The Art of Falling

Rainbow Dash was dead. She knew it for sure this time, though she couldn’t remember the how of it or the when of it. She hoped it had been an explosion. A big one. She couldn’t tell exactly what she was right now, either, except that she wasn’t alive. Stinking, mangled flesh raised from the ground by some foul power, or the lingering, disembodied memories of a pony who was simply too awesome to fade away like all the other dead losers, probably. All she could really tell was that she hurt, and that she hurt everywhere. Her head especially, if she even had a head anymore.

She waited for whatever was supposed to happen next, but nothing happened except the stinging, aching hurt, so she opened her eyes.

Glaring white light blinded her, and she groaned and shut her eyes again.

“I think she’s waking up!” a much-too-loud voice said nearby.

Dash eased her eyes open again, little by little. She saw a white room and a bright window. She blinked slowly. When she opened her eyes again she saw Fluttershy’s face, her friend’s eyes wide.

“Am I dead?” Rainbow Dash asked. Her throat felt coarse like gravel, and her voice came out a dry whisper.

“No,” Fluttershy answered.

Liar.

“Water, please,” Dash whispered.

“Here.” Fluttershy pressed a cool glass to Dash’s lips. Dash drank, and beautifully cool water spilled down her dry throat. She drank until she choked and sputtered water onto her chest, and Fluttershy pulled the glass away.

“Where am I?” Dash asked.

“The hospital,” a second voice answered.

Dash looked around and saw Twilight’s face next to Fluttershy’s. The world began to become clearer. Dash saw Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Spike’s faces, too, all gathered around her. Dash quickly looked down and saw that their faces were, in fact, still connected to their bodies.

“Oh, that’s good,” Dash said. “I thought you guys were dead, too, for a second. That would have sucked.”

Fluttershy and Twilight exchanged a look.

Dash leaned back and looked around. She lay in an ordinary hospital room. Small, white room, one window, bedside table with lamp, single bed, stiff mattress, scratchy blankets, wooden pillow. Dash tried to move, but sharp pain shot down her legs, and she cried out.

“Don’t move!” Fluttershy held her down.

When Dash caught her breath, she examined her legs. Each leg had been bandaged, wrapped in a sling, and hung suspended in the air so she lay spread-eagled on the bed. Her legs hurt every time she tried to move them. She saw the bases of her wings had been bandaged, too. None of her friends looked hurt, though. Just her. Which meant she had either done something totally awesome or something totally stupid.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Well…” Twilight hesitated. “What’s the last thing that you can remember?”

Rainbow Dash closed her eyes. It had been the day of the aerial relay trials for the Cloudsdale Games. She and her team, still Fluttershy and Bulk Biceps, had finished all of their preparations. They were just about to begin the qualifying round, and Fluttershy stood crouched and ready at the starting line, waiting for the call to take off. Then… nothing.

“We were about to start the relay, but I don’t remember anything after that.” Dash’s eyes widened. “We qualified, right?!”

“Well, almost,” Rarity replied slowly.

“What do you mean?”

“It looked like you were going to qualify,” Twilight explained. “But at the last second, you attempted to perform a trick I’ve never seen you try before while going through the final hoop. Some kind of corkscrew and loop. Your wing hit the edge and you lost control.”

Dash sighed and leaned back. Something totally stupid, then.

Applejack wrapped a leg around Fluttershy and pulled her close. “Fluttershy here picked ya up and carried you all the way here before the rest of us even knew what’d happened, quicker than I’ve ever seen her fly,” she said, and kissed Fluttershy on the cheek.

Fluttershy blushed, but didn’t pull away.

Rainbow Dash started to ask Applejack why she was putting her mouth on Fluttershy’s face, but closed it again when she remembered. She kept forgetting that Applejack and Fluttershy were marefriends now. About time, too. Fluttershy had been whining to Dash about it for years.

