Palate Cleanser
Spitfire sat at her desk, sighing. More grant applications, more insurance forms, more vacation requests. Scheduling was always a nightmare, and that would have to come next. Nevermind all the training paperwork.
She glared at the particular stack of forms to her left, hoping that if she might frown just a bit harder, the miles of record keeping would vanish and unmake itself from the universe. Who even checked all this stuff? It was only useful whenever a Wonderbolt got into a major accident, and since ponies were basically indestructible, that had never happened.
She snorted. The closest they had come was about a month ago, when Fleetfoot and High Winds had plummeted directly into the ground together. Spitfire shook her head. “Practicing a two-wing eighthoof triple barrel and we got disoriented,” Fleetfoot said, but Spitfire knew. It was more like a pegasus-with-two-backs maneuver and they got distracted.
Still, the two mares had head dived directly onto a boulder, accelerated from three thousand feet, and left with sore noggins and blushed cheeks.
So why the buck was she filling out insurance forms? How much had they spent on insurance? The only claims they’d ever made were for property destruction, and even then most of those had been forgiven because they involved—
The door clicked and swung open, and Rainbow Dash flew in. She was wearing her training suit, her goggles slipped up and holding her ears back. Her eyes were squinted, distant, and she made absolutely no gesture or noise to indicate that she had seen Spitfire at all.
Spitfire’s office was not used for shooting the shit. If a Wonderbolt were to enter without being summoned, it usually meant that an incident that would involve even more of the damned forms and reports had happened. For this reason Spitfire only looked quizzically at the distracted mare across from her, waiting for the awkward “hey so uh Soarin’ accidentally levelled a school again” or something like it to issue from her mouth.
Rainbow Dash instead said nothing. She moved around Spitfire’s desk, ignorant of the yellow pegasus’ suspicious eyes. Her mouth was set, her expression some paradoxical combination of deep thought and utter emptiness. She reached a particular cabinet behind Spitfire’s desk; a plain but well-made thing, made of dark oak and brass fastenings. It was not the filing cabinets that held any of the confidential information or the storage closet that held crates of useless insurance forms, and so Spitfire continued to watch silently.
A cyan hoof reached out and tugged at the handle, finding the door to be locked hard. A second tug came, just in case, but the heavy cabinet stood firm and a slight grimace formed on Dash’s brow, before a smirk cracked that hard set lip.
She turned her head, bit a single purple hair, and yanked, wincing as she plucked it out of her scalp. Spitfire watched while Dash slowly started chewing on the strand of mane, more curious than upset. Frustration could come later, after she figured out what in Celestia’s name Rainbow Dash was doing.
A minute passed while she ruminated, and neither said anything.
Finally, Rainbow Dash picked the hair out of her mouth with a wingtip, where Spitfire could see she had twisted the hair over itself and bent it into several sharp angles, culminating in a single knot at the end. Swiftly Dash slid the hair into the copper lock, along with a single feather. A couple seconds later there was a clack, and the door drifted open.
Within the untouched cabinet were bottles and bottles of liquor. A few thoughts crossed Spitfire’s mind by this point. The first was that she had never shown Rainbow Dash this clandestine stash. The second was that she hadn’t shown any of the current Wonderbolt core the contents of this cabinet. Typically, they were reserved for visiting royalty, visiting retired commanders, or herself, for after the times she had to write up a report on why Dash had made a sonic rainboom over a hospital. The third thought was about how intricately detailed her pick had been and the mouth that had made it, but this line of thinking was quickly forgotten as her subordinate reached a hoof into the cabinet and began sliding bottles back and forth.
Still now the strange squint of deep unthinking held fast on Rainbow Dash’s face, even as she rested a hoof on a particular bottle near the back of the cabinet. Spitfire recognized it. It was a Clydesfiddich twenty year old scotch, a real smoky and tangent liquor that was kept on hand for the rare occasion Wind Rider had stopped by.
Seeing as the old commander wasn’t going to be stopping by anymore, Spitfire made no move to stop Dash when she popped the cork off with a flicked wing, hefted the bottle to her lips, and poured the scotch inside.
When her cheeks were puffed full, she set the bottle down and replaced the cork, musing.
Her brows furrowed in consideration, and then she swallowed the massive mouthful of liquor with nary a hint of a wince, shook her head no, and replaced the bottle.
It was when the second bottle was grabbed—a cinnamon whiskey—that Spitfire thought she ought to say something, but by the time her mouth had opened Rainbow Dash had already brought the orange bottle to her mouth and was similarly letting the spicy alcohol fill her cheeks once again. She felt a bit like how she imagined her mother must have when she had first walked in on Spitfire nose-deep in a Playcolt magazine. It was just one of those things that you didn’t address.
The whiskey wasn’t in there for a particularly good reason, anyways. She had just bought it to support Fireball (an old ex-Wonderbolt who had retired to go into the brewery business) and didn’t particularly care for the stuff. Dash could steal it if she wanted to.
Once again Rainbow Dash shook her head no, replaced the bottle, and swallowed the entire serving with a loud, painful gulp.
The tall bottle of Grey Pegasus was next, Spitfire’s preferred vodka. It felt too awkward to say anything by this point though, so again she watched as Rainbow Dash repeated her strange ritual of filling her muzzle as full as it could get, shaking her head, and replacing the bottle while consuming the drink.
After this one, she thought to herself, finding herself now curious as to which particular liquor Rainbow Dash would finally approve of as she hefted a squat bottle of Apple Family’s Estate rum to her lips. Surprisingly, when this mouthful had been put away, Rainbow Dash’s face lit up in satisfaction and the squint in her eyes finally started to leave.
Spitfire opened her mouth to comment on this but Rainbow Dash threw the cap behind her and tilted her head back, chugging the amber liquid down. Gulp after gulp came as Spitfire watched the bottle magically change from rum to air before her. Within, she made a note to suspend Dash from any flight exercises for a week, and maybe get Surprise to haul her home once she was back from her patrol.
Finally, with bottle empty, Rainbow Dash set the container down within the cabinet, closed the door, and twisted the horse hair in the lock until it clicked. She turned and, seemingly for the first time that day, noticed Spitfire.
“Oh, hey boss.”
“...Hi Rainbow.”
Dash belched, her eyes now half closed again but moreso in pleasant respite than a thousand yard stare.
“...What the hell was that about?”
Dash wiped her mouth with a hoof, staring at the door which still stood half-open.
“Swallowed a bug,” she said, continuing to rub her mouth.
Ah, Spitfire realized. Rainbow Dash had been on the team for quite a while, but there was still time for firsts. They had all had their moments when a big flying beetle found themselves in the way of their flight paths, and she didn’t blame the mare for wanting to clear the memory as much as the taste.
“Oh, yeah, when flying?”
“Oh, there you are Rainbow!”
Spitfire turned to the door to see a huge green changeling with vibrant orange horns and purple wings, waving at them while beaming.
“Oh, hi. Spitfire, right? Rainbow’s been giving me a tour of the facilities. She uh… went to freshen up and I lost her.”
Spitfire turned back to Rainbow Dash, who was still rubbing her mouth, and looking at her out of the corner of her eyes.
“If you’re ready, we should carry on. I need to be back in Canterlot for the summit by nightfall.”
Rainbow Dash nodded, flicked her hoof towards the cloud, and started flying to the door. Spitfire just blinked.
“...When flying, Dash?”
The door closed.