Thirty Minute Express Train to Story Town

by Predhack

Restless Evening

Bolts flying through the air nearly hit they yellow pegasus as she entered Rarity’s “inspiration room.” Ducking with the trained skill of a pony who was accustomed to these unmeaning assaults Fluttershy let out a frightened squeak. Unnoticing Rarity continued whipping the heavy bolts around and draping them over a series of dress mannequins, occasionally stopping to write a note on some nearby paper or to cut away a strip of fabric. Fluttershy approached quietly, carefully watching for further silken projectiles.

“Um, Rarity?” Fluttershy started, barely louder than a whisper. The unicorn continued her job ignoring or ignorant of the attempted interruption.

“Um, Rarity?” she asked again, slightly louder this time only to be passed over again.

Mustering her courage Fluttershy prodded Rarity with one hoof and immediately ducked as Rarity reared and spun, the objects in her grip spinning with her. Fluttershy was sure she imagined the strands of her hair falling to the carpet after the scissors narrowly passed over her.

“Fluttershy?” Rarity said surprised, “Whatever is the problem darling?”

Fluttershy carefully rose from her prone position eyeing the floating objects as they began to dance through the air again, reorganizing themselves slowly as Rarity immediately began dividing her attention between them and the pegasus.

“Oh,” Fluttershy hemmed, “I was just wondering if you were going to come to bed tonight. I know you’re probably really tired since you used your entire day off working on the new line of dresses you want to surprise Hoity Toity with…”

“I’m sorry dear but I’m probably going to be pulling an all-nighter,” Rarity replied, punctuating her statement with a snip, “Fashion waits for no pony after all.”

“Oh, I understand,” Fluttershy said, looking a little downcast, “I know it’s important since you cancelled our spa date today, but it’s just sometimes I have a hard time sleeping when I hear a pony wandering around at night.”

“I’m sorry, what was that darling?” Rarity asked, having turned back to her work.

“Oh, um… nothing,” Fluttershy murmured, backing away from the center of the fashion maelstrom.

“Alright, I’ll see you in the morning dear,” Rarity said over her shoulder without looking back.

Fluttershy squeaked something that might have been a good night and carefully navigated her way back out of the whirling minefield of dressmaking equipment. Making her way up to the bedroom she shared with the fashionista she crawled into bed and tried to ignore the sound of humming and objects being thrown around carelessly downstairs. After a half hour or so Fluttershy despaired of ever getting to sleep and walked over to the window, opening it quietly before taking off into the night.

—-

Rainbow Dash exulted as the Wonderbolts gathered around and gave her compliments up in the stands ponies stamped their hooves with applause.

Thmp thmp thmp

The strangely quiet applause was odd. She thought to herself. It almost didn’t sound like applause at all.

Thmp thmp thmp

‘Actually,’ Rainbow Dash thought, ‘that kinda sounds like my front door.’

Snapping awake Rainbow looked around her room blearily trying to figure out what woke her. Outside her window she hear the faint “thmp”ing of somepony knocking on her door. If she hadn’t had her window open she might not have heard it at all. Groaning, she got up to look out and see who it was.

“Fluttershy?”

“Oh,” Fluttershy winced from the sound of the pony above her, “Hi Rainbow Dash. I, um, I was wondering if maybe I could borrow your couch for the night?”

“My couch? Did you and Rarity have a fight or something?”

“Oh,” Fluttershy replied, looking horrified at the thought, “No. It’s just Rarity is pulling another all nighter and I was having trouble sleeping with all the noise. I’d have gone to Twilight’s, but she and Pinkie are celebrating their anniversary tonight.”

“Anniversary? I thought their anniversary was a month ago,” Rainbow said waving the yellow pony to fly up.

“Oh, it’s the ‘anniversary of the first time Pinkie caught Twilight staring at her flank’,” Fluttershy explained, fluttering up to the window.

Rainbow blinked. “And… How do you know that?”

Fluttershy blushed. “They um… told me when I went to ask if they wanted to go to the spa with me today.”

Doing some quick, because she’s Rainbow Dash, mental math Rainbow looked confused. “Wait, I thought today was Rarity’s day off. Why didn’t you go with her?”

“Oh, she wanted to work on a new project today and had to cancel,” Fluttershy answered, failing to keep all the hurt from her voice.

“But you guys barely get to spend any time together as it is.”

“It’s okay. I know she’s really busy, and I wouldn’t want to keep her from doing what she loved. I’m used to it.”

“Used to it? Fluttershy how many times has she cancelled on you now?” Rainbow asked incredulously.