“Must’ve been one of the worst flyin’ accidents I’ve seen, and I’ve seen ya bang your head into more things than I can count,” Applejack continued with a small smile. “It’s lucky you’ve got such a thick head, or you might’ve actually gotten hurt.”

Suddenly, Rainbow Dash remembered it all. She had been far ahead of qualifying time, so she decided to show everyone what a real stunt flyer could do. At the last moment, she tried a trick she had only practiced once before—the Monsoon. ‘Corkscrew and loop’ was about right, except she had performed it at far higher speeds than most normal stunt flyers would have dared, and performing it through a small relay hoop left almost no room for error.

She had pulled it off, though. Nailed it, really. Ponies had been impressed, she knew that much. But just as she had gone through the hoop, something went wrong. The next thing Dash knew, she had been rocketing headfirst at the ground.

Rainbow Dash hadn’t practiced the stunt at all beforehand. All stunt flyers knew it was idiocy to attempt to perform a complex stunt in front of a crowd without practicing first. It was the first lesson every stunt flyer learned. Practice, practice, practice. Dash had only successfully performed the Monsoon once or twice before. She should have known not to try something so risky. But she got cocky, and she tried it anyway, and then she ruined her team’s chances of qualifying.

Dash sighed again. “Thanks for carrying me, Fluttershy. And sorry I screwed up you getting qualified. I messed up the trick, and… I’m sorry.”

Fluttershy didn’t answer, and Dash looked up at her. Fluttershy stared down at her, looking… hurt?

“Fluttershy?” Dash asked.

Fluttershy closed her eyes and turned away.

Before Dash had a chance to ask what was wrong, the door opened, and a tall stallion wearing a white coat and stethoscope walked in. Dash wondered why doctors wore stethoscopes all the time. Checking heartbeats couldn’t have been more than, like, five percent of their job.

“So, my new favorite patient is finally awake?” he asked.

“Yes, doctor,” Twilight replied. “Rainbow Dash just woke up.” She and the rest of Dash’s friends stepped aside for him. Fluttershy moved to the far side of the room.

“Well then, may I be the first to welcome you back, Miss Rainbow Dash,” the doctor said as he trotted up to the bed. “You’ve just won me twenty bits!”

“What?” Rainbow Dash asked, not really paying attention. She watched Fluttershy. The other pegasus stood by the wall, back turned away. Applejack walked over and nuzzled her, looking concerned. They whispered to one another, and Dash strained to hear what they said.

“Yup.” The doctor examined a chart and chuckled. “You’re here so much, we decided to start a running lottery. We’ve been betting on what you would be admitted for next.” He looked up, grinning. “And I won!”

Twilight frowned. “Is that… ethical?”

He shrugged.

Dash bit her lip. Applejack had returned to the side of her bed, but Fluttershy still stood by the wall. Dash hadn’t even realized Fluttershy cared so much about the relay. The only time Fluttershy cared about sports was when Rainbow Dash was competing. Or at least that’s what Dash had thought.

“What about Rainbow Dash?” Rarity asked. “Is she going to be okay?”

“Well, you took quite the little tumble,” the doctor answered, looking down at his chart again. “Luckily, only your extremities, your hooves and wings, suffered any acute injuries. With magical treatments, you should make a full recovery.”

Pinkie Pie blew a noise maker and threw confetti on the floor, and all of the rest of Dash’s friends visibly relaxed. Even Fluttershy trotted back over.

Rainbow Dash didn’t feel relieved. She was still too busy watching Fluttershy.

Fluttershy hadn’t accepted her apology. Rainbow had screwed up a lot of times, but Fluttershy had never outright refused to even accept one of her apologies before. Dash’s throat began to feel very dry again.

“When do I get out of these?” Dash asked, gesturing her muzzle towards the slings. “Tomorrow?”

The doctor frowned. “Not quite. As I said, your hooves and wings have sustained very acute injuries. They will require a specialized restoration spell to heal. I’ll need to keep you here with us for a while longer so I can administer the treatments myself at daily intervals.”

