attempted smile wouldn’t fool a blind pony.

“Um, Rarity? Are you okay?” Sweetie Belle asked, cocking her head to the side. “You look horrible.”

“Oh, I’m fine, Sweetie Belle. I... uh, just woke up. That’s all.” Rarity paused and racked her mind for something that would keep the awkward conversation from drifting any further downstream. “Um, give me a minute or two to spruce up, and I’ll be downstairs to give you a lesson. Might even cook a scrumptious breakfast before. Does that sound good?”

Sweetie Belle beamed, frustration forgotten at the promise of food. “Yeah. I mean, I was going to make you breakfast, but since you’re offering, I guess I’ll wait,” she piped, trotting out of Rarity’s room with a noticeable skip in her step.

Once the hoofsteps had ceased, Rarity silently thanked Celestia. If there was one thing that would make her nerves worse it was Sweetie Belle’s ‘cooking.' She shuffled to her vanity, and opened the top drawer with a burst of magic. For a normal pony, applying the amount of makeup Rarity wore on any given day would be an all-day effort. However, Rarity was well-versed in the art, and was looking dazzling in a matter of minutes.

It also helped that she was able to apply it unconsciously, because her attention had drifted about as far away from Carousel Boutique as possible.

The Best Young Flyers Competition had been months ago. Or was it a year or two now? Rarity couldn’t remember the exact date, but she could remember everything that had happened: her wings, her arrogance, nearly dying, being saved at the last moment by Rainbow Dash. Those memories were still as clear as they had ever been. After all, near-death experiences aren't things one forgets.

But that failed to explain the dream.

Rarity had never had a nightmare related to the Competition before—not even the night after—yet she had woken up with a pounding heart and the feeling of falling fresh in her mind. She looked at her calendar, saw that it was Friday, and went through her inner-planner. Aside from her weekly spa date with Fluttershy that afternoon, and a gown fitting session with Mayor Mare on Monday, the whole week was free.

No flying competitions to speak of.

No reasonable trigger for such memories.

She groaned and rubbed her temples. There was nothing in Equestria quite as unsettling and headache-inducing as feelings without reason. Like a cliffhanger ending to one of her bitstore romances, Rarity wanted answers. Unfortunately, the only thing she found when she dredged her mind was more murky depths.

“Perhaps some breakfast will clear my head,” she announced to herself as she delicately applied her second eyelash. Rising from her stool, she gave herself a once-over in the mirror. As always, her sense of aesthetics had done her wonders; even with her tormented mind she looked completely blissful. Rarity sighed one last time before walking out of her bedroom, the smell of burning eggs greeting as soon as she set hoof in the hall.

One thought about the dream did linger in her mind, though.

Why in the name of Celestia and Luna did I kiss her?


The cup fell to the floor with a crash and a shatter, and Sweetie Belle giggled sheepishly. It was the fourth teacup she had managed to obliterate in three tries. How Sweetie Belle had managed to teleport one teacup into another, and then proceeded to set the incombustible material on fire, remained a mystery to Rarity. Sure, magic hadn’t come easily to her—it never came easily for anypony—but she hadn’t destroyed the basic laws of science and nature in the process.

Rarity sighed and levitated a broom and dustpan to the carpet, sweeping up the shards and disposing of them in the wastebasket. Once she was sure that there were no remaining sharp objects for her to step on, she turned back to Sweetie Belle and sighed.

“Alright, let’s try this once more time,” she said as she rubbed her face with a hoof. Fine china was far from cheap, and she was already down to three cups. She loved her sister dearly, but she was also beginning to think of this magic lesson as little more than a waste of time and dishes.

