Rebuilding a Rainbow

Early in the morning

Rainbow was lounged out across a cloud couch in her house, looking over a Daring Doo book that she had been reading for the past few days. She flipped a page over with her hoof, when she heard a few gently knocks coming from her front door. She glanced from the words on the page to the door,  watching as it vibrated softly from the knocking. "Fluttershy," she mumbled as she glanced back to her book.

This would be the mare's fourth visit this month and quite frankly she was tired of putting on the same fake smile and listening to the same thing, so she chose to ignore the soft knocking by burring herself back into her book. It wasn't that she was mad at Fluttershy, i mean who could be mad at such a sweet mare? No pony she knew, that's for sure! She was just mad that Fluttershy kept coming over and reciting the same words in an attempt to coax her out of her home and to the group meetings she had been missing.

This meetings between Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Twilight, Apple Jack and her had been going on for quite some time now because the six of them had become too busy to hang out with each other. Twilight was always too busy with reading every book possible on her new wings. Apple Jack's family had added another field to their already large farm, so she had to spend more time working now.Pinkie was attempting to come up with her own kind of cupcake. Fluttershy was starting to get clients that kept coming back with more and more animals to treat. Rarity was trying to get everything in order to open a new boutique in Canterlot. All while Rainbow was trying to balance being the captain of Ponyville's weather team and a cadet at the Wonderbolts' academy. So, they held these meetings, usually in Apple Jack's barn and used them to stay a part of each other's lives through stories. But, ever since Rainbow's kidnapping she had been skipping them to lounge miserably around her home. Apparently, that hadn't sat too well with her friends and so they sent the pony who flew the best out of all of them to try and convince her to start showing up again. Too bad only two of them had wings and one chose to study instead of using her wings, leaving the least persuasive pony of them all to do the job, Fluttershy.

"Um, e-excuse me Rainbow Dash, b-but are you home? I-I really wanted to speak with you, b-but if your not here that's o-okay too," the shy pony stuttered from behind the cloud door.

Rainbow sighed after she had finished listening to Fluttershy's words and put her book down on the couch beside her. She really didn't want to open that door, but how could she leave such a sweet pony out there, alone? She couldn't, that's how. She used her wings to pull herself off the couch and flew to the door then sighed once more, forced a smile and opened the door.

"Sorry about that Flutters. I was upstairs and didn't hear you until now," Rainbow explained, landing to talk to the mare who was standing on the other side of the open doorway.

"I-i didn't hear you come downstairs," Fluttershy stuttered, taking in Rainbow's run down appearance.

"T-that's because i....flew down!" Rainbow added, her smile still printed on her face.

Fluttershy knew that was a lie, Rainbow was not a good liar, but she didn't question it and only nodded as she was lead in and to the couch. "Tank misses you," she blurted out. She had taken the tortoise when she first heard of Rainbow's disappearance, so that he could be taken care of while she was gone and be returned when Rainbow did. All that had come and gone now and still the tortoise was in her home because Rainbow refused to take him back, she said that she was just too busy for him now. That was a lie too, but she didn't question that either.

So, now she was left to care for a heartbroken tortoise, who very clearly missed his owner a lot and Fluttershy didn't like that, so she brought it up as she always did when she visited Rainbow..

"He really misses me?" Rainbow asked, her smile wiped right off her face. She had heard it before, but it never seemed to just go in one ear and out the other, it always saddened her because she loved that tortoise. Everypony knew that, even if she did do a pretty good job of hiding it in public.

"Oh yes, he misses you a lot. All he ever does is mop around at my house," she explained

"I miss him too," Rainbow Dash replied, glancing away from Fluttershy, ready to tell yet another lie. "My schedule is just far too busy for him now with my training and all. If it wasn't i would take him back in a heartbeat," she continued, reciting the same excuse she said every time, since she knew that was what Fluttershy was going to ask her to do next.

"I don't think it's just that," Fluttershy mumbled, not aware that she had said it at first because she usually just thought it. Even though no matter how much she though it over, she never could figure out why the mare who loved to be the center of attention before seemed to not even want a tortoise paying attention to her now.

"What was that Flutters?" Rainbow asked, glancing back to her friend, having heard a small mumble, but not catching exactly what was said.

"Nothing," Fluttershy said quickly, now aware that she had spoken her thought and not wanting to upset Rainbow because she was practically calling her a liar, even if she really was being one at the moment.