“Well, I don’t have to sit in these slings the entire time, yeah?”

“I’m afraid you will,” the doctor answered. “You will need to remain in your slings and in that position for the entire duration of your stay here, or else you’ll risk prolonging the treatment time, or worse, further injuring yourself.”

“I at least to get roll over every now and then, right? You can’t make me sit on my back like this for an entire day without moving. I’d go insane!”

The doctor frowned down at her.

“I don’t have to sit like this for an entire day, right?” Dash repeated.

“Yes, you do,” he said slowly. “You must remain in that position.”

“Ugh.” Rainbow Dash groaned and knocked her head against the pillow. “This is gonna be the worst.”

“And you’ll have to stay that way for much longer than a single day.”

Rainbow Dash’s head shot up again. “How long?!”

“Well, considering the sensitive nature of the treatment…” The doctor scratched his chin. “I’d say a week, at least.”

Rainbow Dash’s stomach did a somersault and the whole room flipped upside down and all her friends’ concerned faces spun over top of her. Not a day, or even days, but a week of lying in bed, not able to use any of her hooves or even her wings. How would she practice? How would she read? How would she eat?!

“No,” she said. This must have been a prank. She was Rainbow Dash, and things like this didn’t happen to Rainbow Dash. She tried to get up.

“Stop!” Twilight said. “You’ll hurt yourself."

Rainbow Dash gritted her teeth and fought through the pain, but she began to feel dizzy, and the bed seemed to have flipped up onto the ceiling, and pain pounded up her hooves along in time with her quickening heartbeat.

She felt something sting her neck. “I’m administering a light sedative,” she heard the doctor say, his voice muffled like it had come through a wall. “Just so you don’t hurt yourself, all right?”

Rainbow Dash suddenly felt very tired. The world seemed such a delightful, pleasant place, she wondered how she had ever gotten upset over anything. When she thought about it, scratchy blankets were the very best sort of blankets. She snuggled down beneath them, feeling delightfully itchy all the way. Then she blacked out.

_________________________________________________

The room was dark when Rainbow Dash woke. The only light in the room came from the bedside lamp. Fluttershy sat in a small chair by the bed, reading a magazine.

Dash tensed when she saw Fluttershy. The rest of her friends seemed to have left. Fluttershy probably still hadn’t forgiven her. Dash tried to think of something to say before Fluttershy noticed that she had woken. Or maybe it would have been better to pretend to be asleep until Fluttershy left.

But Fluttershy looked up over the top of her magazine before Dash could decide. She quickly dropped the magazine and flittered to the side of the bed. “Oh, how are you feeling?”

Rainbow Dash sighed. Her whole body felt stiff and achy. She began to stretch, but pain shot down her legs. She looked up and saw that each of her hooves were still bandaged and slung up in the air. She groaned.

“You need to try not to move,” Fluttershy chided her.

“Gee, thanks,” Dash muttered. Her mouth tasted awful and her lips were dry.

“Do you need anything?”

Rainbow Dash desperately wanted a drink of water, but she shook her head. She had bothered Fluttershy enough. “Where did everypony else go?”

“They went home.” Fluttershy grabbed a glass of water off the bedside table and held it to Dash’s lips. Dash gladly accepted, wondering how Fluttershy had known. “I said I would stay for the night to help you.”

“Why?” Dash asked when she finished drinking.

“Well…” Fluttershy placed the glass on the table. “I want to make this as easy for you as I can. I know this is going to be hard for you, because of the…” She hesitated, then gestured to Dash’s bandages and blushed.

Dash looked up at the slings holding her hooves and down at the bandages on her wings. She looked like she was half mummy. Or at least a quarter mummy.

And she would stay quarter mummy for one whole week, at least. She would lie on that bed, with her legs held stuck over her head and her wings useless, for a week.

Mummies were the worst. Rainbow Dash hated mummies.

