Smash and Dash
“Insolent mule!” Nightmare Moon shouted, kicking off from her seat and rocketing off into the air after Rainbow Dash. She sent the table rocking, and the three earth ponies and the unicorn watched her fly off before looking back at each other.
“Ne’er have I… e’err…” Golden Gavel struggled, blinking bleary eyes at the rest of them, “sucked on a mare’s ‘oof before.”
Applejack sighed deeply. She bit at her mug, pulled it up to her still-resting head and drank from it, then let go and watched the empty tankard roll off the table and onto the ground.
“Hate’cha. The lotta ya,” she said, before closing her eyes and gently starting to snore.
Nightmare Moon, meanwhile, was currently in hot pursuit of Rainbow Dash, far above the castle gardens. Rainbow Dash may have been smaller and more agile, but Nightmare’s large wings gave her a boost to speed, and she quickly approached the multicoloured mare from behind.
Her razor teeth were bared, her slitted eyes snapped tight in laser focus, and she galloped in the air as if any purchase on the wind might get her closer to the pony who had dared to slap her. She had slapped her! And yet, as the warm air rushed past her ears and through her legs, as the beating wings sent pulses of joy and freedom through her spine, as the bright, full moon hung heavily in the air above the castle, she found herself devoid of anger.
She wasn’t mad that Rainbow Dash had hit her, and she didn’t know why. She wanted to reach her, yes, and she grunted hard as a strong flap of her wings shot her almost beside the pegasus. But she didn’t want to harm her. Her focus was on the flag, not the pony. That was what she wanted. To win.
It was feet away, inches away, just within reach! She clamped her eyes shut and stretched her forehoof out, legs kicking behind her for that last extra bit of momentum, and finally—
“Hah! Too slow!”
Nightmare opened her eyes just in time to slam against the roof, dislodging several golden tiles from their home and gasping in unmanifested pain. She recovered, hovering away from the golden peak and watching the tiles vanish far below into the valley at the mountain’s base.
Her eyes shot up as Dash laughed, and she could not keep disbelief off of her face.
Rainbow Dash was moonwalking in the air, pumping her forehooves out and in with each “Woohoo! Woohoo!” cheerfully shouted into the night. She slowly rotated around the flag, giggling and celebrating.
“Oh yeah, I’m the best, faster than an alicorn, that’s me, can’t keep up, can’t beat me, no way, uh uh, so cool, that’s me, not you, you’re slow…”
Nightmare Moon blinked, her jaw drooping open while Rainbow Dash completed yet another loop of gloating around the parapet.
Finally, Dash slowed down and opened her eyes, wiping her tears of laughter with one last chuckle. She flitted up and around Nightmare Moon before coming to a rest, leaning an elbow on her shoulder.
“Oh, too much? They wanted me to show up a bit later in the evening, because I was most likely to piss you off.”
Nightmare met Dash’s eyes, her mouth still agape.
“But we had to be careful with it, cause like, we didn’t want you to get all relaxed and feel loved and cared for and then suddenly I show up and make you bring the Moon down onto Canterlot.”
Nightmare blinked again, slowly, while Dash gave her another coy smile and winked.
“And boy would I feel bad if I caused that.”
It started as a pressure down in her belly, an urge more than anything, one she tried to hold back and found she was powerless against. It shifted up into her diaphragm, and the sensation took hold of her, and she burst into laughter.
It wasn’t like the laughter down in the Cider Gardens, nothing like the respectable giggle and eventual soft chortling that had come about with the lubrication of the liquor, but a full belly laugh. It was like her practiced maniacal laugh, but not; lighter in tone, uncontrolled and sporadic. She rolled over in the air, clutching her belly while she struggled to breath, her eyes closing so tightly in mirth that the tears filling them were squished out to run down over her face.
Even Rainbow Dash got caught up in it, laughing likely at the alicorn herself instead of the absurdity of the situation that had triggered Nightmare’s fits. The two of them cackled and squeaked together, a pair of cracking voices and childish giggles, before finally Nightmare’s heaving diaphragm calmed down, and she managed to catch her breath.
“I was so, so mad at you, and then… I just… wasn’t?” she said, wiping a tear from her eye.
“Well, that’s good then, cause you’re still stuck with me for like, an hour.”
“But why?”
“Huh? What? Why weren’t you mad at me?”
“Yes! You dared mock me, and you cheated, and—”
“What makes you call me a cheat?!”
“You slapped my flank and then left before I knew what was happening.”