“Um, not that many times. Two,” she looked at Rainbow giving her a flat look and amended, “six times…”

“Right,” Rainbow said, looking annoyed, “Well I don’t mind if you sleep here but I accidentally kicked my couch the other day. Let me just go see if I can find a cloud real fast. Make yourself comfy. Back in a flash!”

Fluttershy started to object that she was fine and she would be just as comfortable in a chair or something but Dash was gone before she could form the first syllable.

—-

Rainbow was at least polite enough to knock twice before just kicking the window to Rarity’s boutique open to gain entry. Her loud entrance prompting the white unicorn to shield herself with a bolt of expensive looking gold cloth that she wielded like a club.

“Rainbow Dash?” she exclaimed, “What are you doing here? You scared the daylights out of me.” Rarity turned back to the mannequin she’d been working on before returning to the pegasus. “Now look what you’ve done, I’ve quite forgotten where I was with all that racket.”

“And?” Rainbow asked levelly.

“And?” Rarity replied confused.

“And… I might have woken up Fluttershy?” Rainbow prompted.

“Oh, poor Fluttershy you probably gave her a start,” Rarity looked to the door to the room and seemed puzzled when her amor didn’t appear.

“She’s fine. She’s at my place,” Rainbow provided for her.

“What? Why is she-“

“She couldn’t sleep,” Rainbow Dash interrupted, “Apparently somepony was making a lot of noise so she came to my place so she could get some shut eye.”

Rarity started to reply.

“And what’s this I hear about you cancelling on Fluttershy today? You have like one day off a month and you spent it working and cancelled on her,” Rainbow accused.

“Well, dear I’m very busy,” Rarity defended.

“For the sixth time,” Rainbow drove home, before rolling her eyes and suppressing an angry look. She marched over to Rarity and poked her in the chest as she continued, “Rarity, when you and Fluttershy got together you two couldn’t spend enough hours in the day together. And all of use congratulated you because we knew you two were making each other happy.” Rainbow stared into Rarity’s face as the unicorn slipped backing away from the pegasus and sat down with an awkward thump. “We swallowed whatever feelings we may have had about you to dating and congratulated you guys cuz you were making each other happy. But right now Fluttershy is at my house looking for a quiet place to sleep because you can’t stop thinking about your work for long enough to think of her.” Rarity looked offended and tried to speak again only for Rainbow to cut her off again, “I don’t care. Whatever you’re about to say it doesn’t excuse ignoring her. If you can’t make her happy then I’ll be very happy to show you that there’s a line of ponies waiting in line to step in and do it instead of you.”

Rarity stared at Rainbow in shock as the pegasus walked back to the window she’d come in, “Good night Rarity.”

—-

Back at Rainbow’s house Fluttershy lay primly on Rainbow’s bed, trying not to make herself comfortable while she waited for her friend to return. She looked around the room admiring all the various memorabilia for the Wonderbolts that decorated the room before her eyes fell on the odd piece out. On Rainbow’s nightstand were a pair of framed photos. One was of her friends that was taken shortly after the ordeal with Nightmare Moon. The other was a picture of the day Rainbow Dash had adopted Tank, in it Fluttershy was hugging Rainbow Dash and tank, doing her level best to give the turtle, tortoise, she corrected herself, a bone crushing hug. Fluttershy smiled that the tortoise had become such an important part of the ponies life.

Her reverie was disturbed at the sound of Rainbow Dash returning through the window, swooping down to land beside Fluttershy.

“Sorry,” she explained, “I apparently did too good a job cleaning up today. But your idea works, we can just share my bed.”

“Oh,” Fluttershy objected, sitting up, “I couldn’t…”

“Just lay down,” Rainbow told her, stretching out on the fluffy cloud mattress, “My bed’s huge it’ll fit two ponies just fine.”

“But,” Fluttershy began objecting, just to be ignored as the other pegasus rolled over and fell asleep nearly instantly as was her idiom, “oh, alright.”

Fluttershy nestled down into the bed and was rapidly asleep. As her breathing deepened Rainbow opened her eyes and turned over to look at the pink maned mare. She smiled carefully swept some of Fluttershy’s hair to the side of her face. “Good night, Fluttershy.”

Author's Note:

The Prompt: “Rarity has a day off.”

Ah, defending FlutterDash from Flarity. Was a good idea at the time. Little did I know a great enemy would later rise amongst the people who write for TMPS in the form of FlutterPie. Man, do I ever hate FlutterPie.

Oh, and more of this prompt here.