Looking down at herself, Rainbow Dash realized why Fluttershy had blushed. The slings spread her legs apart in the air, openly displaying Dash’s most intimate parts for anyone and everyone to see. She would be that way, totally exposed to the whole world, all week long. Actually, it reminded her of a picture she had seen in a magazine once. More than once, actually. Any other time, it might actually have been sort of hot. But right now, it was just stupid. Stupid like mummies.

She screwed her eyes shut and swallowed a frustrated scream. “Ugh, this sucks so much. This is seriously the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“Oh, it’s not that bad.” Fluttershy smiled. “You, um, you don’t have to work!”

“I like my work. Being weather captain is awesome.”

“Oh, well…” Fluttershy bit her lip. “Um, you’ll have plenty of time read.”

“Without my hooves?”

“I could hold the book for you,” Fluttershy suggested,

Rainbow Dash sighed.

Fluttershy sat down on her haunches, her wings sagging to the floor. She wrung her hooves. “Well… we all decided that we would visit you every day, so you’ll never be lonely, and you’ll always have one of us here with you.”

“Thanks,” Dash said, and tried to mean it. She did mean it, but she didn’t see how it made much of a difference how many ponies came and ogled at her. Mummies were so lucky. No one ever ogled at mummies. Well, except for the ones in museums. But those didn’t count.

“And there are so many things we can do together!” Fluttershy said, brightening.

Dash snorted. “Like what?”

“Well, we can play games, not games like hoofball, but board games or word games.” Fluttershy smiled again. “We could listen to music you like, and I’m sure I could ask the doctors if they would let me bring Tank here to spend time with you. We could set up a little picnic in here Applejack might bring over some of the leftover cider. And we could turn out all the lights and you could tell all of your best ghost stories. And we’ll have so much time to spend together! More time than we’ve had in years! We don’t have to do anything but talk. About anything you want. Not just me, but all of us. I bet Rarity could even give you a makeover, if you wanted.”

Rainbow Dash chuckled. “Is that last one really supposed to make me feel better?”

“Maybe not.” Fluttershy giggled. “Being stu—um, lying in bed like this, you could nap all day, and never do anything else, and no one could complain about it.”

“All right,” Dash conceded with a smile. “You’re right. That part could be pretty awesome.”

“I bet we can have a lot fun, and I’m sure Pinkie Pie will think of something if you ever get too bored.”

Rainbow Dash tried to hold on to her sour mood, but she couldn’t keep back the smile. Pinkie could throw a party in a desert with nothing but suntanned rocks and venomous scorpions to use for party supplies. Who knew what she could do with an entire hospital to work with.

“We can start now,” Fluttershy said. “If you want to.”

“Start what?”

“Talking. We haven’t had time for just the two of us in while. At least not since I started dating Applejack.”

“Sure.” Dash shrugged, or tried to shrug. All she really managed was to swing her forelegs a little. “What do you wanna talk about?”

“Oh… Um… How are your flight practices going?”

Dash looked between her friend and her bandaged wings. “Are you serious?”

“Oh!” Fluttershy covered her mouth. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t think—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Dash said quickly. “Uh, how are things going with Applejack?” Not that Dash cared. Mummies didn’t care about dating.

Fluttershy flared her wings and blushed a little. “It’s going so well! Applejack is so understanding. I’m usually nervous about marefriends, but not at all with her, because she’s always patient with me. You were right all along, and I never would have talked to her about it if you hadn’t made me. I know that must have been hard for you. Thank you.”

“Uh, sure.” Dash tried to scratch her neck, but felt a sharp nip of pain in her hoof instead. “Any time.”

“It really is going well. Sometimes I think, but only very quietly, and I haven’t said so to anypony yet, but sometimes I think that I might want to be with her for the rest of my life.”

“Yeah…” Dash’s smile slowly faded.

“Is something wrong?”

“No, it’s just—” Dash stopped herself. As she thought about Applejack and Fluttershy, she remembered how Applejack and Fluttershy had whispered to each other. And how just before that, Fluttershy hadn’t accepted her apology. “Hey, Fluttershy?” she asked hesitantly.