“Oh, yeah, that’ll do it.”
Nightmare Moon hovered quietly in the air above the castle, staring at Rainbow Dash with a straight mouth and levelled eyelids, entirely unimpressed.
“You’re intolerable. And the rest of that group of do-gooders calls you their friend?”
“They certainly do, and I’ll knock you right back to the moon with my hooves alone if you ever question how much we love each other again.”
There was a tense silence as the two winged ponies glared at each other, frozen in the air and forelegs crossed.
“...I admire your tenacity when it comes to defending that which you love,” Nightmare finally conceded, dropping her legs. “I would be a hypocrite to suggest punishing you for what, ultimately, I myself have done.”
“Starting to realize that maybe us ‘common ponies’ are a lot like you, and vice versa?”
“A little bit,” she muttered, turning away and looking down over the city. “I don’t like it, Rainbow Dash. I feel a clash of beliefs niggling up my spine, and I don’t know whether to scream or laugh or destroy or celebrate.”
“How about I give you a chance to prove you’re superior? A real one, no cheap moves this time.” Rainbow Dash grinned and nodded. “It’ll be tough, though.”
Nightmare glanced back at Dash before swinging around to face her again. “Alright. Name your terms.”
“You see that statue of you and your sister in the center of Canterlot, in the park there?”
Nightmare nodded. “I see it.”
“First one to touch it, from the flag here, wins bragging rights.” Rainbow Dash went up and placed a hoof against the pole, motioning with her head for Nightmare to do the same. “We leave on your ‘three’. Sounds fair enough?”
“I accept the challenge. Ready then? One, two, three!”
They took off, kicking against the pole so hard that Nightmare could hear the twang from the brass snapping back into position. She spread her wings out fully, pushing a huge mass of air behind her with a strained grunt, and then coasted fast through the still, evening sky. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, picking up the faintest hint of lavender and lilacs and warm fall grass being carried away by the nighttime currents. The light of the moon lit up her pitch-black pinions, and the feathers shimmered with a violet tinge as the wind rippled through them.
Had she not been so tense throughout the night, she would have considered the experience orgasmic. All the same, the constant worries and fears that she was being led astray into some sort of trap had finally started to come loose, slipping away into the jetstream behind her like stray feathers on a blustery day. This was her domain: above all, in the middle of night, where there was peace and quiet and serenity and pure, restorative joy.
She took a break from her thoughts and lazily opened her eyes, feeling totally at peace for just a moment before realizing consecutively that Rainbow Dash was not near her at all but had shot off far to the south over the river that snaked around the city, and that despite this detour, Dash was closer to the statue than she was.
Curious more than anything as to how the pegasus was ahead, Nightmare squinted and closely focused on her. Dash was slaloming back and forth just inches above the water, her hooves outstretched and her wings beating rapidly. Nightmare curved after her, bringing herself down low over the rushing snowmelt as well, and her eyes opened wide in shock.
Her wings came down into denser air right above the water, and the increased mass propelled herself ever faster. She picked up the frequency of her wing beats, practically swimming through the air, inching closer to the rainbow tail that fluttered haphazardly behind Dash.
Rainbow Dash glanced behind her, winked and shot her another smile, and then hunkered down, tucking her shoulders in and hindlegs together. The pegasus seemed to rocket away as if propelled by jets, the rainbow contrail picking up a spray of water and shooting Nightmare in the face with it.
Nightmare Moon laughed again and straightened out her own form, trying to compensate for her less aerodynamic body with pure strength of wing movements. Once again she started to slip closer to Dash, but suddenly her companion cranked off to the side and vanished over the riverbank.
Nightmare didn’t slow, but turned her head curiously before groaning in frustration. The river had curved away from the central park, and she was currently flying away towards the cliff face while Rainbow Dash was halfway between here and the goal. With a laugh and a whoop, she spun in the air and used the momentum to turn, scraping the water with a wingtip while she did so. The spray shot up over two ponies who had been entwined within each other’s legs in the shadowy bank—which she noticed only as she skimmed over them—and somehow, her blackish cheeks managed a blush.
Pushing the thoughts of the couple to the back of her head she picked up a new rhythm of wing beats, cycling them with large and heavy strokes instead of rapid ones. With each push she shot closer towards Rainbow Dash, closer towards the statue, fast approaching now, so close she could taste it, just one more—
She stretched a foreleg out and tagged the statue before snapping her wings shut, dropping onto the damp grass and tumbling, her momentum carrying her a dozen feet away before the grass and mud finally built up enough to halt her. After taking a moment to catch her breath and look around, she dropped her head onto the lawn and muttered a long, low groan.