Sweetie Belle looked up at her, nervous smile barely visible beneath her blush. “Y-you sure, Rarity?” she stuttered out, eyes downcast. “This hasn’t exactly gone well. Maybe I shoul—”

“Nonsense, Sweetie Belle!” Rarity proclaimed, her sisterly instincts and refusal to fail at any task taking hold. “You just need some more practice. Why, I remember when I was your age. The first ‘magic’ I ever performed left poor Opal-wopal bald for a month.” She reached out and cradled Opalescence’s face in her hooves. “You didn’t like that, did you Opal-wopal?” Opalescence simply stared at her with an unamused expression.

“Did you set her on fire as well?” Sweetie Belle muttered.

Rarity chuckled, releasing her peeved cat. “Well, no, but it applies just the same,” Sweetie Belle mumbled and glared at the floor. Not helping, Rarity thought. Try something else, Rarity.

Rarity thought about what an ‘exceptional’ sibling like Applejack would do in such a situation, and slowly and awkwardly trotted to Sweetie Belle’s side. She wrapped a foreleg over her little sister’s back—although it was really more of a hover than an encouraging embrace—and smiled.

“What I’m trying to say is that I was atrocious at magic when I was your age, and look at me now!” She glanced over at the singed spot at the far end of the carpet. “If anything, the fact that you are doing what should be impossible at such a young age is rather... encouraging.” Rarity calculated that it would cost twenty bits to fix the carpet. A new carpet in itself would fall into the thirty to forty bit range. It took all her might to repress a sigh.

Sweetie Belle looked up at her, eyes wide with wonder. “Really?”

Rarity nodded, giving Sweetie Belle another pat on the back.

Sweetie Belle beamed. “Alright! Let’s do this!” she cried out, jumping in the air with a hoof pointed skywards. She landed in an awkward heap, but quickly hopped back to her hooves, a look of pure determination set on her face.

It was difficult for Rarity to put another teacup’s life on the line, but a ‘good’ sister’s life is never easy. She swallowed the lump in her throat as she set the immaculate cup, covered from base to rim in oriental patterns, on her cleared worktable. To be safe she had moved her sewing machine, fabric and mannequins to a storage closet down the hall but, considering how bad the lessons had gone thus far, she still fretted for their safety.

“Okay, Sweetie Belle. Remember the first rule—”

“Don’t think about grabbing the cup. Just grab it.”

“Precisely, darling. Now, are you ready?”

Sweetie Belle gave her a cocky smile. “You bet!”

She gritted her teeth and stared the teacup down. Rarity winced as she saw her sister’s horn glow with a green aura. Slowly, the same aura encased the teacup, and a sliver of empty space formed below the cup. It was barely a millimeter high, but the fact that the cup hadn’t exploded into bits and pieces yet was progress.

Beads of sweat formed on Sweetie Belle’s forehead as she lifted the cup a fraction of a centimeter more. Rarity’s eyes grew wide. She hadn’t expected her little pep-talk to work this well. The cup was levitated high enough for Rarity to see the wallpaper on the back wall. It started to wobble slightly, and Rarity quickly jumped in, wrapping the cup with her own burst of magic. She lowered it back onto the table delicately, releasing it when she heard a small thunk.

Sweetie Belle flopped back onto her haunches, panting and wiping her brow with a foreleg. “So... how’d I do?”

“Splendid, Sweetie Belle. Absolutely splendid!” Rarity said in a singsong voice. She would be lying if she said she was happier for Sweetie Belle than the fact that she still had a cup to drink afternoon tea out of, but she was still happy for her sister. There had been times where she was worried that her sister couldn’t perform magic at all—a common deficit on her father’s side of the family.

“Ca—” Sweetie Belle coughed. After a couple of deep inhales she attempted to speak again. “C-can I try... it... again?” she gasped, although her eyes gleamed with the same determination as earlier.

Rarity rubbed the back of her neck. “I’m not sure about that, Sweetie Belle. Magic takes a lot out of a pony. Fatigue can lead to... accidents.”

“Oh, come on, I’ll be careful.” She clasped her forehooves together and gave Rarity the ‘puppy dog’ eyes. “Please? Just one more try? This could be my chance to get my cutie mark!”