“Yes?”

Rainbow Dash swallowed. “Um, I’m sorry about the relay. I know I screwed up your chances for qualifying, and it was all my fault, and I’m really sorry about that.”

Fluttershy froze. Then, for only a single moment, Rainbow Dash could have sworn Fluttershy glared down at her, but the other pegasus quickly looked away again before Dash could tell for sure.

Rainbow Dash waited for Fluttershy to do something else, utterly confused, but Fluttershy didn’t speak again. She only sat on her haunches, shaking her head.

When Dash thought about it, it made a certain kind of sense that Fluttershy would be upset about not qualifying in the relay. Fluttershy never won anything. She was good at some things—a lot things, really. But she wasn’t good at anything that ponies held competitions for. She wasn’t athletic, or strong, or a good flyer. Their relay team wouldn’t compete again. Probably for the last time in Fluttershy’s life, she could have qualified in a professional tournament. Rainbow Dash had seen for herself how hard Fluttershy had worked and trained for the relay, and how far she had come since their first practice. They had gotten close, too. Right up to the last relay marker, before Rainbow Dash messed it all up.

To get so close that you actually believe you’ve won, and then lose it all at the very last moment, right when you should have been celebrating…

Rainbow Dash scowled.

Of course Fluttershy would be angry with her, and she had every right to be. Fluttershy had done everything right, and Rainbow Dash had screwed it all up for her forever. Rainbow Dash didn’t want to imagine what she would have done to a pony who did that to her. If Dash could have flown straight instead of trying to take all the glory for herself by being a show off, Fluttershy would have been celebrating with her friends right now. Instead, she had wasted her entire day in the hospital, hovering over some crippled, selfish jerk. Rainbow Dash guessed it would be a long while until Fluttershy could forgive her.

“Are you hungry?” Fluttershy asked suddenly.

“What?”

“You haven’t eaten anything all day,” Fluttershy said. “Applejack left some applesauce here for you. Do you want to eat some of it?”

Only then did Rainbow Dash realize how hungry she felt. She didn’t think she had ever gone that long without food before. It was probably a new mummy record, or something. “Yeah, definitely.”

Fluttershy picked a covered glass jar off the table. As she unscrewed its top, the smell of apples filled the room. If Dash closed her eyes, it almost felt like she was napping on a tree limb in Sweet Apple Acres. Almost.

“Hey, wait,” she said, opening her eyes. “How am I supposed to eat?”

Fluttershy hovered close to her, holding a spoon in one hoof and the jar in the other. “Well…”

“No,” Dash said, shaking her head. “No, no, no, no.”

“Please—”

“No. No way. I am not doing that.”

Fluttershy leaned forward. “There isn’t any—”

“No!” Dash shouted. “I’m not going to let you hoof feed me like one of your stupid little sick rabbits.”

“It isn’t—”

“I said no! Just put it on my stomach, and I’ll eat it like that.”

Fluttershy leaned back and sighed heavily. Her expression hardened. “That won’t work.”

“Whatever,” Dash retorted. “I’ll make it work.”

“No. You’ll make a mess and you could hurt yourself,” Fluttershy said simply.

“No I won’t! I know how to feed myself. I’m not a little foal!”

“You need to eat if you’re going to get better, and this is the only way. But if you don’t want to, I won’t make you.” Fluttershy smiled softly. “But I promise that if you let me help you, it won’t be anything like a foal or any of my rabbits. I’ll just be a… a friend helping another friend with something she’s having trouble with. That’s all.”

Dash bit her lip. She was hungry. And she wasn’t keen on spilling apple sauce all over herself. “You can’t tell anypony else about this.”

Fluttershy nodded quickly. “I promise.”

“Never.”

“Of course.”

Rainbow Dash sighed and slowly nodded.

Fluttershy smiled again and hovered close to her. She dipped the spoon in the jar and brought it back out, covered in ginger-smelling applesauce. “You can close your eyes if you want.”