“Whassamatter, can’t take a fall?” Rainbow Dash laughed, leaning against the statue base and panting deeply her own self.
“I feel no pain,” Nightmare spat, clamoring to trembling hooves and shaking the mud off her back with quick flips of her feathers.
“Ohh, I get it,” Dash said, sliding to her rump against the stone and patting the ground beside her. Nightmare walked over and dropped haughtily, grunting as she did so. “You’re mad cause we tied, is that it?”
Nightmare Moon looked away, eyes locked on the stars above.
“That almost never happens, you know, and I had a lead on you,” Rainbow said, throwing a leg around the alicorn’s lower back—about as high as she could reach without standing—and patting her gently. “Any other pony would be proud of that.”
“Are you always so arrogant?”
“Yeah,” Dash said, smiling and inspecting her other forehoof. “Haha, yeah, I am. But what’s the point of being the best if you don’t let others know about it?”
Nightmare Moon blinked and looked quizzically at the pegasus. “Now you’re starting to sound like me.”
“We were just talking about that, weren’t we?”
Nightmare did not reply, save for an exasperated sigh.
“I think I liked it better when that damned earth pony had tied me up.”
“Yeah, me too,” Dash said, whimsically, before blushing and giving Nightmare a lighthearted punch. “Now fess up. That was fun, wasn’t it?”
“I—” Nightmare went to object, but paused. It had been fun, right up until she had tied. And she was further back than Rainbow Dash had been, so if she hadn’t gotten so caught up in the feeling of flying over the river, she would have handily won their little race. She smiled, and nodded. “Yes, Rainbow Dash, that was fun. I am… s-sorry I had poor sportsmanship,” she added, wincing.
“Ah, it’s alright! What was your favorite part? Dousing those two pony’s candles? Or staring at my backside all the way here?”
“I-I did no such thing!”
“Missed opportunity then. Mine was flying, duh. I love flying. I don’t normally spend much time on the ground like this,” she said, looking about the park. “‘Suppose I could make an exception for special ponies every now and then, though.”
“Is flying all you do to celebrate the night?”
“Oh, no, not at all. It’s certainly part of it, sure. There’s a lot of new and interesting things that come out at night, especially when flying—”
“Like the updraft from cooling water?”
“Bingo! Yeah, like that! And how you can fly without the sun in your eyes, and there’s rarely any clouds unless there’s an overnight storm planned, so it’s just wide open to the stars. Even over boring plains, there’s a light show above. It’s pretty magical.”
Nightmare Moon rubbed her muzzle, deep in thought.
“But what I’ve always liked best is the cover of darkness it gives you.”
“...What?”
Rainbow Dash grinned before jumping into the air. She hovered in front of Nightmare Moon’s face and snapped open her saddle bag, showing off an assortment of tall cans with brightly coloured lids.
“What are those?”
Dash closed her bag and then chuckled. “Follow me. Quietly, this time.”
Nightmare Moon tailed Rainbow Dash as she took off, soaring up high over Canterlot and back towards the castle. When the two approached the brightly lit Cider Gardens, where even from up here Nightmare could hear the shouts of laughter and cheering, Rainbow Dash held a hoof to her lips and then motioned for Nightmare to follow her again before veering off to the other side of the castle. They glided in, making no more noise than the slightest rippling of feathers in the wind, and touched down in the shadow of the towering palace, far away from all the lights and noises.
Moving quickly, Rainbow Dash dropped her saddle bag and picked up a can of dark purple spray. She flicked the lid off and then picked it up in her mouth, before catching Nightmare’s curious eye and spitting it back out again.
“Right. Sorry. Keep an eye out. This’ll be great.”
“An eye out for what?”
“Witnesses.”
Before Nightmare could inquire further, Rainbow Dash had the can back in her mouth and was spraying the castle wall with the shimmering violet paint. Nightmare tilted her head, squinting to see Dash’s fervent movements in the dark. After a few minutes of shaking clicks and sustained sprays, she realized Dash had spelled the words “NIGHTMARE ROOLZ CELESTIA DROOLZ” in big blocky letters on the side of the castle.
Dash spit the can out to the side and then grabbed a yellow lidded one, shaking it while Nightmare blinked stupendously.
“You know, Rainbow Dash, a millennia ago, defacing the castle was a felony crime, not just a misdemeanor.”