Rarity arched her eyebrow. “I thought you said you wanted to earn your cutie mark alongside Scootaloo and Apple Bloom?”

“I did, but they’re not unicorns, are they?”

Rarity sighed. She had her there. Rubbing her neck once more, Rarity glanced out the window. The large clock tower in the center of town read a ten thirty. Her spa date with Fluttershy was at eleven. She did some calculations in her head—carry the five... times the square root—and concluded that she would be testing her luck if she tried to do both. Sweetie Belle was still looking at her with a longing expression. She bit her lip. How can I say no to that face? She groaned. “Okay, one more time, but just one!” She lifted a hoof for emphasis.

Sweetie Belle nodded, but couldn’t stifle her giggle as she prepared herself once more. She lowered her head and grinded her teeth. Once again, her horn slowly illuminated, and the cup began to shake and rise ever so slightly. Rarity watched closely, prepared to catch and/or dodge any flying materials. So far, the spell was going off without a hitch. In fact, it was going far smoother than last time. While it had taken Sweetie Belle minutes to just get the cup lifted on her first attempt, it had only taken her a couple of seconds on this attempt. She was getting better.

And her ego grew with it.

Without warning, Sweetie Belle began to turn her head to the right, carrying the cup along with it. By the time Rarity figured out what was going on, Sweetie Belle’s horn was pointed directly at her. “Sweetie Belle!” Rarity cried out.

Though it was far from her harshest scolds, it was enough.

Sweetie Belle’s head shot up in shock, the cup fell to the floor, and Rarity was suddenly encased in a green glow. Seeing this, Sweetie Belle panicked and closed her eyes. She thought of someplace safe—someplace she would be safe from Rarity’s inevitable lecture and punishment. She wished for protection.

She opened her eyes, expecting to see piercing blue eyes set in a vehement glare. Instead, she came face to face with the drapes. Perplexed, Sweetie Belle looked around the room. It was completely empty, save for the furniture and now-shattered teacup. “That’s coming out of my allowance,” she grumbled as she shuffled towards the door. She tried to slam the door with a telekinetic spell as she exited, but its heavy wooden frame barely shuttered. Sweetie Belle yelled in frustration and slammed it with her hoof.

“Rarity?” she called out. “Rarity? Where are you?”


Eight kilometers above Equestria, the air was pristine.

Eight kilometers above Equestria, the silence was pierced by a bloodcurdling scream.

Rarity’s legs flailed, trying desperately to find stable ground amongst the thin air. For a second she hovered before dropping like a lead weight. She fell with such speed that the air felt like it was slapping her in the face. One of the fake eyelashes was ripped away by the wind. By the time the eyelash had stopped spinning and started to float through the air, Rarity was five hundred meters away, her frightened scream a mere hum in the summer sky.

“Help!” she screamed with all the force her lungs could muster. Her throat was raw by the second scream, and by the fourth her pleas were but strained squeaks. A gust of wind caught her, sending her tumbling through the air. The ground and sky blurred, and her stomach threatened to purge itself of breakfast. She tried to put a hoof over her mouth to suppress the bile, but the wind pushed and tugged on her legs like a deranged puppeteer. Rarity squeaked and swallowed, the bitter taste only increasing her urge to vomit.

She swore to herself that she was going to kill Sweetie Belle once she got home. How dare she bite off more than she can chew! Rarity thought. She wanted to call Sweetie Belle’s actions cold-blooded insolence, but she remembered that she hadn’t exactly warned Sweetie about the dangers in the first place. Accidents was a very vague term—far too vague to be used as a proper warning.

Rarity had intended to go through the guidelines of magic with Sweetie Belle at some point, but it kept getting shoved down her to-do list. Looking back, maybe she could have let that hooficure slide just once. However, hindsight was simply that: hindsight. Nopony knows how much they’ve messed up until they’re staring Death right in the eyes.