Dash’s face and ears burned like they had been lit on fire, and she became uncomfortably aware of how close Fluttershy had come to her. Her friend leaned far over the bed, her chest pressing against Dash’s stomach. Dash gritted her teeth and shook her head.

“Okay.” Fluttershy slowly brought the spoon to Dash’s mouth. She held it there, just in front of Dash’s closed lips.

Dash stared at the spoon. Mummies were so lucky that they were dead when they got wrapped up. Mummies never had to get hoof fed by anyone. Especially not their friends.

“Um, do you still want it?”

Dash sighed again and leaned forward. She closed her mouth around the spoon, then quickly leaned back again, never once daring to look into Fluttershy’s eyes. If there was any silver lining at all in that damned situation, it was that Sweet Apple Acres’ applesauce always tasted wonderfully sweet.

Fluttershy dipped the spoon in the jar again and brought it Dash’s mouth, which Dash silently accepted.

“Rose and Lily visited me before we left for the relay, and they talked about you,” Fluttershy said as Dash continued to eat. She spoke normally, as if they were just out for a walk or having lunch, and not smack in the middle of the most embarrassing moment of Dash’s life. “They saw one of your practices in the park, and they were very impressed. They told me about a new trick you did, something about flying upside down and ice cream, and they said it might be even better than the sonic rainboom.”

Rainbow Dash smiled in spite of herself as she ate. Of course they would talk about her. Ordinary ponies had a weird habit of talking about awesome ponies.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to see it,” Fluttershy continued, frowning slightly. “I’m sorry I haven’t been to as many of your practices recently. I’ve just been spending so much time with Applejack, I guess I haven’t been seeing my other friends as much as I should. Are you finished?”

Rainbow Dash nodded, feeling comfortably full.

“I hope you’ll show me that trick as soon as you’re better,” Fluttershy said, leaning back.

“Sure… and thanks,” Dash said quietly.

Fluttershy smiled. “Of course!”

Rainbow Dash didn’t know how Fluttershy did it, how she acted so nice to her. Rainbow Dash couldn’t have. She wouldn’t have been able to speak to a pony who had just lost her so much, and in such a stupid, pointless way, too. Not unless that speaking involved a lot of shouting and bucking.

“Fluttershy,” Dash said carefully, “I know you probably can’t forgive me yet, but I really am sorry about the relay. I can probably pull some strings and get you on one of the other teams as a sub, or something. You wouldn’t get to actually compete, but at least you would still get to go to the Cloudsdale Games. You really deserve it.”

Fluttershy’s smile dropped. She said nothing at all.

Rainbow Dash began to become worried.

The room fell silent. Fluttershy leaned over and dropped the jar on the table with a resounding thud that seemed so loud that it could have been a tombstone falling in a hollow grave.

Fluttershy sat down by the bed and closed her eyes. “You’re just so selfish,” she whispered.

“I—you—but—what?” Dash sputtered all at once. “What?

Fluttershy shook her head and sniffed. “You just don’t understand…”

Rainbow Dash wholly agreed with that. She didn’t understand at all. “Fluttershy, I get that you’re mad about the relay, but—”

“I don’t care about the relay!” Fluttershy shouted. Then her eyes went wide as if she were surprised by the force of her own voice, and she drew back.

“But… why are you so upset then?”

“Because I care about you!” Fluttershy cried.

Dash frowned. “But I’m fine.”

“This time!” Fluttershy retorted. “This time, you’re fine. But it won’t be the last time. It’s never the last time. You heard the doctor, you’re here so often, they bet on how you’ll hurt yourself again, because they know you’ll always hurt yourself again. What’ll happen the next time?” Fluttershy took a deep breath, her wings trembling behind her. “When I saw you hit the ground, I was so, so scared...”