Rainbow was not taking this answer though, since she knew she had heard a mumble and pushed for a real answer out of her friend. "No really, what did you say?" She asked and the the mare sighed as she repeated herself, normally.

"I-I don't think it's just that," She said and watched as Rainbow's eyes got larger.

"No, that is the only reason why," Rainbow corrected, turning away from Fluttershy once again because she had realized Fluttershy knew she had been lying all this time and didn't want to face her.

Fluttershy sighed as she watched Rainbow, but knew that she had already upset her and figured she might as well test the one theory she did have to why Rainbow had been acting strange lately. "I think this has something to do with what happened earlier this year, and i want you to know i am all ears if you would like to talk about it," She said with a forced smile.

"I would but i have to get ready for training, sorry Flutters," Rainbow responded still looking away from her friend, even though she hadn't lied this time because she really had to get ready to leave now.

"O-oh okay, then i guess i should go," Fluttershy said as she stood up and got off the couch. "But, just so you know, i'm always here for you, just like you were for me when we were foals." She assured Rainbow, glancing back at her before she walked to and out the door.

Rainbow waited until she heard the door close to glance over at it and sigh. "I know you are Flutters," she mumbled, before heading upstairs to get ready for the day.

Rainbow never took long getting ready for her day. She usually just woke up, bathed and then headed out to let the wind do her mane for her, but the routine had been much different since the incident. Now it took quite long, not because she changed anything about the routine, but because now she had to force herself to do it.

She reached the top of her stairs and sat right on her bed, staring off into space. She hadn't noticed she was doing so for a couple minutes but when she did she quickly got off the bed to walk to the bathroom, for her bath. She started the water and turned around as she waited for it to fill and ran into something she had dreaded for awhile now, the mirror.

She lifted her magenta eyes from the bottom of the mirror up to her where it reflected the image of her face and stared at it for a moment. A lot of things about the mare were different such as the sudden development of puffy red fur covered skin underneath her eyes from the tears she shed and the lack of sleep she got each night. As well as the lack of fur underneath her nose from wiping it constantly when she cried and it leaked. Those little things were noticeable if you looked close enough, but it was not what those closest to her picked up on first.

RD had a magnificently colored mane and tail since birth, but recently it lacked that beautiful color and was dull, like a fading rainbow. She too had noticed this but couldn't understand what was causing the loss of color, nore did she care too much. As she thought about her appearance she felt the clouds underneath her hoofs become moister than they were before, "Oh man!" She groaned and turned to see the tub, overflowed as she had predicted. She rolled her eyes and stopped the facet from producing anymore water then started to ring the soaked clouds out, wetting clouds on the ground floor of her home which she hadn't noticed.

Rainbow was having a hard time cleaning up the clouds. She was even loosing a few of them once she had rang them out and forgot to fasten them into their usual spots. So now she was slipping around the bathroom trying to catch the stray clouds and fix the hole in the floor, when she heard knocks coming from her front door. "Coming!" She called, trying to move faster and fix the floor before the visitor became angered, too bad this particular visitor was hot-headed and started to knock harder on the door. "I SAID I WAS COMING!" She shouted, agervatedly and picked up her pace even more until she loss her hoofing and fell into her bathtub face first, soaking the remaining clouds and herself in the process. Still the visitor continued to knock. By now the knocking was beyond annoying to Rainbow and so she pulled herself out of the tub, caught her breath. flew over the missing pieces of floor, then walked down the stairs.

Once she reached the ground level she noticed that she had rang the wet clouds out on the ones beneath her and soaked them as well. "Stupid clouds!" She hissed and stamped on them, falling through and dissolving a few of the clouds.

Rainbow Dash was now soaking wet, angry and underneath her house but still the visitor knocked at her on her front door, impatiently. She huffed and flew herself up to her to the front door, yelling "What could you possibly want that was so urgent, you had to continuously knock!?!"

As she she reached the cloud and walked over to her front door. The visitor turned towards her and Rainbow's face fell as she noticed who it was. "O-oh Spitfire. S-sorry i kept you waiting." She said sheepishly and then opened her front door, stepping aside so that Spitfire could enter first. "Come right in." She smiled, then realized her face was covered by her soaking wet mane and pushed it aside to reveal that smile.