“Tha’s wha ah sai’ kee’ ah eye ou’,” came the muffled reply.
Nightmare blanched, and then spun around, glancing around the two rounded corners of the turret, eyes wide while more hissing paint issued behind her. Every few minutes she would hear the can be spat out and a new set of clicks while Dash worked on her project. Throughout this, Nightmare Moon felt a familiar feeling. It was anxiety, fear of being captured, though the terror of an army of guards or a group of magically supercharged do-gooders had given way to fear of a single patrol.
While Nightmare paced back and forth as unobtrusively as possible, she considered this. A single guard would be nothing to her, so why was she nervous? What could there be that she feared for?
A new can was grabbed, and Nightmare gasped softly to herself while she heard the clicks.
She didn’t want her friend to be caught.
Her legs started to shake, quivering as the weight of the word friend landed on her heavier than the castle itself. She wasn’t a friend, right? They were enemies! They had fought before, and then twice again today she had challenged this pegasus in some semblance of competition.
Friendly competition, she realized, feeling dizzy. She turned to speak to Dash, noticing a rather well detailed caricature of her sister with enlarged hindquarters emblazoned upon the wall. Rainbow was busy adding greenish stink lines, and the sight of it interrupted her epiphany and forced a playful giggle to slip past her lips.
“Hey! Who’s there? This area is off limits tonight!”
“Oh, Luna’s tits, we gotta get outta here!” Dash shouted, scrambling back from the wall and grabbing her empty saddle bag.
Nightmare jumped towards her, mind blanking and hooves scrambling while she tried to gather up the cans of spray paint. The guard around the corner shouted again, and a glow of magic light started to curve around the tower, only adding to her panic.
“Leave ‘em,” Dash shouted, kicking up into the air. “Let’s go, let’s go!”
The two of them beat their wings hard, racing away from the patrol. A quick glance behind her showed Nightmare that two pegasi guards had taken off after them, spears in hoof and eyes forward in hot pursuit. She followed Dash’s route, moving up over walls and spinning around towers, leading the guards all over the moonlit castle, struggling not to lose herself to laughter as Dash whooped and hollered with every movement. The pegasus looped backwards around a bridge before shooting up underneath it, whistling for Nightmare to join her.
“What did you say before taking off?” Nightmare laughed, practicing a playful punch of her own against Dash’s leg. Rainbow slid over in the air from the force and then shimmied back, rubbing the leg while whispering loudly.
“Nevermind that. Force of habit, didn’t mean—look, that’s not important. It’s Fluttershy’s turn with you next. She’s in the private gardens of the guest quarters. When those guards come back, I’m gonna get their attention, and then you can go after I lead them away. Get to those two towers over there—” she pointed, indicating two lower spires just to the south, “—and take a right. From there you should know how to get to Fluttershy, and you can get your next lesson or whatever.”
Nightmare reached a hoof out and rested it on Dash’s shoulder, smirking. “Thank you, Rainbow Dash,” she said. “You’ll be okay though?”
“What was your first lesson with me tonight, Luna?”
“There’s nopony faster than you.”
“Damn right. Alright, there they are. Ready?”
“Ready.”
“HEY DWEEBS!” Dash shouted, dropping out from under the bridge as the guards circled back around. One punched the other to get his attention and pointed at her, and they started flying towards her. “YOUR MOTHERS RAISED YOU ON GOAT’S MILK!” she hollered, doing another loop around the bridge before racing off towards the city, cackling the entire way.
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And Rainow is the first one to make her forget not wanting to be called Luna . . Oddly fitting.
Dash being Sub to Appledom is basically canon anyway.
...i'm starting to think you can't write a character that isn't perpetually horny
not a complaint, just an observation
11126673
wrong, but believe what you wanna i guess
11128841
Write what you know
doesn't Nightmare Moon have the ability to dissolve into shadows and turn into smoke? why run away from the guards by flying on wings when you can use your abilities and, along with Rainbow Dash, disappear from view?
Nothing like racing across a starlit sky and committing a little vandalism to form an unbreakable bond. I was expecting a little smash and grab, maybe some light arson, but Dash did what she does best and managed to somehow turn it into a friendship lesson. I wonder how she'll explain to Celestia in the morning where that "Nightmare roolz Celestia droolz" graffiti came from. Classic Dash not thinking things through, maybe she can blame it on those pesky changelings.
11132244
Adrenaline lol. I can’t run for shit but when my monkey brain tells my body to run I run