Death.

Rarity shuddered at the thought, and cursed herself for thinking about it, but ignoring it was simply impossible. The answer was right there, crystal-clear and magnified.

She was going to die.

Sure, she had been rescued from falling to her death twice before, but the third time’s the one that always does a pony in. Death was playing its cards right; the weather patrol had already cleared away all the clouds, and, judging by the untouched field of green grass that stretched out below here, there was little chance that anypony would be able to hear her in time.

She groaned. Fate had a sick sense of humor.

Rarity’s hopes and body continued to plummet as individual sections of field became evident. The patch she was about to splatter upon was greener than the one to its left, yet not nearly as well-maintained as the one to its right. It reminded her of a dress she would have designed for one of her friends.

My friends.

Tears welled up in Rarity’s eyes as she thought about them. In a matter of seconds she would never be able to tell Twilight Sparkle to ‘get out more’ again. She would never again be covered in confetti at one of Pinkie Pie’s parties, or have her mane ruined by a water balloon Rainbow Dash swore she hadn’t thrown. There would be no more long arguments with Applejack about getting mud on her boutique’s carpet. Spike... she didn't want to think about what this would do to the poor thing—'crushed' would be putting it lightly. And her spa date with Fluttershy... well, she would definitely be missing that appointment now. Unless she crashed through the roof, but that seemed unlikely. She was in the middle of nowhere, thousands of meters above some unknown field.

She was dying alone.

She thought about her family: embarrassing yet lovable. She thought about how her father and mother, and how they were hundreds of kilometers away on a week-long cruise. They would come back to a funeral: the worst of all welcome home parties. Then she thought about Sweetie Belle, and her heart shattered. The guilt that her sister would feel would be too much for even the toughest of stallions to withstand.

And she thought about the dream. Rarity had never been one to believe in ill omens, but it was clear to her that the dream had a meaning. It was a warning sign: a big board that read, in big, bold, red letters “You Are Going to Fall Today!” Rarity wondered whether it was a premonition or a flashback. She leaned towards the latter; aside from the changed ending, it was exactly like her incident at the Best Young Flyers Competition. The ending remained hazy, but the rest of it was crystal-clear.

She tried to pry her eyes open, but the air currents kept them shut. Rarity couldn’t help but be a bit disappointed. If I am to die, I would prefer to be able to see it! Around Rarity the wind shrieked with the same intensity as her mind. This is not a proper death. This is not a lady’s death. This is not FAIR!

Two kilometers above Equestria, Rarity wept, her sobs so loud that she couldn’t even hear the sound of flapping wings.

The air blowing against Rarity suddenly shifted direction, and her head snapped forward, nose painfully ramming into something bony. She yelped and rubbed her aching nose, cracking her watery eyes open. Rarity blinked away the moisture and opened them again. What, or rather who, she saw left her breathless. No way, she thought. No way.

Rainbow Dash smiled at her. “You’ve really gotta learn how to stay on the ground,” she quipped. Rarity, for her part, was unoffended. She could barely comprehend what was going on in the first place.

Seconds ago, she had been falling to her death.

But now she was floating through the air in the forelegs of Rainbow Dash.

The same pony who had saved her twice before.

The same pony from her dream.

Rarity had always heard that ponies do strange things in the heat of the moment. Some wake up in the morning and decide they want to write a novel. Some fly as fast as they can, directly into a body of water, for little more reason than to "see what happens." Still others go further. Rarity was one of those ponies.

Mere meters above Equestria, Rarity wrapped her forelegs around Rainbow Dash’s neck and kissed her on the lips.

In the throes of sudden, unexplainable passion, she was only marginally aware of the rush of wind returning to her with a vengeance, or the fact that Rainbow’s entire body had seized up, wings stock-still and breath held as if she were about to fly head first into the side of a mountain.

And then everything went dark.


Special Thanks to: Cynewulf