A horrible, hard lump had formed in Dash’s throat, making it hard to get a clear breath. She tried to swallow it down, but the lump stayed put. “Fluttershy…”

“Please just tell me one thing,” Fluttershy said, her eyes shimmering and red. “When you decided to try that trick, even though you hadn’t practiced for it at all and you knew could get you hurt, did you think—even for one moment—did you think about any of us? About your friends? About me?”

Rainbow Dash didn’t answer, but they both knew she didn’t need to.

Fluttershy wiped at her eyes. “You never think about us. You never think what it’s like for us to see you fall. You never think what it’s like for us to see you broken, to carry you to the hospital. You never think what it’s like for us to wait for you to wake up, to wonder if you’ll wake up. You only think about yourself.” She sniffed. “And the worst part is that you never even realize it. You never see how much you’re hurting us.”

Rainbow Dash lay silent on the bed. Fluttershy stood beside her, breathing heavily, her wings unfurling and folding in time with her breaths. Rainbow Dash opened her mouth, but she realized she didn’t have any idea what to say, so she silently closed it again.

Fluttershy quickly shrunk back away from her, as if recoiling from all she had just said. “I need…” She took a step beck. “I need some air.” She turned and ran out of the room. The door closed loudly behind her.

As Rainbow Dash lay on the bed, she tried to remember. How many times had she hurt herself? How many times had her friends watched her fall? How many times had her friends carried her to the hospital? How many times had she lain in a bed like this one while her friends waited nearby?

How many times had she hurt her friends, without ever once realizing it?

Dozens of times, maybe more. She couldn’t be sure. She thought of all times she had woken up after a fall, in the hospital, on the street, in the dirt. Each and every time one of her friends had been there. She thought of their faces. They looked scared.

She noticed that her wings hurt. She looked down at her bandages and her face darkened. She hated them. She tried to move her wings and her hooves, and they hurt more, enough to make her grimace. She imagined herself tearing her bandages apart with her teeth and ripping her hooves out of their slings. She would roll over the side of the bed. She would scream when her body hit the hard floor below. Her wings and hooves would never fully heal without their bandages. They would become misshapen and useless. She wouldn’t be able to fly, and she would never hurt anyone again.

Fluttershy rushed back inside and flew straight to Dash’s bedside. “Oh, I’m so, so sorry!” she said, her eyes wide and watery. “I never should have said that. I was just feeling upset because I was so worried about you—Oh, but that’s not any excuse.”

Rainbow Dash blinked up at her, uncomprehending.

“I’m sorry,” Fluttershy said again. She reached forward as if to embrace Rainbow, but then hesitated, looking at the bandages. “That wasn’t fair to you. Of course, this is much harder for you than it is for me. I know you don’t hurt yourself on purpose, and this is just a part of what you do. I just get so frustrated—no, that’s no excuse for what I said. I’m sorry.”

Fluttershy’s words washed over Rainbow Dash like a cloud full of freezing, morning rainwater. It took her a long time to realize that Fluttershy was apologizing, and it took her longer to realize what she was apologizing for. Neither realization made sense. “No… It’s all right,” Dash finally said.

“No it isn’t,” Fluttershy replied firmly. “That was wrong of me, and I shouldn’t have said it. You’re already going through such a difficult time.”

Rainbow was quiet for a while. “No… It’s all right.”

Fluttershy frowned at her. “I—Do you need anything? Maybe some more water?”

“No.” Rainbow Dash looked away from Fluttershy. “I think I’m gonna go to sleep now.”

“Oh, are you sure?”

Rainbow Dash nodded, still not looking at her. “Yeah.”

“Okay.” Fluttershy hesitated, biting her lip. “I’ll turn out the light then.”

Rainbow nodded again.

Fluttershy moved to the bedside and turned off the lamp. She looked at Rainbow Dash for moment, then went to the door. “Good night,” she whispered.

“Good night.”

Fluttershy went out of the room and quietly closed the door behind her.

Rainbow Dash lay in the dark alone. Mummies were so lucky. Mummies never hurt any of their friends. She closed her eyes and fell into a fitful sleep.